The Subversive Seventies

by Michael Hardt

A thought-provoking reconsideration of how the revolutionary movements of the 1970s set the mold for today's activism.

The 1970s was a decade of "subversives". Faced with various progressive and revolutionary social movements, the forces of order--politicians, law enforcement, journalists, and conservative intellectuals--saw subversives everywhere. From indigenous peasant armies and gay liberation organizations, to anti-nuclear activists and Black liberation militants, subversives challenged authority, laid siege to the established order, and undermined time-honored ways of life. Every corner of the left was fertile ground for subversive elements, which the forces of order had to root out and destroy--a project they pursued with zeal and brutality.

In The Subversive Seventies , Michael Hardt sets out to show that popular understandings of the political movements of the seventies--often seen as fractious, violent, and largely unsuccessful--are not just inaccurate, but foreclose valuable lessons for the political struggles of today. While many accounts of the 1970s have been written about the regimes of domination that emerged throughout the decade, Hardt approaches the subversive from the perspectives of those who sought to undermine the base of established authority and transform the fundamental structures of society. In so doing, he provides a novel account of the theoretical and practical projects of liberation that still speak to us today, too many of which have been all but forgotten.

Departing from popular and scholarly accounts that focus on the social movements of the 1960s, Hardt argues that the 1970s offers an inspiring and useful guide for contemporary radical political thought and action. Although we can still learn much from the movements of the sixties, that decade's struggles for peace, justice, and freedom fundamentally marked the end of an era. The movements of the seventies, in contrast, responded directly to emerging neoliberal frameworks and other structures of power that continue to rule over us today. They identified and confronted political problems that remain central for us. The 1970s, in this sense, marks the beginning of our time. Looking at a wide range of movements around the globe, from the United States, to Guinea Bissau, South Korea, Chile, Turkey, and Italy, The Subversive Seventies provides a reassessment of the political action of the 1970s that sheds new light not only on our revolutionary past but also on what liberation can be and do
today.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, History, Audiobook

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2023

About the author

Michael Hardt is an American literary theorist and political philosopher perhaps best known for Empire, written with Antonio Negri and published in 2000. It has been praised as the "Communist Manifesto of the 21st Century."
Hardt and his co-author suggest that what they view as forces of contemporary class oppression, globalization and the commodification of services (or production of affects), have the potential to spark social change of unprecedented dimensions. A sequel, Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire, published in August 2004, details the notion, first propounded in Empire, of the multitude as possible locus of a democratic movement of global proportions.
The third and final part of the trilogy, Commonwealth, appeared in the Fall of 2009.

Reviews

[Tim Briedis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Michael Hardt has written a very good book, filled with stories of resistance and attempts at creating new modes of life. It powerfully challenges the line that the seventies were merely a moment of regression into violent armed struggle. Across the world there were vibrant attempts at liberation.

Even though I’m a history nerd, there were a bunch of stories I hadn’t heard of. For instance the daring actions of the ‘Robin Hood’ guerrillas, the Tupamaros of Uruguay. They robbed a casino for millions - then gave some of the proceeds to its workers. Or the burglary of the FBI, finding secret files about its misdeeds (like the notorious COINTELPRO program). Perhaps most intriguing were the attempts at creating ‘revolutionary democracy’ through committees in villages in the former Portuguese colonies of Africa, that the brilliant first chapter charts.

More familiar stories are well covered too, and had bits of information that I wasn’t aware of. For instance the book explores Autonomia and the Hot Autumn in Italy, the Portuguese Revolution of 1974, the attempts at militant black worker organising in the US and institutions of popular power in Allende’s Chille.

At times the book is a bit dense - especially the chapter on mediation. But this is a minor critique. Overall a great book, which I would recommend.

4.5/5 stars.

[Frank · Rating 1 out of 5]

Communist theorists are made alternatively inadvertently hilarious and stultifyingly boring by their insistence on blindly interpreting all aspects of social life from a Marxist perspective. An example of the former comes early in this book, when MH claims that men who like anal sex are innately subversive hence, by default, supporters of Marxist revolution. MH's stream of apologist screeds in support of leftist terrorism otoh is not funny.

[Ben Lear · Rating 4 out of 5]

Broad ranging engagement with many of the movements and struggles of the seventies. Hardt argues these movements were grappling with the beginnings of the political problems we are facing today. We can learn from their successes and failures (many of those struggles were far more advanced than ours today). Good chapters on autonomy and violence/self-defence. Much more lucid than Empire or Multitude (Negri's fault then!) and worth a read.

[Isobel · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting reflection on a variety of different 70s movements, pulling out commonalities between their strategies even while maintaining their contexts. some sections were more dry than others, but I particularly enjoyed the discussions of multiplicity and theatres of injustice