Flying to Nowhere. A Marxist Critique of Political Escapism

Abstract

Calls for escaping capitalism, “changing the world without taking power”, and immediately constructing a space beyond the relations of domination immanent to the former have effectively captured social movement´s political imaginary over the last decades. This article intends to criticize what I shall call “The ideologies of flight”, presenting them as an example of a false alternative to capitalism. Thus, I will critically analyze the works of John Holloway and Raúl Zibechi as theoretical expressions of the latter, and the so-called “Alternative Schools” as one of its practical expressions, to later demonstrate how Marx´s Capital contains a critique of such projects. I will first argue that the proponents of this thesis mistakenly try to ground emancipatory potentials in an element external to capitalism, an element that reveals itself as an ideological fiction. Furthermore, I will demonstrate that attempts to find or build a “beyond” transcending the capitalist relations of production are as old as capitalism itself and that the necessity of their failure derives from the very nature of the latter. Moreover, I will conclude by arguing that Marx´s conception of revolutionary politics contains a real alternative to the various ideologies of flight.