A Distinct Multitude Different Pueblo Globalizations Revised 1 March (original) (raw)
Related papers
2003
In a work that mirrors the complexity and confusion of global life in (not entirely) condensed form, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri describe a world without borders; then they take sides. As they explain, their approach has two, distinct methodological strains: "The first is critical and deconstructive [...] the second is ethico-political." 1 In the critical mode, they map the rise of "Empire," a global form of sovereignty that subsumes all categories and distinctions in an encompassing relational network. In their "ethicopolitical" mode, they discern in this morass a struggle for liberation on the part of the "Multitude," a global revolutionary subject on the verge of radical self-authorization.
The Labor of the Multitude and the Fabric of Biopolitics
Mediations, 2008
I had the pleasure of driving Toni Negri to the McMaster University campus for his brief stay as the Hooker Distinguished Visiting Professor. As contingency would have it, we approached the city from the east, since I had picked him up at Brock University. Anyone familiar with Hamilton knows that this necessitates driving past the heart of "Steeltown." Negri, in a driving practice true to his theoretical orientation, excitedly requested that we follow the route most proximal to the mills and smokestacks of Stelco and Dofasco. He asked many questions about the history of steelworkers' labor struggles, the composition of the labor force, its level and form of organization, and the role of heavy industry in the Canadian economy. Negri's keen interest in the conditions of a quintessentially material form of industrial production provides a necessary counterpoint to the strong poststructuralist inflection of his lecture. After all, his stated focus was on the subjective, the cultural, and the creative as key modalities of labor under globalization. These contrapuntal elements bring us to the heart of Negri's project, wherein the conceptual deployments of Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze act as articulated elements of his longstanding and ongoing commitment to Marxist theory and praxis. It is, of course, an open Marxism, iterable as necessitated by our historical moment. But then innovation, as Antonio Negri visited McMaster University as the Hooker Distinguished Visiting Professor in 2006. This lecture was delivered on 18 April 2006. [Ed.]
Debating Multitude" : Ten Notes
2005
The book »Multitude« 1 resumes the thinking process about the order of capitalism within »the era of armed globalization« (p. 231), perceived by its authors as post-modern, post-fordist and above all imperial and thus spatial, temporary and socially derestricted. This discussion was initiated by Michael Hardt and Toni Negri (H&N) in their book »Empire«, recently been published in Russian and still trading with Ebay for 10 $. An extensive dialogue with the authors arose on the subject of the book »Empire«, which in itself is one aspect of the Altermondialistas movement and the left's efforts to understand the development primarily of the political order of capitalism since 1989 and to develop a corresponding theoretical language. »Multitude« responds to reviews, it revises, sets new emphases, attempts definitions and makes suggestions of how to perceive the new role of violence and the military, and the subjects of emancipation taking shape in the new empire of global capitalism and why their political project is »absolute« democracy-all facets that hardly played any role in its predecessor »Empire«. (»Our primary aim is to work out the conceptual bases on which a new project of democracy can stand« [XVII]). These are the three central topics in the book, which with precautionary foresight states on its very first pages that it is a philosophical book and not one operating on sociological terrain or attempting like a political pamphlet an answer to the wellknown question of the »What is to be done?« At the same time, however, it aims to contribute to a »postsocialist and postliberal program« (220) and in »reinventing the Left« (220)-and thus-and this is the tricky bit, wishes to break »with the worn-out socialist tradition« (255). The book »Multitude« is perhaps less surprising and more pragmatic than »Empire«. It is quite obviously a text whose cadences aim to have a widespread effect. Fortunately it is called »Multitude« and not »Menge« (Masses) as was the concern following the translation of the first book in Germany. If we are to believe Francis Fukuyama's review in »Time« August 2004, it is also »at its core unreconstructedly Marxist« and presents us with an »extremely confused theory«. According to John Giuffo, the book is, irritatingly, also »excessively theoretical« and »ultimately unreasonable«. In short: »a whole book full of (…) content-less utterances« says Paul McLeary. Liberation, 18.11.2004 chooses to simply regard it as »revolutionary Lyricism«. Others, such as Günter Sandleben, have reacted impetuously and dogmatically. Reviews pointing out difficult passages and points worthy of criticism are an exception (Philipp Zarifian, Daniel Bensaid; Joachim Bischoff and Christoph Lieber in 12/04 supplement of the german magazine »Sozialismus«). A series of reactions to the book Multitude have been collected on the »Multitude« website (http://multitudes.samizdat.net/rubrique.php3?id\_ rubrique =497) and the one of the German Rosa Luxemburg Foundation (www.rosalux.de). 1-The Concept of Multitude has found wide resonance in the multifarious social and political movements in Europe and Latin-American. Early on in the book, areas for definition are opened up. Multitude is something different from the »people«, the »masses«, »crowds«, the »mob« or the »working class«. It is not united, but rather plural, multiple and active in its form. It is a multiplicity, consisting of differences and distinctions (99-100) and perpetually produces such differences (356). »The multitude is a multiplicity of all these singular differences« (XIV)-and, in contrast with the masses it does this perpetually. At the same time it is a monster, as it lacks a sovereign head.
Debating Multitude. Ten Notes, Policy Paper 1/2005 der RLS
The book »Multitude« 1 resumes the thinking process about the order of capitalism within »the era of armed globalization« (p. 231), perceived by its authors as post-modern, post-fordist and above all imperial and thus spatial, temporary and socially derestricted. This discussion was initiated by Michael Hardt and Toni Negri (H&N) in their book »Empire«, recently been published in Russian and still trading with Ebay for 10 $. An extensive dialogue with the authors arose on the subject of the book »Empire«, which in itself is one aspect of the Altermondialistas movement and the left's efforts to understand the development primarily of the political order of capitalism since 1989 and to develop a corresponding theoretical language.
Enrique Dussel, The Invention of the Americas: Eclipse of“the Other”and the Myth of Modernity
Continental Philosophy Review, 1998
I n this essay I present two intimately connected readings of the concept of living labor as it appears in Marx's Grundrisse: by Enrique Dussel in his 1980s works on Marx's economic writings, and by Hardt and Negri in their 2004 collaboration, Multitude. In the process, I present my own reading in which I try to show how the concept of living labor that Marx developed is informed by an internal critique of Kantian ethics, subsuming its spirit within a materialist critique of Kantian formalism. This simultaneous cancellation of formalism and preservation of formal elements within a materialist critique becomes the fulcrum by which to judge the loss of the ethical dimension in what for Marx is the fundamental relation of classical political economy: the relation between capital and labor-not only in terms of the material negation of the workers' lives, but also in terms of the internal shortcomings of capitalism regarding the formal freedom of the worker.
El Pueblo and Its Problems: Democracy of, by, and for Whom?
In response to those calling for philosophical dialogue across the Americas, this paper considers the historical emergence of the concept of el pueblo (“the people”) as the subject and object of democracy. The first section makes a linguistic claim: the genuinely communal nature of “the people” clearly appears when considering el pueblo because it is unambiguously singular, grammatically speaking. The second section makes a historical claim: the microhistory of a largely indigenous pueblo in Mexico’s Yucatán enables us to begin unpacking the complex concrete, historical, and genealogical dimensions of el pueblo. The brief concluding section suggests that historically contextualizing and concretizing el pueblo provides conceptual support for some of the premises that underwrite Latin American philosophies of liberation, including that of Enrique Dussel.
General Economy: The Entrance of Multitude into Production
2004
The concept general economy is an attempt to rethink economy or to understand economy on the same condition based on which political philosophy has began to talk about biopolitics. This condition means the general dissolution of the borders between economical and political, the spheres of life and politics which, for example, both Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben regard as the decisive event of modernity and the absolute condition for thinking politics today. I argue that this condition is as absolute for understanding economy as it is for thinking politics today. What defines economy and our experience of it today is that the bare humanness of human beings, that general potentiality and linguistic-relational abilities which distinguish human beings is revealing itself as the essence also of economic production. I will first concentrate on the dissolution of the borders between the spheres of economy and politics according to Michel Foucault’s notion of biopower. I will then defi...
"Indigenous Marx. A Becoming-Earthling of Communism" by DALIE GIROUX
La Deleuziana 8 - La pensée dix-huit (éd.) G. Collett, 2018
Presented in Paris on 7 April 2017 on the occasion of the symposium "Political conflict: logics and practices", then available on the site la vie manifeste, this text is interested in the process of primitive accumulation and thus the devices of subjectivation and dispossession put in place to produce the space-time of capitalism. The concept of primitive accumulation makes it possible to approach the division at the heart of the deterritorialization-reterritorialization movement inherent in dispossession and constitutive of the dyad: the misery of the people – the wealth of the nation. By exposing the unproductiveness of the people, by exposing workers-the excluded-the indigenous synchronically, the current practices of resistance make visible the recessed production of a common encrypted in dispossession.