ABSTRACT
John Holloway's refusal of the state, his critique of the failures of the Left and his emancipatory vision for politics, his emphasis on the need to be asymmetrical to capitalist social relations, are all important and timely. As such Holloway's critique of identity argues that radical affirmations of identity are only radical in so much as they destabilise identity. There is nothing, for him, emancipatory or valid in the claims of cultural nationalism', the subaltern or radical essentialisms. Yet the universalism in his work prevents him from advocating a form of militancy and politics that could actually deal with the deep inequities, splits and fractures that keep us tied to capital. Holloway's notion of class has come under critique. Showing the differences between the Zapatista's and Holloway provides us a route to critique Holloway. For the Zapatista's negation is just an element of emancipatory politics that takes its place with affirmative forms of political construction.
