Commonwealth

by Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri

Troisième ouvrage issu de la collaboration entre Antonio Negri et Michael Hardt, Commonwealth poursuit la critique du triumvirat république, modernité et capital, en affirmant la nécessité d’instituer et de gérer un monde de richesses partagées. Le commun en question est de nature écologique mais aussi biopolitique, puisque ce sont les connaissances, langages, images, codes, affects et réseaux de communication qu’une société produit de manière collective. Face à une république devenue république de la propriété privée – tant au niveau national que global – au fil des constitutions et des grandes révolutions bourgeoises, la multitude doit apprendre à se réapproprier le commun, et devenir par là un projet d’organisation politique.
Pour ce faire la critique ne suffit pas, aussi Negri et Hardt esquissent-ils les ligne de fuite de l’alter-modernité – ces forces de résistance mais aussi de renouvellement. Negri et Hardt confient donc la lutte des classes à l’autonomie croissante du travail biopolitique. Ainsi les aptitudes économiques montrent la voie aux aptitudes politiques de la multitude. Cet ouvrage, et l’étude des manières d’instituer le commun qu’il propose, gagne une nouvelle perspective au vu des événements récents, notamment du printemps des révoltes arabes.

Traduit de l'anglais par Elsa Boyer

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, Theory, Nonfiction, Economics, Sociology, 21st Century

512 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2009

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

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes, it's really theoretical and abstract. That's what words are. It's the best I've come across regarding revolution. We need to rethink our most intimate relationships. Change will be hard!! Violent! The hardest change will be what is closest... our identities, families and relationships. When we stop producing detrimental relationships at "home," only then can we produce an environmentally and socially just society.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was...more frustrating than anything, and that in spite of the fact that I agree with some of what they argue though I'm sure I don't understand all of it. It probably deserves a little more time and thought, but I haven't more. I also have not read Empire or Multitude, being more interested in the idea of the commons and how resistance is built.

First, and this is a general rhetorical question, I'd like to know just who the hell the academic left keeps writing for, if not simply each other. To give 'tools' for the revolution via a curious twist on Kant and a reliance on Spinoza (who I do love, but I'm a nerd), along with a huge flirtation with biopolitics and a constant focus on 'the body'? It just shows their assumption of where the revolution is coming from, whatever they say. Like them, I believe that there should be no vanguards or intellectuals leading the way, their role is simply to contribute as a piece of a larger movement. But they surely are not contributing much if no one can understand what they are talking about. What is needed is dialog, and books of this kind cannot engage people working on the ground.

And so I suppose it's not surprising that while they seem to make the not-entirely-logical leap of grouping all flexible informal work together, when they discuss its revolutionary potential they are really just talking about the privileged tiers. When they use what seems like a rather facile logic to claim that when being subject to violence proves that you have power? Well. I can only feel that they did not grown up anywhere half as violent as I did, though perhaps I am not understanding them correctly. You have no power until you make the decision to stand up to violence. I agree that capacity to resist is always there within us, but we do not always act upon it. And the transformative moment comes when we do so, not before. There is nothing honorable or powerful about getting the shit kicked out of you because you happened to look at someone the wrong way and couldn't run fast enough.

And the wasp-orchid love? Made me want to vomit. The whole world does not have to aspire to some version of hedonistic polyamory to be a better place, though I'm happy to let those who chose that lifestyle do so and enjoy it.

All that said, I did find their discussions of Foucault and Marx, Beck and Habermas, Zizek and Badiou to be interesting - but interesting is the operative word. I was intrigued by the new models of production, particularly the new commons of knowledge, capacity and creativity that this is creating (though I think it is too intangible, and elite). I agree on the vital importance of the idea that resistance is transformative and that people must be involved in their own liberation (but I don't think they have any idea how this happens).

There is some good stuff in here, but I think you can better arrive at these understandings by actually organizing, and that experience will make a lot of what is written here, and how it is written, suspect. I am still working through what this can add to such experience, I suppose my recommendation to read it comes from the fact that I think that time spent doing it would be worthwhile.

[Phillip · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was a bit intimidated by this book before starting (it's on my diss reading list, and it's probably the longest and most theoretically heavy book in my neoliberalism list). But once I got into it, this book is fabulous. Hardt and Negri theorize the end of capitalism and a shift to a biopolitical labor system based on the construction of the common, which they define not only as the natural common (water, air, land, nature, etc.) but also the cultural common (speech, ideas, gesture, expression, cultural codes, knowledge, etc.). The foundation of their argument is that contemporary late stage capitalism has shifted from producing good to producing ideas, images, and culture--from industrial labor to biopolitical labor--and that the structures of capitalism become fetters preventing biopolitical production from achieving its full potential because that potential relies on 1) the quality of life and freedom from necessity, 2) open and easy access to the common, 3) labor mobility, and 4) felicitous encounters between singularities. This last one may need the most explaining, but basically their idea is that we need the abolition of identity categories to free individuals; but not individuals in the Enlightenment humanist sense. Singularities are individuals not constrained by identity categories, but always in relation to the multitude of other singularities, and therefore always in flux because the multitude is always in flux (for clarification, the 'multitude' is the collective of singularities).

Basically Hardt and Negri's proposals are three fold. First they argue that we need a global infrastructure to support safety, health, and life. So we need globally accessible clean drinking water, health services, and urban and rural infrastructure. Second we need education, not in the American sense of you can pay for a degree, but in the sense that everyone globally is taught cosmopolitan cultural literacy, reading and technological literacy, and given access to the common of knowledge. To create a common of knowledge, they propose the abolition of intellectual property rights, instead allowing everyone to access the greatest ideas so that those ideas can be discussed, worked on, and developed as widely as possible. Hardt and Negri's last proposal is a global citizenship, which would allow biopolitical laborers to move from place to place unconstrained. This is based on their argument that the common is produced both by positive and negative encounters, and restrictive movement laws (especially across existing national boundaries) is one major factor in prolonging and producing negative encounters, but if singularities were free to remove themselves from negative encounters as much as possible, that would improve the common by increasing the number of positive encounters.

[Geoffrey Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stimulating because of the questions it raises, not because of the answers for which we shall have to continue to grope. Or perhaps there are no answers to what is becoming of this world, where nation, state, class have become so diffuse that they seem empty categories. The authors' tearing apart of the category "modernity" is one of their major contributions, allowing us to recognize the complexity of global changes. As the 19th and most of the 20th century had it, the capitalist, industrialized, technologically innovative countries of western Europe and North America, plus (belatedly) Japan, were "modern," which also implied (or required) that their cultures were freer of superstition and other nonrational hangups, that they were logical and pragmatic. The rest of the world was seen as "premodern", which implied that once they had gotten a proper boost, or been forced out of their lethargy, they would become more like the "modern". Not so at all, as we all know. Irrational behavior, religious passions, and stubborn clinging to ideological precepts already demonstrated to have failed are every bit as common (and especially dangerous) in the technologically and industrially most advanced countries, while the supposedly premoderns — India and China are dramatic examples — zoom past the old "moderns" and adopt and develop new technology more rapidly than anybody. H & N argue that "modernity" (meaning technological and scientific thinking, mostly) and antimodernity (which includes such irrational impulses as solidarity) are complex: antimodernity may mean reactionary resistance to beneficial change, but it may also be a healthy resistance to the abuses of rampant technological and social changes so frequent when a more powerful country or corporation imposes its will. Modern and antimodern commitments coexist and are intermingled in all societies, and what we should strive for is "altermodernity," where both "modern" and supposedly "premodern" resources are devoted to the common good, or as they prefer, the commonwealth. Aside from that, the most useful thing I derived from the book was a reminder that I must read with greater attention Saskia Sassen — H & N's quotes from her show the clearest thinking of anybody on what Zygmunt Bauman calls our "liquid" societies. I placed this on my "Paris Commune" shelf for the values it defends.

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant theory - not only on a political, but also on an anthropological, existential and ethical level.

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of what they say should be taken with a pinch of salt, as the authors have a pretty specific ideological background, and I can nod in agreement with most of the usual criticisms thrown at Hardt and Negri (I would still argue for separation of 'art and artist')... BUT overall it is quite readable, even when you disagree, and even if sometimes the prose is too flowery. In particular the chapter concerning the role of the metropolis in modern times and the power of encounters is vital reading to those interested in cities. (Note, I haven't read the two predecessors in the trilogy.)

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the best of the trilogy-- particularly their development of the political concepts of love and expanding upon the notion of the common. Of course, they still fail to advance the feminist elements of autonomism and remain rather abstract about everything.

[Bradley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Empire and Multitude covered most of this ground. Just the exact same message, old hat by all accounts.

[Jeffrey Rubard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Over the last twenty years Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri have written four books speaking to the theoretical and practical needs of the world left at the turn of the millennium: Empire, Multitude, Commonwealth and Assembly. It is not immediately clear to the reader based on "advance press" but it is important to realize the Empire series is not quite simply an "Ontology of Social Being" from the autonomist standpoint of Negri and his Italian colleagues of the latter part of the 20th century; Hardt and Negri have had a deep influence on activist movements the world over, and are speaking to that point rather than to salve their philosophical consciences. I have not yet read Assembly, but Commonwealth shows a process of theoretical maturation as the series has progressed: this is very definitely a more serious statement than the first two books. It is a statement I do not completely agree with myself, though, and I will offer a few points of critique.

Even at this late date Hardt and Negri's decision to throw the ideology and practice of "republicanism" overboard is to be lamented. It presumably occurs to some Earthers that a "Commonwealth" is sometimes taken to be composed of non-republican governments and it occurs to some of them, though they may not quite say it, that comparing and contrasting the two paradigms may not be completely to the detriment of the republican one. The decision here to cast republicanism merely as enthusing for a "Republic of Property" is a cheap theoretical short-cut that actually severs important linkages between the republican tradition and later Marxist theories of political representation. I will pick an example, not quite at random: consider Amadeo Bordiga's "The System of Communist Representation", a short 1919 text.

I will focus on one statement in the text by Bordiga (a very left-wing figure in the early Italian communist movement):

What characterizes the communist system then is the definition of the right to be an elector, a right which depends not on one's membership of a particular trade, but on the extent to which the individual, in the totality of his social relations, can be seen as a proletarian with an interest in the rapid achievement of communism, or a non-proletarian tied in some way or other to the preservation of the economic relations of private property.

It might seem as though Bordiga was advocating the complete antithesis of bourgeois republicanism, and if the emphasis is laid on complete I suppose that might be true. There is however a sense in which, even in 2019, we ought not to forget how republicanism contains a similar demand avant la lettre: doing away with systems of "Electors" tied to ancient and occluded social relations in favor of a "one man, one vote" principle rooted in the actual mechanics of modern society and first enunciated by elements of the republican New Model Army in the 17th century (as Hardt and Negri do point out). In other words, there is even today a "common factor" between the mystified ideals of 1789 (which Thomas Jefferson is somehow criticized for being too enthusiastic about in this book) and the "realistic radicalism" of 1917 which we would do well to consider systematically; perhaps in an obscure way the commonality between them is still what sets us our "revolutionary" tasks.

The philosophical references in Commonwealth are an interesting stew, and far be it from me to decree how the "philosophy cook-shops" of the future ought to be: however, I will insist on the observation that previously occurred to me that Wittgenstein may have had one particular book "unobviously" in mind in the famous quote from "A Lecture on Ethics" Hardt and Negri reproduce: if Wittgenstein's book on ethics that "would, with an explosion, destroy all the others in the world" happened to just be Die Bibel that might represent an "identitarian difference" the progress of the multitude could not merely revaluate ("getting it right" is never easy, but we ought to allow space for inhabitants of "altermodernity" to construct their version of it according to noncoercive norms they find sensible). In general "identity politics" ought to be a space of freedom for the oppressed, not a goad for them to make "another effort".

This is somehow just caviling, as the obvious point of Hardt and Negri is to provide "common texts" the global left can read "out" of, not into; we are free to think something else, and of course the continual inroads of the modern organization of capital into our lives and even our "lived experience" make radical thought of any kind an agreeable prospect. I do recommend Commonwealth as a highly interesting political road-map to the near past and the near future.

[Constantia Munda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Political Science Book - "Commonwealth" - Third book in Trilogy with "Empire" and "Multitude"–
Main Points -

1 - Current society is Dogmatism? Nihilism?
2 - Current Inquisition – Bureaucracies invents and polices the protocols, procedures, regulations, and record keeping that constitutes conforming to their reality and torturing anyone that strays from their reality.
3 - Karl Marx, ‘On the Jewish Question’
4 - Rule of capital over wage enslaves through capitalism in the “civilized world.”
5 - Subaltern/subhuman – British military word for junior officer or subordinate.
6 - Zapata’s - -our right not to become who we are, but rather to become what we want.
7 - Intellectual has to be inside evolution.
8 - Foucault explained the relationship between power and knowledge and how the former is controlled by the latter. Unmasked a new truth with the insurrection of knowledge. Died of AIDS in 1983.
9 - Nothing can stop the truth, citizens and their power.
10 - Stop looking at the haystack and find the needle.
11 - Disaster capitalism. Exploitation and expropriation of the common.
12 Thomas Jefferson and Marx wants the unknown/chaos and violence to lead the way toward evolution.
13 - Work time compared to non-worktime…Is there a difference.
14 - Artist as a gentrified specter, not a participant.
15 - Family, corporation, nation.
16 - The family is not altruism but egotism.
17 - What’s good for GM, is good for America evolved into if it’s good for my family it’s good. GM and the FIRE all both bankrupt both financially and more importantly morally.
18 - Anti-bible, anti-capitalist, anti-etc. is part of the problem. The yin to the yang the white to the black that completes the whole.
19 - Culture shapes bones. Evil exists. Organize.
20 - Nietzsche and Whitman - Identification love- love of the neighbor. More important is love of the farthest.
21 - Love is lost puzzle pieces coming together as a whole.
22 - Vice not virtue holds society together with greed and cowards leading the way. The Fable of the Bees.
23 - Bees produce Honey and fruit. Wasps produce nothing.
24 - “I would not have known sin except through the law”, Saint Paul.
25 - “Love is the battlefield for the struggle against evil.” N and H.
Multiple choice question in regards to quote above.
Is this quote?
A- Jon Bon Jovi’s lyrics. B – The overall philosophical thesis from the brightest living minds. C – The title to a Go-Go’s song. D – All of the Above.
26 - “Poverty and Love” or “Power and the Common” is author’s rally call.
27 - Supranational institutions. Schema of cooperation. Patrocinium or
Imperium.
28 - Recession is social decomposition.
29 - Queer Politic reveals the violence and subordinations of heteronormativity and homophobia. Heterosexism is part of homosexuality.
30 - Historicizes – historicized or historicizing.
31 - Is the glass have empty or half full? It doesn’t matter throw out the glass with, “No Debt!” (financial or spiritual).
32 - Will to art - Public Happiness.

[Paul Helliwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

less a review than notes on what I have read so far

'a kind of apocalypticism reigns among the contemporary conceptions of power, with warnings of new imperialisms and new fascisms. everything is explained by sovereign power and the state of exception...' hardt and negri, commonwealth.

'I shall speak then of/ in an apocalyptic tone in philosophy.' - jacques derrida, of an apocalyptic tone recently adopted in philosophy.

here hardt and negri write against the then popular conceptions of agamben (and thus hobbes and thus schmitt). the section title is taken (and modified) from an essay by derrida.

schmitt was (eventually) a nazi - but more he provided a juridical means by which issues of legality and democracy could be evaded to permit the refounding of the german state (or for the german state to take action in its own defence).

for hardt and negri the state of exception is not of interest - it is a fantasy of fascism ignoring the way in which capitalism and democracy structure almost all of life on earth and allowing radicals an escape from actual politics into terrorism.

similarly with the popular accusations of fascism - note that they weaken it into plurals fascisms. for hardt and negri capitalism is producing its own succession and replacement from within itself thank you very much there is no need to revisit its originary foundational moments in sovereignty - that is not where the main story is.

by accident I came across a documentary on bbc about the popularity of the term fascism the same day - 'that's not fascism' went the comfortable liberals.
by the time something turns up that is indisputably fascism it will already be too late.

my copy of commonwealth has been up on the shelves a long time - the sun has burned the mustard of the title lettering on the spine to a pale yellow - but the book has also been rested in a pile face up - the c and the h of the title on the front cover are similarly burned, the atomic shadow of the smaller book placed on top of it can be seen.

hardt and negri are also tendentious about the position of the poor -'the poor is defined not by lack but by possibility'.

the apocalyptic tone in philosophy and politics has faded back down (as abu ghraib becomes a footnote of history) but so has the easy boosterism of a globalising capitalism that is lifting us all up towards a new condition together. we have participated in or watched with horror the wild ride of anti-globalisation populist leaders and we are now into a filthy era of claims to boring competence and a retour a normal.

it is, of course, not over.

[Cybermilitia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bos gecin. Imparatorluk korkunctu, Cokluk berbatti, bu idare eder bile degil. Assembly'i de basmislar. Ama cok zorda kalmazsam okumayacagim. Hayal gucsuz, sonuk, renksiz sol fantaziye giris kitaplari bunlar.

Soylenecek cok sey olmasina ragmen degmeyecek. Ortak zenginlik, nasil olup da somuruluyor? Soyut, "somuruluyor iste" olamaz cevap. Somut olarak nasil el konuyor? Nasil paraya, guce, libidinal ya da mali kapitale donusuyor? Tek bir satir yok bu konuda. Ornekler, hic bir sey anlatmiyor. Teorik keskinlik sifir, hatta sifirin alti. Bu ana konuda bile basit bir cocuk sorusu, kitabin ana kurgusunu darmadagin ediyor. Cocuk sorusu dedigime bakmayin, "infant"lardan bahsediyorum. Yoksa solcu olmak isteyen, durumu anlayamamis ama asil kaynaklari da sikici bulan cocuklarin mitsel hazlari icin ideal kitaplar bunlar. Sorduklari sorular bile, hatta post modernlik anlatisinin yarattigi sorular bile, mesela Gramsci'de, 80 yil once yasamis adamda daha mukemmel formullendirilmis.

Temelde karsi karsiya gelen dualist momentlerle aciklanmis yarim yamalak bir dunya kurgusu. Karsitina ilerleme/olumsuzlama gibi bir mekanizma kesinlikle olmadigi icin durmadan dusulen celiskiler. "Iyi" Cumhuriyet duslenebiliyorken, modernizmin tu kakalanmasi. Paralaks'ta anlatilani entellektuel etik disi carpitma. Ingiliz somurgeciligini tamamen konu disi birakip Ispanyol somurgeciligini prototip ilan edip ona gore analiz yapma. SSCB uzerine analizin olagan ustu sacmaligi. Sermayenin egemenlik metotlarinin hiyerarsisini gorememe. Vs vs vs... Tumu Kant'a dahi ulasamamis Spinoza'ci durgunlugun, "zaten oyleydi" fikriyatinin sonuclari.

Fantazi icinde yasamak isteyenler, buyursun okusun. Ciddi isler yapmak isteyenleri baska yere alalim...

[Adora · Rating 4 out of 5]

ooof this was a really tough book to get through and docking one star because using a word like "aleatory" when "random" would do...really?

lots of interesting concepts in here, not all of which I understood (probably would need to have read more Spinoza and Foucault) but if you can grit your teeth through some unbroken paragraph-long sentences on biopolitical alienation, you'll find some real gems of ideas about how the common is corrupted and experienced, and what revolution looks like.

this isn't a book you read to get a plan of action after you close it (I think) -- most of the ideas Hardt and Negri present have long time horizons -- but I really enjoyed the intellectual experience, particularly their critical lens on family (given their scathing commentary, I of course had to travel down a Wikipedia rabbit hole to attempt to find out more about their respective personal lives). Hardt legit has an interview in Harvard Design Magazine titled "Destroying Family": http://www.harvarddesignmagazine.org/...

perhaps the one takeaway that is instantly attempt-able in some form is their exhortation to reject the conventional wisdom to love our family or our neighbor but instead, "love the stranger" -- something we could all work to do a bit more and which, though I failed to find anything abt his family life or lack thereof I _did_ find some evidence of Hardt really living out: https://today.duke.edu/2019/03/duke-p...

[Geert Hofman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good follow up of the other books by these authors. They stay true to the story they started with "Empire" and add enough new material to give some perspectives for an alternative future away from the current path of human self destruction.

In the beginning I had mixed feelings about the book because a lot of the things I read gave an impression of an old fashioned marxist nature. At the same time, some chapters breathed a kind of French deconstructivist air. This mix felt somewhat unbalanced. As I continued to read, the lines drawn at the beginning started to come together leading to a good mix of serious critique on the current societal situation and positive perspectives for an ongoing battle leading to something better than what seems to be lying ahead now.

All in all a good read for people interested in discovering handles to critique the existing situation and for building a better future for humanity.

[Ümmühan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un oeuvre introductif aux questions des "communs".

[Nemesio Villuq · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mucho texto

[Sarvin · Rating 5 out of 5]

بی نظیر. مثله انبوه خلق.

[Alix J · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's a lot to like here - a vision of social change that takes seriously the capacities we already have; a politic of the commons that pushes past the public/private divide; a respect for multiplicity that refuses liberal multi-culti melting pots. But there's plenty left to be desired. I was troubled by the authors' easy ranking of revolution-arity (in which the satisfaction of immediate needs, as well as the affirmation of identities under siege, come out looking frustratingly counter-revolutionary), and their obvious distance from the conditions of poverty on which a lot of their analysis is based.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

it's good stuff . . . sometimes too abstract in its imaginings, but maybe that's the point at this stage in the game. theory practice theory practice theory practice constant revision. definitely worth the read, but i wish i'd had more hegel first. it makes reading "multitudes" kinda superfluous.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

The follow-up to Empire replaced the multitude with the common, which H & N see as an alternative to both privatized and public modes of ownership. As with Empire, at some points they offer notable insights or provocative theories; at others they seem entirely off-base and nothing more than speculative.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

A wish-wash of interesting ideas and head in the clouds rubbish. Overall an interesting attempt to re-think Marxism for today's capitalism, but methodologically insufficient, and needs to be backed by more material, less speculative research.

[Scott Neigh]

This warrants a full and detailed review, which I may or may not have time to write. In brief: Lots of very enticing ideas, but also plenty that feels like it might be flights into fantasy. Worth reading.

[Kelley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I figger that, if Hardt reads my blog,the least I can do is read his book. :p

[Torsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

Das passende Buch zur Occupy-Bewegung!

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whoever you are, you should read this book.

[Patric Esh · Rating 4 out of 5]

it's call about love. The only way to make the change.