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Imperiumi
Imperialism as we knew it may be no more, but Empire is alive and well. It is, as Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri demonstrate in this bold work, the new political order of globalization. It is easy to recognize the contemporary economic, cultural, and legal transformations taking place across the globe but difficult to understand them. Hardt and Negri contend that they should be seen in line with our historical understanding of Empire as a universal order that accepts no boundaries or limits. Their book shows how this emerging Empire is fundamentally different from the imperialism of European dominance and capitalist expansion in previous eras. Rather, today's Empire draws on elements of U.S. constitutionalism, with its tradition of hybrid identities and expanding frontiers.
Empire identifies a radical shift in concepts that form the philosophical basis of modern politics, concepts such as sovereignty, nation, and people. Hardt and Negri link this philosophical transformation to cultural and economic changes in postmodern society-to new forms of racism, new conceptions of identity and difference, new networks of communication and control, and new paths of migration. They also show how the power of transnational corporations and the increasing predominance of postindustrial forms of labor and production help to define the new imperial global order.
More than analysis, Empire is also an unabashedly utopian work of political philosophy, a new Communist Manifesto. Looking beyond the regimes of exploitation and control that characterize today's world order, it seeks an alternative political paradigm-the basis for a truly democratic global society. Michael Hardt is Assistant Professor in the Literature Program at Duke University. Antonio Negri is an independent researcher and writer and an inmate at Rebibbia Prison, Rome. He has been a Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Paris and a Professor of Political Science at the University of Padua.
Empire identifies a radical shift in concepts that form the philosophical basis of modern politics, concepts such as sovereignty, nation, and people. Hardt and Negri link this philosophical transformation to cultural and economic changes in postmodern society-to new forms of racism, new conceptions of identity and difference, new networks of communication and control, and new paths of migration. They also show how the power of transnational corporations and the increasing predominance of postindustrial forms of labor and production help to define the new imperial global order.
More than analysis, Empire is also an unabashedly utopian work of political philosophy, a new Communist Manifesto. Looking beyond the regimes of exploitation and control that characterize today's world order, it seeks an alternative political paradigm-the basis for a truly democratic global society. Michael Hardt is Assistant Professor in the Literature Program at Duke University. Antonio Negri is an independent researcher and writer and an inmate at Rebibbia Prison, Rome. He has been a Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Paris and a Professor of Political Science at the University of Padua.
451 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
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About the author
Michael Hardt
65 books177 followersMichael 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.
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.
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August 4, 2011
It is difficult, I think, to read a work considered “new” and/or “groundbreaking” in the very recent past after the ideas it contains have become pervasive- and not necessarily because the work ‘broke the story’ about them- and are still very active in society. Due to the many years of debate on an issue afterwards, reading the original argument can end up, through a kind of auditory dissonance, being aligned with the naïfs of the present or, even worse, the apocalyptic extremes that some people have ultimately carried the original ideas to. Empire contains a number of ideas of this ilk. The idea of a world centered on communications industries that consciously and constantly “create” the world we live in so that everything is “produced” and nothing is true, and do it for their own profit was already such a mainstream idea by 1997 that there was a Bond movie made about it in which the major villain was a man who wanted to “create” news. Scarcely a day goes by that some talking head is not speaking about it on television (though perhaps this would not be so pervasive were it not for the fact that the media’s love of navel gazing fills so many hours on a the hungry beast of the 24-hour news channels).
It was very tempting, therefore, to dismiss a great deal of this book as a glorified neo-Marxist conspiracy theory whose subject not only could not be proved or seen, but also was ultimately no-one and could be found nowhere. However, despite my doubts as to the ultimate conclusion, I felt that the authors’ discussions of individual topics within their theory to be often quite nuanced and deft in deploying their clearly deep knowledge of the ideas of many thinkers in combination, which often not only lead to wonderfully interesting ways of articulating ‘old’ problems, but also even to some very shrewd political observations. For example, the authors declared that “we should be done once and for all with the search for an outside, a standpoint that imagines a purity for our politics. It is better both theoretically and practically to enter the terrain of Empire and confront its homogenizing flows in all their complexity” (46). This seems such an accurate way of diagnosing the kinds of “rebellion” that present day activism is involved in, and is a diagnosis that could apply to many fields. For example, I recently read The Last Utopia in which Moyn posits that the idea of “human rights” is of very recent origin, and more to the point talks about how it was the “last utopia” standing after the disillusionment with ideologies that sought to change society as a whole because it was seen to be so de-politicized and “universally” right, and a way of doing good without causing damage. This certainly seems to be a search for an “outside” (perhaps to match the widespread relief at Fukuyama’s idea of the “End of History”). But the many writings on humanitarian aid and human rights advocacy has made it clear, as Hardt and Negri would agree, that there is no “outside” when working with a crisis (another idea which the humanitarian field seems to support with its “permanent emergency” rhetoric- ie, calling the Palestinian situation an ‘emergency’ sixty years later), and not only that but the “de-politicization” of problems leaves many foundational issues intact and creates a whole new set of problems. This applies to the modern American political landscape as well- it seems to me that diffusing the reforming impulse into many “single issue groups” rather than a generalized movement which can bring much more political force to bear seems to practically ensure that those with strong reformist ideas will never be in power, and thus that “opting out” will seem the best form of protest rather than confronting “on the terrain” of Empire.
Another major theme that I followed through the book was the authors’ treatment of space. The idea of the “deterrorialization” and “rebordering” of the world is certainly found throughout academic discourse, as well as public discourse, especially in an era of globalization where migration and diaspora have become such urgent political discussions. However, I thought that Hardt and Negri went beyond these ideas to apply the importance of the idea of space in many other arguments where I had not seen it deployed so effectively before. The authors simple use of spatial language to articulate their ideas illuminated many arguments much more clearly for me- as with their above discussion of confronting empire by putting it in the context of an argument about “inside” and “outside” and the “terrain” of Empire, which imagery showed me the ultimate importance of place in peoples’ perception of their own political positions. I also appreciated their sensible and nuanced treatment of the “localization” (or the “I would prefer not to” movement) and the realization that erecting barriers to the rest of the world without changing the way that the world works will not do anything but politically and economically disadvantage the people living within such barriers and moreover, will activate the impulse to break them down that is now so celebrated and encouraged as perhaps the highest value of culture in the modern “Empire” the authors describe. (Indeed, I sometimes wonder if my own brain is “mapped” this way and accounts for my implacable dislike of theoretical models that claim to definitively- a word I respond to like “biologically”- answer how the world works.) At the time I read this book I was working on a large project about the intellectual and political history of the idea of the “Mediterranean” in European thought and examining its relationship to changing conversations about the meaning of concepts like ‘community’ and ‘unity’. Of course the sections about role of “desertion” as a form of rebellion against the system and the role of the migration and the reformation of borders were highly and directly pertinent, however it was the authors’ discussion of the works of the postmodern theorists that I found the most directly helpful. As with how all generals are “always fighting the last war,” they posited that the problems that the postmodernists and postcolonialists are trying to solve are already in the past, and the system is essentially already behind their quest, my preliminary reading for my thesis seems to continually lead me to the idea that the European Union is dispensing ideas about space and about problem-solving formed in a “modern” era in a place that has many “post-modern” (post-post-modern?) problems, and thus the solution never quite heals anything. The European Union is seen by many at high levels who are enthusiastic about the Mediterranean as a “normative” model of how to stop conflict (form an identity and a forum in which to address problems and things will not lead to war), and one that could be perhaps duplicated there as a “mirror,” an idea that seems to have continuously and repeatedly failed. However, and as Hardt and Negri also seem to agree, there does not seem to be many strong ideas yet on which to base ‘supranational’ identity that does not come from the national and essentially replicate its impulses.
It was very tempting, therefore, to dismiss a great deal of this book as a glorified neo-Marxist conspiracy theory whose subject not only could not be proved or seen, but also was ultimately no-one and could be found nowhere. However, despite my doubts as to the ultimate conclusion, I felt that the authors’ discussions of individual topics within their theory to be often quite nuanced and deft in deploying their clearly deep knowledge of the ideas of many thinkers in combination, which often not only lead to wonderfully interesting ways of articulating ‘old’ problems, but also even to some very shrewd political observations. For example, the authors declared that “we should be done once and for all with the search for an outside, a standpoint that imagines a purity for our politics. It is better both theoretically and practically to enter the terrain of Empire and confront its homogenizing flows in all their complexity” (46). This seems such an accurate way of diagnosing the kinds of “rebellion” that present day activism is involved in, and is a diagnosis that could apply to many fields. For example, I recently read The Last Utopia in which Moyn posits that the idea of “human rights” is of very recent origin, and more to the point talks about how it was the “last utopia” standing after the disillusionment with ideologies that sought to change society as a whole because it was seen to be so de-politicized and “universally” right, and a way of doing good without causing damage. This certainly seems to be a search for an “outside” (perhaps to match the widespread relief at Fukuyama’s idea of the “End of History”). But the many writings on humanitarian aid and human rights advocacy has made it clear, as Hardt and Negri would agree, that there is no “outside” when working with a crisis (another idea which the humanitarian field seems to support with its “permanent emergency” rhetoric- ie, calling the Palestinian situation an ‘emergency’ sixty years later), and not only that but the “de-politicization” of problems leaves many foundational issues intact and creates a whole new set of problems. This applies to the modern American political landscape as well- it seems to me that diffusing the reforming impulse into many “single issue groups” rather than a generalized movement which can bring much more political force to bear seems to practically ensure that those with strong reformist ideas will never be in power, and thus that “opting out” will seem the best form of protest rather than confronting “on the terrain” of Empire.
Another major theme that I followed through the book was the authors’ treatment of space. The idea of the “deterrorialization” and “rebordering” of the world is certainly found throughout academic discourse, as well as public discourse, especially in an era of globalization where migration and diaspora have become such urgent political discussions. However, I thought that Hardt and Negri went beyond these ideas to apply the importance of the idea of space in many other arguments where I had not seen it deployed so effectively before. The authors simple use of spatial language to articulate their ideas illuminated many arguments much more clearly for me- as with their above discussion of confronting empire by putting it in the context of an argument about “inside” and “outside” and the “terrain” of Empire, which imagery showed me the ultimate importance of place in peoples’ perception of their own political positions. I also appreciated their sensible and nuanced treatment of the “localization” (or the “I would prefer not to” movement) and the realization that erecting barriers to the rest of the world without changing the way that the world works will not do anything but politically and economically disadvantage the people living within such barriers and moreover, will activate the impulse to break them down that is now so celebrated and encouraged as perhaps the highest value of culture in the modern “Empire” the authors describe. (Indeed, I sometimes wonder if my own brain is “mapped” this way and accounts for my implacable dislike of theoretical models that claim to definitively- a word I respond to like “biologically”- answer how the world works.) At the time I read this book I was working on a large project about the intellectual and political history of the idea of the “Mediterranean” in European thought and examining its relationship to changing conversations about the meaning of concepts like ‘community’ and ‘unity’. Of course the sections about role of “desertion” as a form of rebellion against the system and the role of the migration and the reformation of borders were highly and directly pertinent, however it was the authors’ discussion of the works of the postmodern theorists that I found the most directly helpful. As with how all generals are “always fighting the last war,” they posited that the problems that the postmodernists and postcolonialists are trying to solve are already in the past, and the system is essentially already behind their quest, my preliminary reading for my thesis seems to continually lead me to the idea that the European Union is dispensing ideas about space and about problem-solving formed in a “modern” era in a place that has many “post-modern” (post-post-modern?) problems, and thus the solution never quite heals anything. The European Union is seen by many at high levels who are enthusiastic about the Mediterranean as a “normative” model of how to stop conflict (form an identity and a forum in which to address problems and things will not lead to war), and one that could be perhaps duplicated there as a “mirror,” an idea that seems to have continuously and repeatedly failed. However, and as Hardt and Negri also seem to agree, there does not seem to be many strong ideas yet on which to base ‘supranational’ identity that does not come from the national and essentially replicate its impulses.
March 30, 2011
Well, it's...very...provocative. Not to say annoying. "Empire" was billed as the Next Big Thing--- the first Deleuze/Guattari postmodern revisioning of Marxist ideas of international politics, the path through the rhizome to 21st-century visions of re-territorialised or post-territorial empire. And it's interesting on an abstract level--- the book is rather good at deploying postmodern and post-structuralist authors to make its point. Though...the actual concrete political thoughts here really are eye-rolling after a while. Still, that may be because some of the political predictions here have become the stuff of dull, quotidian reality over the last dozen years. Well, it's not as good as "Multitude", and it is something of a train wreck, but it's also fascinating and fun. (Can one say "fun" about a book on these topics?) Read it, mine it for small gems, and just look at the rest the way you'd look at any book about "the near future" that may already be a bit dated.
May 23, 2019
While the blurb for Empire compares it to Marx and Engels's Communist Manifesto, the clear comparison is Lenin's Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism. Written in 1915, Imperialism provided a political-economic paradigm that ended up defining much of the twentieth century, inspiring dozens of decolonial struggles as well as worldwide New Left movements. Imperialism describes a paradigm that has long since disappeared, but it remains immensely influential in left circles in this continent -- and why not? in this age of seemingly-constant US intervention in the Global South, from Venezuela and Haiti to Syria and Yemen.
In some ways, Empire by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri is Imperialism for the current age. Hardt and Negri argue that it is no longer sufficient (if it ever was) to criticize imperialism as Lenin did in the 1910s; rather, imperialism has given way to Empire just as modern has given way to postmodern. In many ways, Empire is a sister work to Night Vision: Illuminating War & Class on Neo-Colonial Terrain by Butch Lee and Red Rover, which likewise posits that old anti-colonial ways of thinking and fighting have become outdated in the face of an emerging neo-colonialism. While Night Vision is a solidly Marxist work, however, Empire is post-Marxist: it draws as much from Deleuze & Guattari and Foucault as it does from Marx.
The argument being made in Empire is extremely polyvalent and difficult to summarize. That being said, I'm going to do my best. The paradigm that characterizes Lenin's Imperialism is one of modernity: nation-states, modernist sovereignty, dialectical oppositions, industrial working classes, and disciplinary power. These were not only the fields through which the relations of domination were perpetuated but were in many cases also the tools of anti-imperialist struggle: anti-imperialist revolutionaries, guided by the Leninist-Stalinist policy of "national self-determination," sought not to challenge the nation-state per se but to recreate decolonized nation-states of their own.
Over the course of decades, however, global capital came to be reconfigured on a grand scale. This reconfiguration took place not only along political-economic lines but along subjective and affective lines as well. The most visible emblems of this reconfiguration are multinational corporations, global institutions such as the IMF and World Bank, and the proliferation of a myriad of NGOs. These actors function precisely not as representatives of an imperialist nation-state but as bodies with mobile and shifting relationships to borders and national sovereignties. This does not mean that they are any less brutal or oppressive however -- in fact, Hardt and Negri argue that Empire is characterized by a shift from "mere" disciplinary society to what Foucault terms a "society of control." Perhaps the main characteristic of a society of control is the end of the inside-outside antagonism - there is no outside to Empire, only a mobile inside that is continually reconfigured and recolonized. As a result, Empire, as a society of control, not only disciplines subjects but positively proliferates new subjectivities. A parallel might be drawn in Lacanian terminology -- a society of control is characterized by the super-ego imperative to "Enjoy!", where power relations generate not just an illusion of free choice but the obligation to engage.
Implicit in Empire is a critique of postmodernist thought. Hardt and Negri argue that all of the values cherished by postmodernist thinkers -- free play of signifiers, anti-essentialism, hybridity and fluidity, celebration of difference -- have indeed become hallmarks of Empire. In particular, Hardt and Negri criticize post-colonial theorist Homi Bhabha. Bhabha is a theorist who famously celebrated the hybridity of diaspora populations as generating a post-colonial subjectivity of solidarity. The authors argue that nowhere is hybridity and fluidity more visible than in capitalist marketing, which commodifies difference through ever-proliferating "target populations." They also note that the mass migrations of the past few decades, perhaps most famously exemplified by the Syrian refugee crisis of this decade, give lie to the notion that fluidity and mobility are necessarily liberatory: "Just a cursory glance around the world, from Central America to Central Africa and from the Balkans to Southeast Asia, will reveal the desperate plight of those on whom such mobility has been imposed."
What solutions can Empire offer if a. the old Leninist / national liberation ways of fighting are outdated b. if post-modernist deconstruction offers no alternative and c. there is no longer an outside to Empire from which to ground resistance? Hardt and Negri propose the political subject of the "multitude." The multitude is immanent to Empire but is excessive, uncontainable. The multitude derives the power to create its autonomy from its own productivity -- without the biopolitical production of the multitude, without its relentless mobility, Empire could not function. Hardt and Negri purposefully avoid specific policy prescriptions but suggest as a first demand global citizenship, recognizing those migrant workers who are necessary to the functioning of postmodern capital. They also put forward a second demand: the right to reappropriation. The right to reappropriation is traditionally expressed in the Marxist formula of worker control of the means of production, but Hardt and Negri mean a more general reappropriation of biopolitical and immaterial production as well.
This sort of summation of Empire doesn't even scratch the surface of the book in total. And yet, having read the book in full I found it curiously lacking in material examples. This book is nothing if not abstract. To be fair to the authors, this is likely partially because they were describing a world that did not yet fully exist. But I kept wanting to hear specific examples of Empire's innovative functioning. I think that Night Vision does a much better job of illuminating the so-called "neo-colonial terrain," even though many of its concrete examples are anecdotal. Given that biopower and biopolitics are so central to the book's thesis, I also would have liked a much more detailed picture of the functioning of "biopolitical production," a phrase whose meaning is often taking for granted in the book. This book's vision is bold and innovative but surprisingly murky.
In some ways, Empire by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri is Imperialism for the current age. Hardt and Negri argue that it is no longer sufficient (if it ever was) to criticize imperialism as Lenin did in the 1910s; rather, imperialism has given way to Empire just as modern has given way to postmodern. In many ways, Empire is a sister work to Night Vision: Illuminating War & Class on Neo-Colonial Terrain by Butch Lee and Red Rover, which likewise posits that old anti-colonial ways of thinking and fighting have become outdated in the face of an emerging neo-colonialism. While Night Vision is a solidly Marxist work, however, Empire is post-Marxist: it draws as much from Deleuze & Guattari and Foucault as it does from Marx.
The argument being made in Empire is extremely polyvalent and difficult to summarize. That being said, I'm going to do my best. The paradigm that characterizes Lenin's Imperialism is one of modernity: nation-states, modernist sovereignty, dialectical oppositions, industrial working classes, and disciplinary power. These were not only the fields through which the relations of domination were perpetuated but were in many cases also the tools of anti-imperialist struggle: anti-imperialist revolutionaries, guided by the Leninist-Stalinist policy of "national self-determination," sought not to challenge the nation-state per se but to recreate decolonized nation-states of their own.
Over the course of decades, however, global capital came to be reconfigured on a grand scale. This reconfiguration took place not only along political-economic lines but along subjective and affective lines as well. The most visible emblems of this reconfiguration are multinational corporations, global institutions such as the IMF and World Bank, and the proliferation of a myriad of NGOs. These actors function precisely not as representatives of an imperialist nation-state but as bodies with mobile and shifting relationships to borders and national sovereignties. This does not mean that they are any less brutal or oppressive however -- in fact, Hardt and Negri argue that Empire is characterized by a shift from "mere" disciplinary society to what Foucault terms a "society of control." Perhaps the main characteristic of a society of control is the end of the inside-outside antagonism - there is no outside to Empire, only a mobile inside that is continually reconfigured and recolonized. As a result, Empire, as a society of control, not only disciplines subjects but positively proliferates new subjectivities. A parallel might be drawn in Lacanian terminology -- a society of control is characterized by the super-ego imperative to "Enjoy!", where power relations generate not just an illusion of free choice but the obligation to engage.
Implicit in Empire is a critique of postmodernist thought. Hardt and Negri argue that all of the values cherished by postmodernist thinkers -- free play of signifiers, anti-essentialism, hybridity and fluidity, celebration of difference -- have indeed become hallmarks of Empire. In particular, Hardt and Negri criticize post-colonial theorist Homi Bhabha. Bhabha is a theorist who famously celebrated the hybridity of diaspora populations as generating a post-colonial subjectivity of solidarity. The authors argue that nowhere is hybridity and fluidity more visible than in capitalist marketing, which commodifies difference through ever-proliferating "target populations." They also note that the mass migrations of the past few decades, perhaps most famously exemplified by the Syrian refugee crisis of this decade, give lie to the notion that fluidity and mobility are necessarily liberatory: "Just a cursory glance around the world, from Central America to Central Africa and from the Balkans to Southeast Asia, will reveal the desperate plight of those on whom such mobility has been imposed."
What solutions can Empire offer if a. the old Leninist / national liberation ways of fighting are outdated b. if post-modernist deconstruction offers no alternative and c. there is no longer an outside to Empire from which to ground resistance? Hardt and Negri propose the political subject of the "multitude." The multitude is immanent to Empire but is excessive, uncontainable. The multitude derives the power to create its autonomy from its own productivity -- without the biopolitical production of the multitude, without its relentless mobility, Empire could not function. Hardt and Negri purposefully avoid specific policy prescriptions but suggest as a first demand global citizenship, recognizing those migrant workers who are necessary to the functioning of postmodern capital. They also put forward a second demand: the right to reappropriation. The right to reappropriation is traditionally expressed in the Marxist formula of worker control of the means of production, but Hardt and Negri mean a more general reappropriation of biopolitical and immaterial production as well.
This sort of summation of Empire doesn't even scratch the surface of the book in total. And yet, having read the book in full I found it curiously lacking in material examples. This book is nothing if not abstract. To be fair to the authors, this is likely partially because they were describing a world that did not yet fully exist. But I kept wanting to hear specific examples of Empire's innovative functioning. I think that Night Vision does a much better job of illuminating the so-called "neo-colonial terrain," even though many of its concrete examples are anecdotal. Given that biopower and biopolitics are so central to the book's thesis, I also would have liked a much more detailed picture of the functioning of "biopolitical production," a phrase whose meaning is often taking for granted in the book. This book's vision is bold and innovative but surprisingly murky.
January 1, 2009
This book is a mess. Their understanding of economics and technological change is superficial at best. For former Marxists, their lack of economic analysis is really surprising. Their use of the term "multitude" comes off like jargon, even though its rooted in Spinoza.
December 30, 2015
Último libro de 2015. No voy a terminar nada para mañana.
Lo primero que tengo para decir es que nuevamente caí en el error de leer cosas viejas. Me da la sensación de que para leer algo viejo tiene realmente que ser un hiper clásico. Este es un texto importante en la bibliografía marxista, pero no sé si hoy en día vale la pena dedicarle tanto tiempo.
Agregué un millón de libros mientras lo iba leyendo. Creo que me pasa eso con estos libros marxistas, por dos razones: 1) citan una cantidad de bibliografía intolerable, promedio dos libros por página. 2) Mi formación como economista fue muy pobre en doctrina marxista, por lo que todo me resulta ajeno e interesante. Diría que es un buen survey sobre filosofía/sociología marxista.
También como me ha pasado con otros libros de este estilo, pareciera que discute más sobre conceptos que sobre realidades. A niveles de hacer pelear a Marx joven con Marx viejo, o con un interprete de Marx, etc.
En ese sentido tiene también mucha jerga, y muchos conceptos. Eso hizo que me cueste por momentos. Hoy por hoy me animo a decir (entendiendo que digo) que "el capitalismo es un sistema rizomático autopoyético", pero aún así no me siento con mucho más conocimiento de como funciona, sino simplemente con más palabras para describirlo (suponiendo que la persona a la que le hablo tiene la menor idea de lo que estoy hablando, lo que obviamente es poco probable si me la paso citando a Deleuze, Gutari, Jameson, Marx, Lukacs, Arendt, etc...).
Mucho posmodernismo, biopoder, comunismo, capitalismo, orden mundial... poca explicación.
Creo que tres estrellas está bien.
Termino con la frase con la que termina el libro, que me sorprendió.
"Francisco, oponiéndose al naciente capitalismo, rechazó toda disciplina instrumental, y en oposición a la mortificación de la carne (en la pobreza y el orden constituido) sostuvo una vida gozosa, incluyendo a todos los seres y a la naturaleza, los animales, la hermana luna, el hermano sol, las aves del campo, los pobres y explotados humanos, juntos contra la voluntad del poder y la corrupción. Una vez más, en la posmodernidad nos hallamos en la situación de Francisco, levantando contra la miseria del poder la alegría de ser. Esta es una revolución que ningún poder logrará controlar-porque biopoder y comunismo, cooperación y revolución, permanecen juntos, en amor, simplicidad, y también inocencia. Esta es la irreprimible alegría y gozo de ser comunistas."
Lo primero que tengo para decir es que nuevamente caí en el error de leer cosas viejas. Me da la sensación de que para leer algo viejo tiene realmente que ser un hiper clásico. Este es un texto importante en la bibliografía marxista, pero no sé si hoy en día vale la pena dedicarle tanto tiempo.
Agregué un millón de libros mientras lo iba leyendo. Creo que me pasa eso con estos libros marxistas, por dos razones: 1) citan una cantidad de bibliografía intolerable, promedio dos libros por página. 2) Mi formación como economista fue muy pobre en doctrina marxista, por lo que todo me resulta ajeno e interesante. Diría que es un buen survey sobre filosofía/sociología marxista.
También como me ha pasado con otros libros de este estilo, pareciera que discute más sobre conceptos que sobre realidades. A niveles de hacer pelear a Marx joven con Marx viejo, o con un interprete de Marx, etc.
En ese sentido tiene también mucha jerga, y muchos conceptos. Eso hizo que me cueste por momentos. Hoy por hoy me animo a decir (entendiendo que digo) que "el capitalismo es un sistema rizomático autopoyético", pero aún así no me siento con mucho más conocimiento de como funciona, sino simplemente con más palabras para describirlo (suponiendo que la persona a la que le hablo tiene la menor idea de lo que estoy hablando, lo que obviamente es poco probable si me la paso citando a Deleuze, Gutari, Jameson, Marx, Lukacs, Arendt, etc...).
Mucho posmodernismo, biopoder, comunismo, capitalismo, orden mundial... poca explicación.
Creo que tres estrellas está bien.
Termino con la frase con la que termina el libro, que me sorprendió.
"Francisco, oponiéndose al naciente capitalismo, rechazó toda disciplina instrumental, y en oposición a la mortificación de la carne (en la pobreza y el orden constituido) sostuvo una vida gozosa, incluyendo a todos los seres y a la naturaleza, los animales, la hermana luna, el hermano sol, las aves del campo, los pobres y explotados humanos, juntos contra la voluntad del poder y la corrupción. Una vez más, en la posmodernidad nos hallamos en la situación de Francisco, levantando contra la miseria del poder la alegría de ser. Esta es una revolución que ningún poder logrará controlar-porque biopoder y comunismo, cooperación y revolución, permanecen juntos, en amor, simplicidad, y también inocencia. Esta es la irreprimible alegría y gozo de ser comunistas."
July 21, 2007
An astonishing book – unfortunately, the herculean effort required to translate its tortured academese into intelligibility yields minimal insight. "Theory" guaranteed to neutralize any activist, but one star for sheer chutzpah.
March 3, 2009
Empire is a colossal disappointment, moving as it does from an excellent problem statement concerning the state of Marxist intellectualism in the face of a changing formation of capital, then to Foucault's notion of biopower, then to an apologia for the arguments the authors have already called deprecated.
But the borrowing from Foucault is an intellectual red herring. In no sense are Negri and Hardt following Foucault's notions of history, but rather wrapping themselves in his intellectual earnesty in the hopes of disguising the religious faith they've put in their presuppositions. They take Weberian scattershot tours of history, cherry picking this or that event to support an ever-weakening argument. They take pit stops in Baudrillard's way stations with spastic commentary verging on the nonsensical, but end up not at some new formulation, but back at square one: disguising Left Hegelianism as postmodernism.
Once you've read past the first couple of chapters, Empire is just endless recitation of others' ideas recontextualized like a four hundred page undergraduate term paper.
On the bright side, you can find it for free at the Continental Philosophy website.
But the borrowing from Foucault is an intellectual red herring. In no sense are Negri and Hardt following Foucault's notions of history, but rather wrapping themselves in his intellectual earnesty in the hopes of disguising the religious faith they've put in their presuppositions. They take Weberian scattershot tours of history, cherry picking this or that event to support an ever-weakening argument. They take pit stops in Baudrillard's way stations with spastic commentary verging on the nonsensical, but end up not at some new formulation, but back at square one: disguising Left Hegelianism as postmodernism.
Once you've read past the first couple of chapters, Empire is just endless recitation of others' ideas recontextualized like a four hundred page undergraduate term paper.
On the bright side, you can find it for free at the Continental Philosophy website.
July 14, 2025
Often hailed as the "Communist Manifesto of the 21st Century," Empire attempts a grand theoretical reimagining of global power—but ends up feeling more like a manifesto for armchair revolutionaries than a roadmap for real resistance. Hardt and Negri weave together philosophy, Marxist theory, and postmodern jargon into a narrative that wants to be visionary but frequently collapses under the weight of its own abstraction.
Yes, it’s bold. Yes, it’s provocative. But it’s also riddled with holes, historical oversimplifications, and sweeping generalizations that don’t hold up in the era of decentralized knowledge, open-source critique, and radical transparency.
The world today is too networked, too informed, and frankly, too skeptical to fall for half-baked utopias dressed up as theory.
It’s not that revolution is passé—it’s just that Empire feels like it forgot to update its software.
Yes, it’s bold. Yes, it’s provocative. But it’s also riddled with holes, historical oversimplifications, and sweeping generalizations that don’t hold up in the era of decentralized knowledge, open-source critique, and radical transparency.
The world today is too networked, too informed, and frankly, too skeptical to fall for half-baked utopias dressed up as theory.
It’s not that revolution is passé—it’s just that Empire feels like it forgot to update its software.
January 30, 2021
really enjoyed the long historical perspective hardt and negri gave to describe capitalism across centuries. even though the book came out in the early nineties, their analysis of the digital era still hits—a good follow up is mckenzie wark’s “capital is dead is this something worse”
the description of the multitude as a site of resistance is compelling and maybe overlooked these days, for both good and bad reasons. either way, their prescriptions (free movement for all people, reappropriation of intellectual and material resources) are still vitally necessary.
very readable, lots of wonderful analysis and insights.
the description of the multitude as a site of resistance is compelling and maybe overlooked these days, for both good and bad reasons. either way, their prescriptions (free movement for all people, reappropriation of intellectual and material resources) are still vitally necessary.
very readable, lots of wonderful analysis and insights.
March 18, 2020
Üst seviyede siyaset felsefesi, foucault ve hukuk namina.
July 30, 2020
Un monolito di matrice marxista in cui si discutono, con molti anni d'anticipo rispetto al dibattito odierno e una certa preveggenza, le sfaccettature della globalizzazione (confermando la mia opinione che vede i "sovranismi" recenti far man bassa di concetti della sinistra tradizionale, pur essendo lontano da essi nei fatti). Il contenuto è assai interessante, colmo di riferimenti storici e filosofici consistenti che rendono la propria tesi rocciosa. Il grosso problema è appunto la sua eccessiva solidità, colmo di un linguaggio accademico che rende difficile assimilare il tutto, oltre a discorsi spesso allungati all'eccesso prima di raggiungere a preziosi conclusioni, quasi compiacendosi di aver generato un "mattone".
August 19, 2012
I have the same issue with this book as I do most books of the genre, and it is a money making genre btw. My problem is lack of realistic resolution or proposal for solution. The critique, as is the case in most of these types of books was pretty accurate. Of course there was the overgeneralization us v. them archetype, but it is necessary to make the story compelling. Also, at the end of the day this is a narrative not a history.
The critique which is essentially Marxism applied to modern globalization with a twist of Debord was done with moderate success. A willing suspension of disbelief was necessary to accept the narrative as it progressed. At times the book was very complicated for no other reason than being complicated. The writing style might have been attempting to model the nuances that are central to the authors arguments, but it just ended up being long. Most of the arguments that were being laid out are not new and really do not require the amount of pages "dead trees" to be explained. This gave the book an elitist appeal I suppose. The message is essentially what Chomsky says about global markets in an hour lecture or what adbusters fills their 5000 word blogs with.
The problem with this book, and the entire genre, is that at some point it goes from critique to comic book. There is always the tipping point from fair analysis to the evil people v. good people. The good people are always under dogs being oppressed. The reading is guided to empathize with the oppressed underdogs and led to the conclusion that the evil people cannot be changed. These people who cannot be changed also happen to be in power. Follow the logic and you end with the conclusion that modern power "governments, private institutions" are evil, cannot be changed and so the only answer must be.... well, we don't know, but it involves some kind of protest probably ending in revolution.
If the book even addresses the post protest point it usually just sinks into anarcho-syndicalism or non-statist communism without explicitly saying so. All very nice ideas that will do very little to actually help the current global economy which does exploit most people involved in one way or another.
I enjoy these books because I view them as mind games or rhetorical discussions. They are activities to get you to think outside of your normal boundaries. The problem is other people take them seriously. It isn't as if those people are an actual threat, they are just annoying.
The critique which is essentially Marxism applied to modern globalization with a twist of Debord was done with moderate success. A willing suspension of disbelief was necessary to accept the narrative as it progressed. At times the book was very complicated for no other reason than being complicated. The writing style might have been attempting to model the nuances that are central to the authors arguments, but it just ended up being long. Most of the arguments that were being laid out are not new and really do not require the amount of pages "dead trees" to be explained. This gave the book an elitist appeal I suppose. The message is essentially what Chomsky says about global markets in an hour lecture or what adbusters fills their 5000 word blogs with.
The problem with this book, and the entire genre, is that at some point it goes from critique to comic book. There is always the tipping point from fair analysis to the evil people v. good people. The good people are always under dogs being oppressed. The reading is guided to empathize with the oppressed underdogs and led to the conclusion that the evil people cannot be changed. These people who cannot be changed also happen to be in power. Follow the logic and you end with the conclusion that modern power "governments, private institutions" are evil, cannot be changed and so the only answer must be.... well, we don't know, but it involves some kind of protest probably ending in revolution.
If the book even addresses the post protest point it usually just sinks into anarcho-syndicalism or non-statist communism without explicitly saying so. All very nice ideas that will do very little to actually help the current global economy which does exploit most people involved in one way or another.
I enjoy these books because I view them as mind games or rhetorical discussions. They are activities to get you to think outside of your normal boundaries. The problem is other people take them seriously. It isn't as if those people are an actual threat, they are just annoying.
March 6, 2025
A flawed but critical reconsideration of Marxism for the Post-Cold War era. With revolutionary leftism seeming to all but evaporate after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the fall of the final major barrier to the global capitalist system, Hardt and Negri took on the task of reformulating the marxist conception of class struggle and the materialist conception of history for a post-modern, post-industrial society in which liberal capitalism is ubiquitous as a hegemonic ideology.
Their starting point is in examining how sovereignty has taken on new forms in the postmodern world, leading to their thesis that sovereignty has transformed from older conceptions of political order to a new, all-encompassing form of capitalist socio-political control which they loosely call, "Empire". Empire is not simply a form of government or an economic system, although it has its political and economic dimensions. Rather, it is an omnipresent "system" that transcends states and operates through international institutions, NGOs, multinational corporations and media outlets to produce a highly-commodified society.
As the work is very experimental in nature and the "borders" of "empire" are hard to define, Hardt and Negri seem to jump around from area to area in their analysis, but this is largely excusable given the enormity of the task of trying to consolidate such a broad range of phenomena into a coherent system of thought. Although I would not necessarily agree with the characterization of Empire as the Communist Manifesto of the twenty-first century, it is certainly an important work for a marxist left that has struggled to regain its bearings.
Their starting point is in examining how sovereignty has taken on new forms in the postmodern world, leading to their thesis that sovereignty has transformed from older conceptions of political order to a new, all-encompassing form of capitalist socio-political control which they loosely call, "Empire". Empire is not simply a form of government or an economic system, although it has its political and economic dimensions. Rather, it is an omnipresent "system" that transcends states and operates through international institutions, NGOs, multinational corporations and media outlets to produce a highly-commodified society.
As the work is very experimental in nature and the "borders" of "empire" are hard to define, Hardt and Negri seem to jump around from area to area in their analysis, but this is largely excusable given the enormity of the task of trying to consolidate such a broad range of phenomena into a coherent system of thought. Although I would not necessarily agree with the characterization of Empire as the Communist Manifesto of the twenty-first century, it is certainly an important work for a marxist left that has struggled to regain its bearings.
September 29, 2009
Hardt and Negri have developed a post-modern tour de force with Empire. They have systematically identified the shortcomings of modern capitalism while maintaining the vernacular and spirit of avant philosophical thought. Developing on the work of Baudrillard, Foucault, and Deleuze/Guatarri, perhaps the most cogent critique of contemporary capitalist hegemony has been achieved.
By diagraming the development of capatalism from its hierarchial origins to its modern decentralized form of oppression, while mostly able to free themselves from the trap of the grand narrative, Hardt and Negri expose the failures of this social/economic system presiding over human behavior. The development of concepts such as biopolitical production, the passage of empire, and the posse suggest that dismantling of a global order opposing the free progression of all peoples is possible.
There are shortcomings to the arguments of Hardt and Negri which would take nearly as much time to discuss as it would to point out the insights of these academicians. Suffice to say, anyone looking to find inspiration and thoughtfulness from a post-socialist perspective against the modern international power structure would find much insight from this book.
By diagraming the development of capatalism from its hierarchial origins to its modern decentralized form of oppression, while mostly able to free themselves from the trap of the grand narrative, Hardt and Negri expose the failures of this social/economic system presiding over human behavior. The development of concepts such as biopolitical production, the passage of empire, and the posse suggest that dismantling of a global order opposing the free progression of all peoples is possible.
There are shortcomings to the arguments of Hardt and Negri which would take nearly as much time to discuss as it would to point out the insights of these academicians. Suffice to say, anyone looking to find inspiration and thoughtfulness from a post-socialist perspective against the modern international power structure would find much insight from this book.
April 12, 2020
EMPIRE - 4.5/5 stars
Empire is a deeply important tome of philosophy for me. It put a name on so many things I had already understood and internalized. I don't even know how to get started here. It's a confusing book (hence 4.5/5 stars), but the lessons it teaches are so important. In essence:
1. globalist capitalism, as it exists now, rules us all in this large monolithic thought bubble that concentrates power in the hands of elite folks who can't be pinned down.
2. the market is being used to divide people up and sell to them different projects based on their particular divisions.
3. the cure is to resist and come together.
That's essentially it. It's a powerful set of ideas, if you can make sense of all the flowery dramatic manifesto-type language to figure out why it matters so much.
Empire is a deeply important tome of philosophy for me. It put a name on so many things I had already understood and internalized. I don't even know how to get started here. It's a confusing book (hence 4.5/5 stars), but the lessons it teaches are so important. In essence:
1. globalist capitalism, as it exists now, rules us all in this large monolithic thought bubble that concentrates power in the hands of elite folks who can't be pinned down.
2. the market is being used to divide people up and sell to them different projects based on their particular divisions.
3. the cure is to resist and come together.
That's essentially it. It's a powerful set of ideas, if you can make sense of all the flowery dramatic manifesto-type language to figure out why it matters so much.
December 18, 2024
Update: they released a much more accessible book called "Multitude," which I definitely recommend.
Wow, what a book! Not easy going, be prepared to give some times to work through the muck and mire - if I could, I'd knock off half a star for its academese. Someone seriously needs to write a short book or pamphlet breaking down why this book is important, and more critically, how to make sense of what they're positing without taking the days or weeks it takes to digest it all.
Short version: combine Foucaultian biopolitics with the militancy and self-affirming collectivization and resistance of the IWW, throw in a touch of posthuman studies, and you may actually have a way to de-end the end of everything.
Enjoy! Feel free to respond if you wade in, friends.
Wow, what a book! Not easy going, be prepared to give some times to work through the muck and mire - if I could, I'd knock off half a star for its academese. Someone seriously needs to write a short book or pamphlet breaking down why this book is important, and more critically, how to make sense of what they're positing without taking the days or weeks it takes to digest it all.
Short version: combine Foucaultian biopolitics with the militancy and self-affirming collectivization and resistance of the IWW, throw in a touch of posthuman studies, and you may actually have a way to de-end the end of everything.
Enjoy! Feel free to respond if you wade in, friends.
July 2, 2019
Ein Versuch, die Welt (von links) neu zu denken. Allerdings nicht wirklich überzeugend. Vor allem ohne einen einsichtigen Praxisbezug. Die Multitude ist Fiktion und wird noch lange nicht (nie?) zum Subjekt möglicher historischer Veränderungen. Im Ansatz steckt Idealismus. Auch wäre es dem Buch besser bekommen, hätten Hardt und Negri nicht ausgerechnet die Dialektik als antiquiert über Bord geworfen. Dialektisches Denken ist unverzichtbar, wenn man Alternativen zum "System" denken will. Aber immerhin hat das Buch wertvolle Diskussionen angestoßen.
July 17, 2017
Kitap günümüz dünyasının ekonomi-politiğini kavramak için bir bakış açısı sunuyor ve bu yönüyle oldukça tatmin edici, gelgelelim kitapta yer alan öneriler, geleceğe ilişkin beklentiler bir wonderland, bir neverland ayarında... Şahsi fikrim tamamen absürt oldukları, üzgünüm ama hep cehalet ve sömürü dünyayı siyasi olarak şekillendirecek... Ancak kitap, kapitalizmi ve onun siyasi mekanizmasını anlamak isteyen herkes için tavsiye olunur...
February 9, 2015
disclaimer: I could not read the entire book.
This book is dated, overrated, boring, lacks focus and non-original. Avoid it.
This book is dated, overrated, boring, lacks focus and non-original. Avoid it.
Read
March 15, 2021The acid the acid
January 3, 2020
This book is a patchwork of theories that have been synthesized at a blistering pace. What makes this masterful is that it does so in a way that enlightens us to a new paradigm of governance, power, and economy. The downside of this is that there are so many open questions and ways in which this book does not deal well with someone on the look out for paradoxes in theories that are suddenly mashed together. This book is not a functioning body; it's an undead, unawakened Frankenstein.
I can use this book for talking points, or hypothetical starting points for research, but I'm more likely to pull from _The Stack_ and affiliated work for my field. There has since been a lot of work which is more consistent about facets of this book.
I can use this book for talking points, or hypothetical starting points for research, but I'm more likely to pull from _The Stack_ and affiliated work for my field. There has since been a lot of work which is more consistent about facets of this book.
April 18, 2023
This book opened my eyes a lot but didn’t sell me. This was a critique on capitalism an how the bourgeoisie class has a hold on the world. creating this new global sovereign power they call “Empire.” They talk of how this manifested and then promise ways we can get out of it and attack it. Pretty compelling til the very end falls short and has crazy wishful thinking of how they believe we can break out of it. Lots of talk that the people in power don’t want us to know that there is a better way than capitalism or that we can revolt from it, yet they are reliant on a sudden natural maturation of the multitude to get up and be done with this system? Very underwhelming to me.
November 12, 2025
Teoksessaan Imperiumi Hardt ja Negri kutovat monisyisiä tekstirihmastoja sitä vauhtia että teoksen loppuun lukemista ei voine suositella ellei sitten halua eetteriruumiilleen aivokalvontulehdusta. Teksti yhdistelee mutkattoman itsevarmasti poliittista teologiaa materalistiseen analyysiin rakentaakseen siltoja etupäässä valtiofilosofisen lähtökohdan ja talousorientoituneemman Marxistisen lähtökohdan välille. Kaikki tämä ajetaan surutta post-strukturalistisen Deleuze-mankelin lävitse joka muodostaa eräänlaisen teoksensisäisen dualistisen jännitteen postmodernistisen poliittisen teologian rakenteellisen kyynisyyden ja Deleuzen & Guattarien virtaus-verkosto-tuleminen apparaatin kanssa. Pääoma tekee vierasesiintymisen animistisena kummituksena, irroitettuna imperialististen pyrkimysten ristiriidoista, virtuaalin immanenttiuden ylevän statuksen saavuttaneena. Jos monet kenties ovatkin naureskelleet Jordan Petersonin kommenteille postmoderneista uusmarxisteista, kirjan lukeminen saattaa ainakin osan tuosta hekottelusta hivenen epärehelliseen valoon sillä kyllähän tuo kuvaus osuu tähän kirjaan varsin hyvin, onhan kyseessä analyysi pääoman kontrollimekanismeista postmodernilla aikakaudella.
Naureskelin muutama päivä sitten törmätessäni Letterboxdissa 857-tuntiseen maailman tuotantoketjujen hidasta kulkua käsittelevään elokuvaan Logistics mutta tätä kirjaa lukiessani hymy hyytyy ja näen moisen projektin tarpeellisuuden uudessa valossa sikäli että kokisin kirjoittajien hyötyvän tuon elokuvan intensiivisestä katselusta huomattavan paljon. Siis: TÄSSÄ ON. OIKEESTI. IHAN. SAIRAAN. HIDAS. LAIVA. DWI. On vaikeaa edes tiivistää, kuinka pitkälle tämän kirjan poliittisen analyysi on eriytynyt tuon ehkä jollain tapaa jopa subversiivisen hitaan laivan todellisuudesta. Tämä on kuitenkin se informaatiotalouden perusta ja vaikka esitetään väite, että postmodernistinen affektitalous on juurtunut alkutuotantoon asti, en uskoisi löytäväni sitä logistisen prosessin ytimestä. Tuntuu enemmänkin, että teksti itsessään on esimerkki taipumuksesta kadota informaatiotalouden eetteriin. Tästä kontrastista nousee toki mielenkiintoisia ajatuksia, jossa tuotantoketjun painotusten globaali eriytyminen, jota tässä kirjassa yritetään joka kohdassa vähätellä, johtaa toisaalta hyperreaalistumiseen globaalissa pohjoisessa samalla kun globaalin etelän voisi sanoa vajoavan hyporealismiin, jossa simulaation/tulevaisuus-menneisyys kompleksin paikan ottaa reduktionistinen nihilismi/nykyisyys. Jotain mielenkiintoista voisi saada irti myös siitä, että "eetterin" yhdistäessä maailmaa yhä enemmän tuotanto jatkaa eriytymistään, mikä perustuu yksinkertaisesti eri maanosissa oleviin erilaisiin resursseihin. Planetaarisen kehon osat kasvavat yhä enemmän oikeiisin, eroteltuihin rooleihinsa. Hardt & Negri eivät jatka tälle alueelle koska he ovat liian innokkaita tulkitsemaan globaalin imperiumin globaalistuvan väen vallankumouksellisuudelle hyödyllisenä taloudellisena homogenisoitumisena.
Kirjan loppupuolelle on sisällytetty kulmakarvojen nostattajaksi yhteys Renessanssin-aikaisen esse-nosse-posse triadin ja hiphop-kulttuurin "posse"-konseptin välillä, joista jälkimmäinen tulkitaan jonkinlaiseksi ilmentymäksi epäsubjektiivisen populaation voimasta postmodernilla kaudella modernistista subjektivismia vastaan. Onhan se tavallaan mielenkiintoista, että termi "subject" viittasi myös suvereenin alamaiseen: Hardtin ja Negrin teorian mukaan suvereenisuuden käsite on Bretton Woodsin jälkeisellä aikakaudella kuitenkin muuttunut immanentiksi ja alati läsnäolevaksi, vastoin Foucaultin kuvaaman, New Deal-ajaltakin tunnetun kontrolliyhteiskunnan kompartmentalisoivaa segmentointia. Vallankäyttö on jatkuvassa poikkeustilassa, koska kansainvälinen oikeus on abstrahoitunut valtioyksikköjen välisistä konkreettisista ratkaisuista omaksi kokonaisuudekseen, jota tukee mitä värikkäin joukko kansainvälisiä organisaatioita jotka vaativat erilaisia interventioita. Analyysissä on kieltämättä paljon kiinnostavaa, mutta on mieltä kiihottaa yhtä lailla se, kuinka jyrkkään erotteluun se ajautuu globaalien ihmisvirtojen kanssa jotka edustavat tässä mallissa työn halua ja voimaa siinä missä kansainvälinen laki edustaa sen vampiirista, kylmää, kyynistä muotoa.
Nämä ihmiset eivät Hardtin ja Negrin mukaan ole enää moderneja subjekteja, vaan postmodernista nomadista "moninaisuutta"(multitude vs the public/citizens), mikä on äärettömän hienosti käännetty termillä väki, joka kytkeytyy primitiivisen esisubjektiivisen metafysiikkansa kautta hiphop-kulttuurin posse-aspektin esille tuontiin sitä kautta, että hiphop-kulttuuri on jatkuvassa dialektisessa taistelussa primitiivisyyden konseptin kanssa(esim. itseidentifioituminen "savage" identiteettiin). Väki käsitteenä paljastaa radikaalin ontologian, jossa erilaiset asbtraktit sisäiset/luonnonvoimat sekoittuvat ihmisjoukkoihin, jotka pitäisi modernismin näkökulmasta mieltää subjekteina, suvereenin kurinalaisina alamaisina. Sitä ei pidä sekoittaa New Age-henkiseen yhteyden kaipuuseen, mutta yhtä kaikki se paljastaa jatkuvuuden persoonan/subjektiviteetin ja sen ilmiöiden välillä; jatkuvuuden, joka lopultakin paljastaa niiden keskinäisen erilaisuuden ja toisiinsa typistämisen mahdottomuuden. Koska väen voimat, pikku-ukot, menninkäiset ja tontut, tulkittiin kristinuskossa demonisina, se pystytään käsittämään nykykielessä ainoastaan väkivaltana. Feministisestä näkökulmasta "naisten väki" on erityisen kiinnostava, sillä sekin on kehkeytynyt historian saatossa pelkäksi kirosanaksi, vaikka siihen osoitettu huomio vastaa monien muidenkin kulttuurien näkemystä emättimestä portaalina subjektiivisen maailman ja toismaailmallisten energioiden välillä. Etnofuturistisesta näkökulmasta tarkasteltuna väkivaltakulttuurin kasvun ja väen demonisoinnin välillä voi nähdä yhteyksiä esisubjektiivisten, "savage"-tyylisten energioiden demonisoinnissa ja lopulta niiden muuntumisessa yksinkertaisesti pahuuden ja neg(r)aation ilmentymiksi. Väkivalta ja virginaalinen Suomi-neito kulkevat eräässä mielessä käsi kädessä maagisena looppina.
Väki manifestoituu pikku-ukkoina ja tonttuina, joiden käsittely alittaa vakavastiotettavan keskustelun rajat mutta jotka toisalta ovat piilotettuna kartesiolaisen homunculuksen ideaan. Kuten kirjoittajat huomauttavat, olisi hölmöä olla tunnustumatta näennäisen pinnallisen massavastakulttuurin merkitystä aionisille muutoksille, joita he kuvaavat: rockmusiikki on viennyt yleisesti hyväksytyn, massojen kuluttaman kuvaston rajat täysin stratosfääriin ja sen yli huolimatta siitä, kuinka neutraalilta se saattaa juuri nyt tuntua sen normalisoiduttua. On huomionarvoista, että rockmusiikki tuhonsi tunteet musiikin ensisijaisena kommunikaatiokanavana. Rockmusiikki ja eritoten metallimusiikki edusti harmonista radikalismia, jonka perussisällön voi ilmaista pelkästään kahdella sävelellä tarvitsematta kolmatta säveltä, joka muodostaa duuri-tai molli soinnun ja niiden selkeästi muodostaman hierarkian. Kyseessä on modernisuuden serialistiseen ratkaisumalliin verrattava esteettinen uudistus postmodernissa kontekstissa, jossa pythagoralainen metafysiikka palaa repressoidussa ja "satanistisessa" muodossa, okkultuurin ympäröimänä. Voimasoinnut eivät ole tunteellisia vaan eteerisiä: niiden kieli yhdistettynä tritonuksen ympärillä pyörivään kromatisismiin on täysin pois mistään siihen asti kuullusta standardista, kuitenkin rakentuen sointupohjaisen emotionalismin sävyttämän kulttuuriviitteiden verkoston päälle. Samaan aikaan näemme LaVeyn satanistisen muotoilun pythagoralaisesta symboliikasta rituaalimagian kontekstissa.
Väen epästabiili elementti haastaa järkeistettyä kontrollia pelkällä olemassaolollaan: kärjistäen voi sanoa, että väki edustaa puhdastaa shakti-energiaa, mahdollisuuksien elektromagneettisia saarekkeita, tähtien fuusionaalista energiaa, kun taas aivot edustavat Shivaa ja kuiden onttoja, kalpeita maisemia. Aivojen täytyy käsitellä elektromagneettinen fuusionaalinen myrsky jäsentelemällä se erilaisten pakkausmekanismien avulla kemiallis-fyysiseksi, jolloin vaisto itsessään on tarkemmin katsottuna imperatiivi. Muinaisessa mytologiassa kuu onkin esiintynyt feminiinin vihollisena, varastaen heiltä verta eräänlaisena vampiirisena entiteettinä: Suomessakin kuukautisten terminologia on johdettu verenvuodatuksen yhteydestä kuuhun. Verenvuodatus ja syklisyys muuttuivat antiikkisessa kulttuurissa yleistyneeksi, abstraktiksi veriuhrauksen kultiksi maanviljelyn ja Saturnuksen alaisuudessa, jonka mytologiasta myös kehiteltiin lause "Vallankumous syö lapsensa". Saturnus yrittääkin kontrolloida väkeä maanviljelys-sivilisaation kontekstissa ja alistaa sen temporaalisen tyrannian alaisuuteen. Kommunismin teleologia, vaikkakin radikaalisti uudelleentulkittu tässä teoksessa, on yksi esimerkki tavasta jolla voidaan sitoa väkeä rationalisoiviin prosesseihin.
Marxismi näyttäytyy kirjassa mytologisena selitysrakenteena, jossa pääomaa kohdellaan animistisena kokonaisuutena: pääomalla on omat halunsa ja dispositionsa, se on kuin persoona, itseensä suljettu kokonaisuus jonka kautta voidaan selittää pinnallisemmat yhteiskunnalliset ilmiöt. Tämän kirjan kaltaisessa retoriikassa väite ei ikinä asetu edes kyseenalaiseksi vaan kuvitellaan, että ollaan saavutettu absoluuttinen perusta, mikä on virheellinen analyysi koska talous ei itsessään ohjaile mitään. Kuten olen aiemmissa Goodreads-arvosteluissani osoittanut, talous on alisteinen poliittiselle vallalle sen omia prosessien itseään kumoavan luonteen vuoksi, jos niitä tarkastellaan ideaalisesti "puhtaana taloudellisena kehityksenä", eikä siis ikinä ole olemassa sitä ulkoapäin kontrolloivana elementtinä. Talouden muodostettua poliittisen eliitin se on enemminkin talouden poliittisen eliitin hallussa, joka ei oikeastaan katso yhdenkään yksittäisen firman voitontavoittelun perään, mikä johtaa puolestaan siihen, että yhteiskunnan dynamiikka ei selity kapitalistien voitontavoittelulla. Toinen vaihtoehtoinen perustuksien historiallinen polku löytyy teknologian ja sodan suhteesta, jonka olemassa olo asettaa voittomotiiviin fundamentaalisuuden kyseenalaiseksi varsinkin ottaen huomioon, että se on jokaisen rationaalisen ihmisen pakko hyväksyä: että valtio ei voi paljastaa teknologista kapasiteettiaan kansalaisille, koska se paljastaisi samalla korttinsa vihollisille. Sen kuitenkin täytyy esittää kansalaisille, että on olemassa pelkästään tietty teknologinen taso, jolla historia kulkee deterministisiä reittejään: tämä on kuitenkin sikäli väärää historiaa, että todelliset taistelut käydään väistämättä areenoilla, joista kansalaiset eivät edes tiedä, mutta joissa he varmasti ovat osallisina. Voi esimerkiksi olla, että eksoteerisen todellisuuden taistelut liittyvät Saturniseen verenuhrauskulttiin molekuläärisellä tasolla ja todellisuudessa sota käydään demonisoitujen pikkumiesten ja tonttujen tasolla. Marxismi rajoittaa itsensä alusta alkaen täysin väärälle, eksoteeriselle historian tasolle ja löytää sieltä itsevarmuutensa, väristyksensä ja dramatiikkansa: kyynisen huokauksen ajan uloimmilla seinillä. Selkeän kounter-faktuaalinen historiakäsitys kuitenkin murentaa tämän logiikan ikuisesti ja asemoi taistelut täysin eri kategorioihin josta ei yhdelläkään tämän hetkisistä säälittävistä ideologioista ole pienintäkään käsitystä. Tämä on Saturnus ja sen yöpuoli, tunnetun maailman suurin perversio, kaikessa tylyydessään. Yhdelläkään historiallisella teolla tai kuolemalla ei ole ollut tarkoitusta. Historian ulkopuolella on kuitenkin valtaisa, elektromagneettinen fuusioreaktioiden maailma joka yritetään normalisoida vaiston muotoon peittämällä sen imperatiivinen olemus: ja jos tällä teoksella on jokin meriitti, se on tuon aspektin analyysi poliittisen teologian näkökulmasta.
Naureskelin muutama päivä sitten törmätessäni Letterboxdissa 857-tuntiseen maailman tuotantoketjujen hidasta kulkua käsittelevään elokuvaan Logistics mutta tätä kirjaa lukiessani hymy hyytyy ja näen moisen projektin tarpeellisuuden uudessa valossa sikäli että kokisin kirjoittajien hyötyvän tuon elokuvan intensiivisestä katselusta huomattavan paljon. Siis: TÄSSÄ ON. OIKEESTI. IHAN. SAIRAAN. HIDAS. LAIVA. DWI. On vaikeaa edes tiivistää, kuinka pitkälle tämän kirjan poliittisen analyysi on eriytynyt tuon ehkä jollain tapaa jopa subversiivisen hitaan laivan todellisuudesta. Tämä on kuitenkin se informaatiotalouden perusta ja vaikka esitetään väite, että postmodernistinen affektitalous on juurtunut alkutuotantoon asti, en uskoisi löytäväni sitä logistisen prosessin ytimestä. Tuntuu enemmänkin, että teksti itsessään on esimerkki taipumuksesta kadota informaatiotalouden eetteriin. Tästä kontrastista nousee toki mielenkiintoisia ajatuksia, jossa tuotantoketjun painotusten globaali eriytyminen, jota tässä kirjassa yritetään joka kohdassa vähätellä, johtaa toisaalta hyperreaalistumiseen globaalissa pohjoisessa samalla kun globaalin etelän voisi sanoa vajoavan hyporealismiin, jossa simulaation/tulevaisuus-menneisyys kompleksin paikan ottaa reduktionistinen nihilismi/nykyisyys. Jotain mielenkiintoista voisi saada irti myös siitä, että "eetterin" yhdistäessä maailmaa yhä enemmän tuotanto jatkaa eriytymistään, mikä perustuu yksinkertaisesti eri maanosissa oleviin erilaisiin resursseihin. Planetaarisen kehon osat kasvavat yhä enemmän oikeiisin, eroteltuihin rooleihinsa. Hardt & Negri eivät jatka tälle alueelle koska he ovat liian innokkaita tulkitsemaan globaalin imperiumin globaalistuvan väen vallankumouksellisuudelle hyödyllisenä taloudellisena homogenisoitumisena.
Kirjan loppupuolelle on sisällytetty kulmakarvojen nostattajaksi yhteys Renessanssin-aikaisen esse-nosse-posse triadin ja hiphop-kulttuurin "posse"-konseptin välillä, joista jälkimmäinen tulkitaan jonkinlaiseksi ilmentymäksi epäsubjektiivisen populaation voimasta postmodernilla kaudella modernistista subjektivismia vastaan. Onhan se tavallaan mielenkiintoista, että termi "subject" viittasi myös suvereenin alamaiseen: Hardtin ja Negrin teorian mukaan suvereenisuuden käsite on Bretton Woodsin jälkeisellä aikakaudella kuitenkin muuttunut immanentiksi ja alati läsnäolevaksi, vastoin Foucaultin kuvaaman, New Deal-ajaltakin tunnetun kontrolliyhteiskunnan kompartmentalisoivaa segmentointia. Vallankäyttö on jatkuvassa poikkeustilassa, koska kansainvälinen oikeus on abstrahoitunut valtioyksikköjen välisistä konkreettisista ratkaisuista omaksi kokonaisuudekseen, jota tukee mitä värikkäin joukko kansainvälisiä organisaatioita jotka vaativat erilaisia interventioita. Analyysissä on kieltämättä paljon kiinnostavaa, mutta on mieltä kiihottaa yhtä lailla se, kuinka jyrkkään erotteluun se ajautuu globaalien ihmisvirtojen kanssa jotka edustavat tässä mallissa työn halua ja voimaa siinä missä kansainvälinen laki edustaa sen vampiirista, kylmää, kyynistä muotoa.
Nämä ihmiset eivät Hardtin ja Negrin mukaan ole enää moderneja subjekteja, vaan postmodernista nomadista "moninaisuutta"(multitude vs the public/citizens), mikä on äärettömän hienosti käännetty termillä väki, joka kytkeytyy primitiivisen esisubjektiivisen metafysiikkansa kautta hiphop-kulttuurin posse-aspektin esille tuontiin sitä kautta, että hiphop-kulttuuri on jatkuvassa dialektisessa taistelussa primitiivisyyden konseptin kanssa(esim. itseidentifioituminen "savage" identiteettiin). Väki käsitteenä paljastaa radikaalin ontologian, jossa erilaiset asbtraktit sisäiset/luonnonvoimat sekoittuvat ihmisjoukkoihin, jotka pitäisi modernismin näkökulmasta mieltää subjekteina, suvereenin kurinalaisina alamaisina. Sitä ei pidä sekoittaa New Age-henkiseen yhteyden kaipuuseen, mutta yhtä kaikki se paljastaa jatkuvuuden persoonan/subjektiviteetin ja sen ilmiöiden välillä; jatkuvuuden, joka lopultakin paljastaa niiden keskinäisen erilaisuuden ja toisiinsa typistämisen mahdottomuuden. Koska väen voimat, pikku-ukot, menninkäiset ja tontut, tulkittiin kristinuskossa demonisina, se pystytään käsittämään nykykielessä ainoastaan väkivaltana. Feministisestä näkökulmasta "naisten väki" on erityisen kiinnostava, sillä sekin on kehkeytynyt historian saatossa pelkäksi kirosanaksi, vaikka siihen osoitettu huomio vastaa monien muidenkin kulttuurien näkemystä emättimestä portaalina subjektiivisen maailman ja toismaailmallisten energioiden välillä. Etnofuturistisesta näkökulmasta tarkasteltuna väkivaltakulttuurin kasvun ja väen demonisoinnin välillä voi nähdä yhteyksiä esisubjektiivisten, "savage"-tyylisten energioiden demonisoinnissa ja lopulta niiden muuntumisessa yksinkertaisesti pahuuden ja neg(r)aation ilmentymiksi. Väkivalta ja virginaalinen Suomi-neito kulkevat eräässä mielessä käsi kädessä maagisena looppina.
Väki manifestoituu pikku-ukkoina ja tonttuina, joiden käsittely alittaa vakavastiotettavan keskustelun rajat mutta jotka toisalta ovat piilotettuna kartesiolaisen homunculuksen ideaan. Kuten kirjoittajat huomauttavat, olisi hölmöä olla tunnustumatta näennäisen pinnallisen massavastakulttuurin merkitystä aionisille muutoksille, joita he kuvaavat: rockmusiikki on viennyt yleisesti hyväksytyn, massojen kuluttaman kuvaston rajat täysin stratosfääriin ja sen yli huolimatta siitä, kuinka neutraalilta se saattaa juuri nyt tuntua sen normalisoiduttua. On huomionarvoista, että rockmusiikki tuhonsi tunteet musiikin ensisijaisena kommunikaatiokanavana. Rockmusiikki ja eritoten metallimusiikki edusti harmonista radikalismia, jonka perussisällön voi ilmaista pelkästään kahdella sävelellä tarvitsematta kolmatta säveltä, joka muodostaa duuri-tai molli soinnun ja niiden selkeästi muodostaman hierarkian. Kyseessä on modernisuuden serialistiseen ratkaisumalliin verrattava esteettinen uudistus postmodernissa kontekstissa, jossa pythagoralainen metafysiikka palaa repressoidussa ja "satanistisessa" muodossa, okkultuurin ympäröimänä. Voimasoinnut eivät ole tunteellisia vaan eteerisiä: niiden kieli yhdistettynä tritonuksen ympärillä pyörivään kromatisismiin on täysin pois mistään siihen asti kuullusta standardista, kuitenkin rakentuen sointupohjaisen emotionalismin sävyttämän kulttuuriviitteiden verkoston päälle. Samaan aikaan näemme LaVeyn satanistisen muotoilun pythagoralaisesta symboliikasta rituaalimagian kontekstissa.
Väen epästabiili elementti haastaa järkeistettyä kontrollia pelkällä olemassaolollaan: kärjistäen voi sanoa, että väki edustaa puhdastaa shakti-energiaa, mahdollisuuksien elektromagneettisia saarekkeita, tähtien fuusionaalista energiaa, kun taas aivot edustavat Shivaa ja kuiden onttoja, kalpeita maisemia. Aivojen täytyy käsitellä elektromagneettinen fuusionaalinen myrsky jäsentelemällä se erilaisten pakkausmekanismien avulla kemiallis-fyysiseksi, jolloin vaisto itsessään on tarkemmin katsottuna imperatiivi. Muinaisessa mytologiassa kuu onkin esiintynyt feminiinin vihollisena, varastaen heiltä verta eräänlaisena vampiirisena entiteettinä: Suomessakin kuukautisten terminologia on johdettu verenvuodatuksen yhteydestä kuuhun. Verenvuodatus ja syklisyys muuttuivat antiikkisessa kulttuurissa yleistyneeksi, abstraktiksi veriuhrauksen kultiksi maanviljelyn ja Saturnuksen alaisuudessa, jonka mytologiasta myös kehiteltiin lause "Vallankumous syö lapsensa". Saturnus yrittääkin kontrolloida väkeä maanviljelys-sivilisaation kontekstissa ja alistaa sen temporaalisen tyrannian alaisuuteen. Kommunismin teleologia, vaikkakin radikaalisti uudelleentulkittu tässä teoksessa, on yksi esimerkki tavasta jolla voidaan sitoa väkeä rationalisoiviin prosesseihin.
Marxismi näyttäytyy kirjassa mytologisena selitysrakenteena, jossa pääomaa kohdellaan animistisena kokonaisuutena: pääomalla on omat halunsa ja dispositionsa, se on kuin persoona, itseensä suljettu kokonaisuus jonka kautta voidaan selittää pinnallisemmat yhteiskunnalliset ilmiöt. Tämän kirjan kaltaisessa retoriikassa väite ei ikinä asetu edes kyseenalaiseksi vaan kuvitellaan, että ollaan saavutettu absoluuttinen perusta, mikä on virheellinen analyysi koska talous ei itsessään ohjaile mitään. Kuten olen aiemmissa Goodreads-arvosteluissani osoittanut, talous on alisteinen poliittiselle vallalle sen omia prosessien itseään kumoavan luonteen vuoksi, jos niitä tarkastellaan ideaalisesti "puhtaana taloudellisena kehityksenä", eikä siis ikinä ole olemassa sitä ulkoapäin kontrolloivana elementtinä. Talouden muodostettua poliittisen eliitin se on enemminkin talouden poliittisen eliitin hallussa, joka ei oikeastaan katso yhdenkään yksittäisen firman voitontavoittelun perään, mikä johtaa puolestaan siihen, että yhteiskunnan dynamiikka ei selity kapitalistien voitontavoittelulla. Toinen vaihtoehtoinen perustuksien historiallinen polku löytyy teknologian ja sodan suhteesta, jonka olemassa olo asettaa voittomotiiviin fundamentaalisuuden kyseenalaiseksi varsinkin ottaen huomioon, että se on jokaisen rationaalisen ihmisen pakko hyväksyä: että valtio ei voi paljastaa teknologista kapasiteettiaan kansalaisille, koska se paljastaisi samalla korttinsa vihollisille. Sen kuitenkin täytyy esittää kansalaisille, että on olemassa pelkästään tietty teknologinen taso, jolla historia kulkee deterministisiä reittejään: tämä on kuitenkin sikäli väärää historiaa, että todelliset taistelut käydään väistämättä areenoilla, joista kansalaiset eivät edes tiedä, mutta joissa he varmasti ovat osallisina. Voi esimerkiksi olla, että eksoteerisen todellisuuden taistelut liittyvät Saturniseen verenuhrauskulttiin molekuläärisellä tasolla ja todellisuudessa sota käydään demonisoitujen pikkumiesten ja tonttujen tasolla. Marxismi rajoittaa itsensä alusta alkaen täysin väärälle, eksoteeriselle historian tasolle ja löytää sieltä itsevarmuutensa, väristyksensä ja dramatiikkansa: kyynisen huokauksen ajan uloimmilla seinillä. Selkeän kounter-faktuaalinen historiakäsitys kuitenkin murentaa tämän logiikan ikuisesti ja asemoi taistelut täysin eri kategorioihin josta ei yhdelläkään tämän hetkisistä säälittävistä ideologioista ole pienintäkään käsitystä. Tämä on Saturnus ja sen yöpuoli, tunnetun maailman suurin perversio, kaikessa tylyydessään. Yhdelläkään historiallisella teolla tai kuolemalla ei ole ollut tarkoitusta. Historian ulkopuolella on kuitenkin valtaisa, elektromagneettinen fuusioreaktioiden maailma joka yritetään normalisoida vaiston muotoon peittämällä sen imperatiivinen olemus: ja jos tällä teoksella on jokin meriitti, se on tuon aspektin analyysi poliittisen teologian näkökulmasta.
February 14, 2024
Jodido el mundo y eso.
8'5/10
8'5/10
April 18, 2024
I'm not sure why I've not read this book before, as it's pretty well known. Partly I suspect because it's very strongly influenced by French writers like Deleuze, Guattari, and Foucault - all of whom I'm pretty unfamiliar with.
Hardt and Negri theorise the modern working class as a 'multitude', international, working in common through information networks, in ways which are fundamentally social. There's a strong link here to what Marx wrote in the Grundrisse about the development of a "general intellect" - the point at which scientific and technical development has progressed so far that labour no longer has any specific content, and the labour theory of value starts to break down. Hardt and Negri develop this theory for the capitalism of today. While this is interesting, it also feels a little disconnected from the actual working class of the modern world. So it makes sense in theory but there's still work to do to make it a theory that could be used practically for a modern progressive movement.
Hardt and Negri also develop the idea of a new global order of control that is replacing that of sovereign nation states with controlled borders that manage their own economy. The modern system of control ("Empire") is global, driven by big corporations, and eschews national borders. It's all about the flow of information. In some ways this is a development of Rosa Luxemburg's thinking about capitalism's need for an 'outside' - something beyond that the global market can expand into, to absorb it's surplus and provide a source of new raw material to drive expansion. In a sense, Hardt and Negri develop this theory to show what happens when the market has expanded to cover the whole world and there is no more 'outside'. How does capitalism overcome the crisis this limit prompts? The answer is the 'Empire', the global order theorised by Hardt and Negri which takes advantage of the innovations created by the new social, networked labour to allow accumulation to continue.
All of this adds up to a theory which develops thinking about the move from a modern (industrial, colonial, imperialist) capitalism to postmodern (informational, networked, global) one.
As I noted, the language is that of French philosophy and that makes it a little difficult to follow, and perhaps a little disconnected from reality. It is also now perhaps a little dated, having been published in 2001 and therefore before both Donald Trump and Brexit - which in the context of Hardt and Negri's theory might be thought of as a Thermidorian reaction against the revolutionary change represented by Empire. That said, this is an important book in theorising the change in the movement from modernism to postmodernism and what that means for the prospect progressive change.
This review is also available on my blog here: https://marxadventure.wordpress.com/2...
And I wrote a blog post picking up some of the themes in Empire and using them to think about Brexit here:
https://marxadventure.wordpress.com/2...
Hardt and Negri theorise the modern working class as a 'multitude', international, working in common through information networks, in ways which are fundamentally social. There's a strong link here to what Marx wrote in the Grundrisse about the development of a "general intellect" - the point at which scientific and technical development has progressed so far that labour no longer has any specific content, and the labour theory of value starts to break down. Hardt and Negri develop this theory for the capitalism of today. While this is interesting, it also feels a little disconnected from the actual working class of the modern world. So it makes sense in theory but there's still work to do to make it a theory that could be used practically for a modern progressive movement.
Hardt and Negri also develop the idea of a new global order of control that is replacing that of sovereign nation states with controlled borders that manage their own economy. The modern system of control ("Empire") is global, driven by big corporations, and eschews national borders. It's all about the flow of information. In some ways this is a development of Rosa Luxemburg's thinking about capitalism's need for an 'outside' - something beyond that the global market can expand into, to absorb it's surplus and provide a source of new raw material to drive expansion. In a sense, Hardt and Negri develop this theory to show what happens when the market has expanded to cover the whole world and there is no more 'outside'. How does capitalism overcome the crisis this limit prompts? The answer is the 'Empire', the global order theorised by Hardt and Negri which takes advantage of the innovations created by the new social, networked labour to allow accumulation to continue.
All of this adds up to a theory which develops thinking about the move from a modern (industrial, colonial, imperialist) capitalism to postmodern (informational, networked, global) one.
As I noted, the language is that of French philosophy and that makes it a little difficult to follow, and perhaps a little disconnected from reality. It is also now perhaps a little dated, having been published in 2001 and therefore before both Donald Trump and Brexit - which in the context of Hardt and Negri's theory might be thought of as a Thermidorian reaction against the revolutionary change represented by Empire. That said, this is an important book in theorising the change in the movement from modernism to postmodernism and what that means for the prospect progressive change.
This review is also available on my blog here: https://marxadventure.wordpress.com/2...
And I wrote a blog post picking up some of the themes in Empire and using them to think about Brexit here:
https://marxadventure.wordpress.com/2...
December 19, 2012
Aslında birşeyleri yorumlarken, bilindik,tanıdık veya klişe kavramları kullandığımızda pek etki etmediğini görebiliyoruz.Yani her taşın altından emperyalist bir Amerika'yı çıkarmak, yorumdan sayılmaz oldu.Çünkü bu nasıl bir emperyalist güçtür ki, evimize hatta yatak odamıza kadar işlesin bizi engellesin, birazda yaşamdaki mutluluklarımız veya kaygılarmızda buna dahil etmeliyiz.
Böylelikle mutlaka bunu bir sistematik işleyişi vardır.Hatta neden-sonuç ekseninde büyükler ve küçükler zorunlu bir şekilde bu sistematiğin işleyişini sağlamak zorundalar.İşte bu kitap Hardt ve Negri'nin üzerinde çok çalıştıkları ve ismine de imparatorluk dedikleri sistemi tüm dayanak ve yaptırımlarıyla gözler önününe sermekteler.Global kavramını içi dolu ve derinliğine kadar öğrenmek istiyorsanız bu kitabı tavsiye ederim.Ayrıca bu kitabı okuduğunuzda devamı niteliğinde olan Çokluk: İmparatorluk Çağında Savaş ve Demokrasi ile de taçlandırabilirsiniz.
Keyifli Okumalar...
Böylelikle mutlaka bunu bir sistematik işleyişi vardır.Hatta neden-sonuç ekseninde büyükler ve küçükler zorunlu bir şekilde bu sistematiğin işleyişini sağlamak zorundalar.İşte bu kitap Hardt ve Negri'nin üzerinde çok çalıştıkları ve ismine de imparatorluk dedikleri sistemi tüm dayanak ve yaptırımlarıyla gözler önününe sermekteler.Global kavramını içi dolu ve derinliğine kadar öğrenmek istiyorsanız bu kitabı tavsiye ederim.Ayrıca bu kitabı okuduğunuzda devamı niteliğinde olan Çokluk: İmparatorluk Çağında Savaş ve Demokrasi ile de taçlandırabilirsiniz.
Keyifli Okumalar...
January 18, 2008
Empire identifies a radical shift in concepts that form the philosophical basis of modern politics, concepts such as sovereignty, nation, and people. Hardt and Negri link this philosophical transformation to cultural and economic changes in postmodern society--to new forms of racism, new conceptions of identity and difference, new networks of communication and control, and new paths of migration. They also show how the power of transnational corporations and the increasing predominance of postindustrial forms of labor and production help to define the new imperial global order.
--Harvard University Press
--Harvard University Press
Want to read
March 9, 2008"Certainly, there must be a moment when reappropriation [of wealth from capital] and selforganization [of the multitude] reach a threshold and configure a real event. This is when the political is really affirmed—when the genesis is complete and self-valorization, the cooperative convergence of subjects, and the proletarian management of production become a constituent power. […] We do not have any models to offer for this event. Only the multitude through its practical experimentation will offer the models and determine when and how the possible becomes real. (Empire, p. 411)
August 28, 2019
Had to read the first 100 pages for a class and I gotta say I HATE THIS BOOK. It's boring and it's trash. Thankfully I passed my exam and don't have to see this book ever again. Don't torture yourselves and avoid it at all costs.
eternally-reading
May 24, 2008It makes me look cool to say I'm currently reading this, but at the rate I'm going "eternally reading" may be the more appropriate shelf.
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