Open Marxism and the critique of capitalism—an interview with John Holloway

Abstract

This interview, conducted by Sun Liang, explores the foundations of the critique of capitalism put forward by John Holloway and Open Marxism. Holloway reconstructs his approach to Marxism based on an understanding of the state-form, the money-form and the value-form as modes of existence that deny their antagonistic social constitution. According to Holloway, Marx’s theory of value is not a theory of domination, but of its crisis: the expression of a ‘we’ that refuses to subordinate itself to the objective laws of the valorisation process. In contrast to interpretations centred on the objective determinants of capitalist development, he emphasises the dimension of class struggle and capital’s dependence on human labour. Furthermore, he explores central concepts in his thought, such as the cry, the cracks and hope, understood as expressions of rejection of the capitalist order and possibilities for building alternative social relations. At the same time, it questions revolutionary strategies aimed at seizing state power and proposes articulating experiences of autonomous organisation that anticipate forms of coexistence not subordinated to the valorisation of capital. Finally, it examines the structural fragility of capitalism and raises the need for collective resistance capable of opening up emancipatory—and even poetic—horizons.