By Rich Owens.
More than capitalism, history itself is crisis. Contradiction, violence, antagonism – these will outlast capitalism just as they preceded it, perhaps even yielding a comparable string of commensurably horrifying outcomes as history continues to unfold. This is not to apologize for the crises constitutive of capitalism, but rather to suggest that, while the horizon of capitalism resides at all times within crisis, the limits of crisis may not be breached by the collapse of capital. Put differently, if capitalism is crisis, it should not be assumed that crisis is capitalism. Polis, however, social in orientation and prior to capital, emerges with crisis, through crisis, as a gesture towards ameliorating crisis. But if polis is that which aspires to reconcile crisis, it can only do so through struggle.
Elsewhere: Damn the Caesars.
