Commonwealth

common H A R D T

"Everyone seems to agree that our e c o n o m i c system is bro-

MICHAEL

ken, yet the d e b a t e about alternatives remains oppressively narrow. Hardt and Negri e x p l o d e this c l a u s t r o p h o b i c d e bate, taking readers to the deepest roots of our current crises and p r o p o s i n g radical, and deeply human, solutions.

ANTONIO

There has never been a better time for this book." —Naomi Klein, author of The Shock

'Commonwealth,

Doctrine

NEGRI

last and richest of the Empire trilogy, is a

powerful a n d ambitious reappropriation of the whole tradition of political theory for the Left. Clarifying Foucault's a m b i g u o u s notion of biopower, d e e p e n i n g the authors' o w n proposal for the notion of multitude, it offers an exhilarating s u m m a of the forms and possibilities of resistance today. It is a politically as well as an intellectually invigorating achievement." —Fredric J a m e s o n , Duke University

ISBN 17fl-D-t7M-D3Sll-1

BELKNAP

wealth

and Negri's thought, it also stands alone and is entirely accessible to readers who are not familiar with the previous works. It is certain to appeal to, challenge, and enrich the thinking of anyone interested in questions of politics and globalization.

P h o t o o f A n t o n i o N e g r i (left) a n d Michael Hardt by Nora Parcu

M I C H A E L H A R D T is Professor of Literature and Italian at Duke University. A N T O N I O N E G R I is an independent researcher and writer. They are coauthors of Empire (Harvard) and Multitude.

THE

BELKNAP

HARVARD

PRESS OF

UNIVERSITY

PRESS

Cambridge, Massachusetts Design: Jill Breitbarth

When Empire appeared in 2000, it defined the political and economic challenges of the era of globalization and, thrillingly, found in them possibilities for new and more democratic forms of social organization. Now, with

Commonwealth,

Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri conclude the trilogy begun with Empire and continued in Multitude, proposing an ethics of freedom for living in our common world and articulating a possible constitution for our common wealth. Drawing on scenarios from around the globe and elucidating the themes that unite them, Hardt and Negri focus on the logic of institutions and the models of governance adequate to our understanding of a global commonwealth. They argue for the idea of the "common" to replace the opposition of private and public and the politics predicated on that opposition. Ultimately, they articulate the theoretical bases for what they call "governing the revolution." Though this book functions as an extension and a completion of a sustained line of Hardt

COMMONWEALTH

COMMONWEALTH Michael Hardt

Antonio Negri

THE

BELKNAP

HARVARD

PRESS

OF

UNIVERSITY

Cambridge, Massachusetts

PRESS

2009

CONTENTS

Copyright © 2009 by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hardt, Michael, 1960Commonwealth / Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri, p. cm. Sequel to "Empire" and "Multitude." Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-674-03511-9 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. International organization. 2. International cooperation. 3. Globalization. I. Negri, Antonio, 1933- II.Tide. JZ1318.H368 2009 321.02—dc22 2009012652

Preface .The Becoming-Prince of the Multitude PART 1

vii

R e p u b l i c (and the M u l t i t u d e o f the Poor)

1.1 Republic o f Property

3

1.2 Productive Bodies

22

1.3 T h e Multitude o f the Poor

39

De Corf ore 1: Biopolitics as Event

PART 2

56

M o d e r n i t y (and the Landscapes o f A l t e r m o d e r n i t y )

2.1 Antimodernity as Resistance

67

2.2 Ambivalences o f M o d e r n i t y

83

2.3 Altermodernity De Homine 1: Biopolitical Reason

PART 3

101 119

Capital (and the Struggles over C o m m o n Wealth)

3.1 Metamorphoses o f the Composition o f Capital

131

3.2 Class Struggle from Crisis to Exodus

150

3.3 Kairos o f the Multitude

165

De Singularitate 1: O f Love Possessed

I N T E R M E Z Z O : A F O R C E T O C O M B A T EVIL

179

189

CONTENTS

PART 4

E m p i r e Returns

4.1 B r i e f History o f a Failed C o u p d'Etat

203

4.2 After U.S. Hegemony

219

4.3 Genealogy o f R e b e l l i o n

234

De Corpore 2: Metropolis

PREFACE: THE BECOMING-PRINCE

249

OF T H E M U L T I T U D E PART 5

B e y o n d Capital?

5.1 Terms o f the E c o n o m i c Transition

263

5.2 W h a t Remains o f Capitalism

280

5.3 Pre-shocks along the Fault Lines

296

De Homine 2: Cross the Threshold!

PART 6

312

Revolution

People only ever have the degree of freedom that their audacity wins from fear. —Stendhal, Vie de Napoleon

Power to the peaceful. -Michael Franti. "Bomb the World"

6.1 Revolutionary Parallelism

325

6.2 Insurrectional Intersections

345

6.3 Governing the R e v o l u t i o n

361

De Singularitate 2: Instituting Happiness

376

War, suffering, misery, and exploitation increasingly characterize our globalizing w o r l d . There are so many reasons to seek

Notes

387

refuge i n a realm "outside," some place separate from the discipline

Acknowledgments

427

and control o f today's emerging E m p i r e or even some transcendent

Index

428

or transcendental principles and values that can guide our lives and ground our political action. O n e primary effect o f globalization, however, is the creation o f a c o m m o n w o r l d , a w o r l d that, for better or worse, we all share, a w o r l d that has no "outside." A l o n g w i t h n i hilists, we have to recognize that, regardless o f h o w brilliantly and trenchantly we critique it, we are destined to live i n this w o r l d , not only subject to its powers o f domination but also contaminated by its corruptions. A b a n d o n all dreams o f political purity and "higher values" that w o u l d allow us to remain outside! Such a nihilist recognition, however, should be only a tool, a point o f passage toward constructing an alternative project. In this b o o k we articulate an ethical project, an ethics o f democratic political action w i t h i n and against Empire. W e investigate what the movements and practices of the multitude have been and what they can become i n order to

discover the social relations and institutional forms o f a possible

been destroyed. A n d yet so m u c h o f our w o r l d is c o m m o n , open to

global democracy. " B e c o m i n g - P r i n c e " is the process o f the m u l t i -

access o f all and developed through active participation. Language,

tude learning the art o f self-rule and inventing lasting democratic

for example, like affects and gestures, is for the most part c o m m o n ,

forms o f social organization.

and indeed i f language were made either private or public—that is,

A democracy o f the multitude is imaginable and possible only

i f large portions o f our words, phrases, or parts o f speech were sub-

because we all share and participate i n the c o m m o n . B y "the c o m -

ject to private ownership or public authority—then language w o u l d

m o n " we mean, first o f all, the c o m m o n wealth o f the material

lose its powers o f expression, creativity, and c o m m u n i c a t i o n . Such

world—the air, the water, the fruits o f the soil, and all nature's

an example is meant not to calm readers, as i f to say that the crises

b o u n t y — w h i c h i n classic European political texts is often claimed

created by private and public controls are not as bad as they seem,

to be the inheritance o f humanity as a whole, to be shared together.

but rather to help readers begin to retrain their vision, recognizing

W e consider the c o m m o n also and more significantly those results

the c o m m o n that exists and what it can do. That is the first step i n a

o f social production that are necessary for social interaction and fur-

project to w i n back and expand the c o m m o n and its powers.

ther production, such as knowledges, languages, codes, information,

T h e seemingly exclusive alternative between the private and

affects, and so forth. This notion o f the c o m m o n does not position

the public corresponds to an equally pernicious political alternative

humanity separate from nature, as either its exploiter or its custo-

between capitalism and socialism. It is often assumed that the only

dian, but focuses rather o n the practices o f interaction, care, and

cure for the ills o f capitalist society is public regulation and Keynes-

cohabitation i n a c o m m o n w o r l d , promoting the beneficial and l i m -

ian a n d / o r socialist economic management; and, conversely, socialist

iting the detrimental forms o f the c o m m o n . In the era o f globaliza-

maladies are presumed to be treatable only by private property and

tion, issues o f the maintenance, production, and distribution o f the

capitalist control. Socialism and capitalism, however, even though

c o m m o n i n both these senses and i n both ecological and socioeco-

they have at times been mingled together and at others occasioned

n o m i c frameworks become increasingly central.

1

W i t h the blinders o f today's dominant ideologies, however, it is difficult to see the c o m m o n , even though it is all around us. Neoliberal government policies throughout the w o r l d have sought i n recent decades to privatize the c o m m o n , m a k i n g cultural p r o d ucts—for example, information, ideas, and even species o f animals

bitter conflicts, are both regimes o f property that exclude the c o m m o n . T h e political project o f instituting the c o m m o n , w h i c h we develop i n this book, cuts diagonally across these false alternatives— neither private nor public, neither capitalist nor socialist—and opens a new space for politics. C o n t e m p o r a r y forms o f capitalist production and accumula-

and plants—into private property. W e argue, i n chorus w i t h many

tion i n fact, despite their continuing drive to privatize resources and

others, that such privatization should be resisted. T h e standard view,

wealth, paradoxically make possible and even require expansions o f

however, assumes that the only alternative to the private is the p u b -

the c o m m o n . Capital, o f course, is not a pure f o r m o f c o m m a n d but

lic, that is, what is managed and regulated by states and other gov-

a social relation, and it depends for its survival and development

ernmental authorities, as i f the c o m m o n were irrelevant or extinct.

on productive subjectivities that are internal but antagonistic to it.

It is true, o f course, that through a l o n g process o f enclosures the

T h r o u g h processes o f globalization, capital not only brings together

earth's surface has been almost completely divided up between p u b -

all the earth under its c o m m a n d but also creates, invests, and exploits

lic and private property so that c o m m o n land regimes, such as those

social life i n its entirety, ordering life according to the hierarchies o f

o f indigenous civilizations o f the Americas or medieval Europe, have

economic value. In the newly dominant forms o f production that

involve information, codes, knowledge, images, and affects, for ex-

grasping the new conditions and possibilities o f the contemporary

ample, producers increasingly require a high degree o f freedom as

world. Sometimes we invent new terms to face this challenge, but

well as open access to the c o m m o n , especially i n its social forms,

more often we seek to resurrect and reanimate o l d political c o n -

such as communications networks, information banks, and cultural

cepts that have fallen out o f use, both because they carry powerful

circuits. Innovation i n Internet technologies, for example, depends

histories and because they disrupt the conventional understandings

directly o n access to c o m m o n code and information resources as

o f our present w o r l d and pose it i n a new light. T w o such concepts

well as the ability to connect and interact w i t h others i n unrestricted

that play particularly significant roles i n this b o o k are poverty and

networks. A n d more generally, all forms o f production i n decentral-

love.The p o o r was a widespread political concept i n Europe, at least

ized networks, whether or not computer technologies are involved,

from the M i d d l e Ages to the seventeenth century, but although we

demand freedom and access to the c o m m o n . Furthermore the c o n -

w i l l do our best to learn from some o f those histories, we are more

tent o f what is produced—including ideas, images, and affects—is

interested i n what the poor has become today. T h i n k i n g i n terms o f

easily reproduced and thus tends toward being c o m m o n , strongly

poverty has the healthy effect, first o f all, o f questioning traditional

resisting all legal and economic efforts to privatize it or b r i n g it u n -

class designations and forcing us to investigate w i t h fresh eyes h o w

der public control.The transition is already i n process: contemporary

class composition has changed and l o o k at people's w i d e range o f

capitalist production by addressing its o w n needs is opening up the

productive activities inside and outside wage relations. Seen i n this

possibility o f and creating the bases for a social and economic order

way, second, the p o o r is defined by not lack but possibility. T h e poor,

grounded i n the c o m m o n .

migrants, and "precarious" workers (that is, those w i t h o u t stable e m -

T h e ultimate core o f biopolitical production, we can see step-

ployment) are often conceived as excluded, but really, though sub-

ping back to a higher level o f abstraction, is not the production o f

ordinated, they are completely w i t h i n the global rhythms o f b i o -

objects for subjects, as c o m m o d i t y production is often understood,

political production. E c o n o m i c statistics can grasp the c o n d i t i o n o f

but the production o f subjectivity itself. T h i s is the terrain from

poverty i n negative terms but not the forms o f life, languages, move-

w h i c h our ethical and political project must set out. B u t h o w can an

ments, or capacities for innovation they generate. O u r challenge w i l l

ethical production be established o n the shifting ground o f the pro-

be to find ways to translate the productivity and possibility o f the

duction o f subjectivity, w h i c h constantly transforms fixed values and

poor into power.

subjects? Gilles Deleuze, reflecting o n M i c h e l Foucault's n o t i o n o f

Walter Benjamin, w i t h his typical elegance and intelligence,

the dispositif (the material, social, affective, and cognitive mechanisms

grasps the changing concept o f poverty already i n the 1930s. H e l o -

or apparatuses o f the production o f subjectivity), claims, " W e belong

cates the shift, i n a nihilistic key, i n the experience o f those w h o

to the dispositifs and act w i t h i n them." If we are to act w i t h i n them,

have witnessed destruction, specifically the destruction wrought by

however, the ethical h o r i z o n has to be reoriented from identity to

the First W o r l d War, w h i c h casts us i n a c o m m o n condition. Benja-

becoming. A t issue "is not what we are but rather what we are i n

m i n sees, b o r n out o f the ruins o f the past, the potential for a new,

2

positive f o r m o f barbarism. " F o r what does poverty o f experience

the process o f becoming—that is the Other, our becoming-other."

A key scene o f political action today, seen from this vantage point,

do for the barbarian? It forces h i m to start from scratch; to make a

involves the struggle over the control or autonomy o f the produc-

new start; to make a little go a l o n g way; to begin w i t h a little and

tion o f subjectivity. T h e multitude makes itself by composing i n the

build up further." T h e "barbaric" productivity o f the p o o r sets out

c o m m o n the singular subjectivities that result from this process.

to make a c o m m o n w o r l d .

We often find that our political vocabulary is insufficient for

3

Love provides another path for investigating the power and

xii

PREFACE

PREFACE

productivity o f the c o m m o n . Love is a means to escape the solitude

multitude is a set o f singularities that poverty and love compose i n

o f individualism but not, as contemporary ideology tells us, only to

the reproduction o f the c o m m o n , but more is required to describe

be isolated again i n the private life o f the couple or the family To

the dynamics and dispositifs o f the becoming-Prince o f the m u l t i -

arrive at a political concept o f love that recognizes it as centered o n

tude. W e w i l l not pull out o f our hats new transcendentals or new

the production o f the c o m m o n and the production o f social life,

definitions o f the w i l l to power to impose o n the multitude. T h e

we have to break away from most o f the contemporary

meanings

becoming-Prince o f the multitude is a project that relies entirely o n

o f the term by b r i n g i n g back and w o r k i n g w i t h some older n o -

the immanence o f decision m a k i n g w i t h i n the multitude. W e w i l l

tions. Socrates, for example, reports i n the Symposium that, accord-

have to discover the passage from revolt to revolutionary institution

ing to D i o t i m a , his "instructor i n love," love is b o r n o f poverty and

that the multitude can set i n m o t i o n .

invention. As he tries to elaborate what she taught h i m , he claims

W i t h the title o f this book, Commonwealth, we mean to i n d i -

that love tends naturally toward the ideal realm to achieve beauty

cate a return to some o f the themes o f classic treatises o f govern-

and wealth, thus fulfilling desire. French and Italian feminists argue,

ment, exploring the institutional structure and political constitution

however, that Plato has D i o t i m a all wrong. She guides us not toward

o f society. W e also want to emphasize, once we recognize the rela-

the "sublimation" o f poverty and desire i n the "fullness" o f beauty

tion between the two terms that compose this concept, the need

and wealth, but toward the power o f b e c o m i n g defined by differ-

to institute and manage a w o r l d o f c o m m o n wealth, focusing o n

ences. D i o t i m a s notion o f love gives us a new definition o f wealth

and expanding our capacities for collective production and self-gov-

that extends our n o t i o n o f the c o m m o n and points toward a process

ernment. T h e first half o f the b o o k is a philosophical and historical

4

o f liberation.

exploration that focuses successively o n the republic, modernity, and

5

Since poverty and love might appear too weak to overthrow

capital as three frameworks that obstruct and corrupt the develop-

the current r u l i n g powers and develop a project o f the c o m m o n , we

ment o f the c o m m o n . O n each o f these terrains, however, we also

w i l l need to emphasize the element o f force that animates them.

discover alternatives that emerge i n the multitude o f the poor and

This is i n part an intellectual force. Immanuel Kant, for example,

the circuits o f altermodernity.The second half o f the b o o k is a polit-

conceives o f Enlightenment i n terms o f a force that can banish the

ical and economic analysis o f the contemporary terrain o f the c o m -

"fanatical visions" that result i n the death o f philosophy and, more-

mon. W e explore the global governance structures o f Empire and

over, can w i n out over every policing o f thought. Jacques D e r r i d a ,

the apparatuses o f capitalist c o m m a n d to gauge the current state and

following this "enlightened" Kant, brings reason back to the force o f

potential o f the multitude. O u r analysis ends w i t h a reflection o n

doubt and recognizes the revolutionary passion o f reason as emerg-

the contemporary possibilities for revolution and the institutional

ing from the margins o f history. W e too believe that such intellec-

processes it w o u l d require. A t the end o f each part o f the book is a

tual force is required to overcome dogmatism and nihilism, but we

section that takes up from a different and more philosophical per-

insist o n the need to complement it w i t h physical force and political

spective a central issue raised i n the body o f the text. (The function

6

action. Love needs force to conquer the ruling powers and dismantle

o f these sections is similar to that o f the Scholia i n Spinoza's Ethics.)

their corrupt institutions before it can create a new w o r l d o f c o m -

These together w i t h the Intermezzo can also be read consecutively

m o n wealth.

as one continuous investigation.

T h e ethical project we develop i n this book sets out o n the

Jean-Luc Nancy, setting out from premises analogous to ours,

path o f the political construction o f the multitude w i t h Empire. T h e

wonders i f "one can suggest a 'Spinozian' reading, or rewriting, o f

xiii

PREFACE

7

[Heidegger's] Being and Time."

W e hope that our w o r k points i n

that direction, overturning the phenomenology o f nihilism and

PART 1

opening up the multitude's processes o f productivity and creativity that can revolutionize our w o r l d and institute a shared c o m m o n wealth. W e want not only to define an event but also to grasp the spark that w i l l set the prairie ablaze.

REPUBLIC (AND THE MULTITUDE OF T H E P O O R )

I'm tired of the sun staying up in the sky. I can't wait until the syntax of the world comes undone. —Italo Calvino, The Castle of Crossed Destinies

1.1

REPUBLIC OF PROPERTY

The two grand favourites of the subjects, liberty and property (for which most men pretend to strive), are as contrary as fire to water, and cannot stand together. —Robert Filmer, "Observations upon Aristotle's Politiques"

Thus, at its highest point the political constitution is the constitution of private property. —Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right

On an Apocalyptic Tone Recently Adopted in Politics A k i n d o f apocalypticism reigns among the contemporary conceptions o f power, w i t h warnings o f new imperialisms and new fascisms. E v e r y t h i n g is explained by sovereign power and the state o f exception, that is, the general suspension o f rights and the emergence o f a power that stands above the law. Indeed evidence o f such a state o f exception is easy to come by: the predominance o f v i o lence to resolve national and international conflicts not merely as last but as first resort; the widespread use o f torture and even its l e gitimation; the indiscriminate k i l l i n g o f civilians i n combat; the e l i sion o f international law; the suspension o f domestic rights and protections; and the list goes o n and o n . This vision o f the w o r l d resembles those medieval European renditions o f hell: people b u r n ing i n a river o f fire, others being torn limb from limb, and i n the center a great devil engorging their bodies whole. The problem w i t h this picture is that its focus o n transcendent authority and violence

REPUBLIC

( A N D THE M U L T I T U D E

OF T H E

REPUBLIC

POOR)

OF

PROPERTY

eclipses and mystifies the really dominant forms o f power that c o n -

sovereignty or fascism, w h i l e the camp, the ultimate site o f control

tinue to rule over us today—power embodied i n property and cap-

both inside and outside the social order, becomes the paradigmatic

ital, power embedded i n and fully supported by the law.

topos o f m o d e r n society.

2

In popular discourse the apocalyptic vision sees everywhere

These apocalyptic visions—both the scholarly analyses o f sov-

the rise o f new fascisms. M a n y refer to the U . S . government as fas-

ereign power and the popular accusations o f fascism—close d o w n

cist, most often citing A b u Ghraib, Guantanamo, Faluja, and the P a -

political engagement w i t h power. There are no forces o f liberation

triot A c t . Others call the Israeli government fascist by referring to

inherent i n such a power that, though n o w frustrated and blocked,

the continuing occupations o f Gaza and the West Bank, the use o f

could be set free. There is no hope o f transforming such a power

assassinations and bulldozers as diplomacy, and the b o m b i n g o f L e b -

along a democratic course. It needs to be opposed, destroyed, and

anon. Still others use "islamofascism" to designate the theocratic

that is all. Indeed one theological aspect implicit i n this conception

governments and movements o f the M u s l i m world. It is true, o f

o f sovereignty is its M a n i c h e a n division between extreme options:

course, that many simply use the term "fascism" i n a general way to

either we submit to this transcendent sovereignty or we oppose it i n

designate a political regime or movement they deplore such that it

its entirety. It is w o r t h remembering that w h e n Left terrorist groups

comes to mean simply "very bad." B u t i n all these cases w h e n the

i n the 1970s claimed that the state was fascist, this implied for them

term "fascist" is employed, the element it highlights is the authori-

that armed struggle was the only political avenue available. Leftists

tarian face o f power, its rule by force; and what is eclipsed or mysti-

today w h o talk o f a new fascism generally follow the claim w i t h

fied, instead, is the daily functioning o f constitutional, legal processes

moral outrage and resignation rather than calls for armed struggle,

and the constant pressure o f profit and property. In effect, the bright

but the core logic is the same: there can be no political engagement

flashes o f a series o f extreme events and cases blind many to the

w i t h a sovereign fascist power; all it knows is violence.

quotidian and enduring structures o f power.

1

T h e primary f o r m o f power that really confronts us today,

T h e scholarly version o f this apocalyptic discourse is charac-

however, is not so dramatic or demonic but rather earthly and m u n -

terized by an excessive focus o n the concept o f sovereignty. T h e

dane. W e need to stop confusing politics w i t h theology. T h e pre-

sovereign is the one w h o rules over the exception, such authors af-

dominant contemporary f o r m o f sovereignty—if we still want to

firm, and thus the sovereign stands both inside and outside the law.

call it that—is completely embedded w i t h i n and supported by legal

M o d e r n power remains fundamentally theological, according to this

systems and institutions o f governance, a republican f o r m character-

view, not so m u c h i n the sense that divine notions o f authority have

ized not only by the rule o f law but also equally by the rule o f prop-

been secularized, but rather i n that sovereign power occupies a tran-

erty. Said differently, the political is not an autonomous domain but

scendent position, above society and outside its structures. In certain

one completely immersed i n economic and legal structures.There is

respects this intellectual trend represents a return to Thomas Hobbes

nothing extraordinary or exceptional about this f o r m o f power. Its

and his great Leviathan that looms over the social terrain, but more

claim to naturalness, i n fact its silent and invisible daily functioning,

fundamentally it replays the European debates o f the 1930s, espe-

makes it extremely difficult to recognize, analyze, and challenge. O u r

cially i n Germany, w i t h C a r l Schmitt standing at its center. Just as i n

first task, then, w i l l be to b r i n g to light the intimate relations be-

the popular discourses, here too economic and legal structures o f

tween sovereignty, law, and capital.

power tend to be pushed back into the shadows, considered only

W e need for contemporary political thought an operation

secondary or, at most, instruments at the disposal o f the sovereign

something like the one Euhemerus conducted for ancient Greek

power. Every modern f o r m o f power thus tends to be collapsed into

mythology i n the fourth century B C . Euhemerus explained that all

6

REPUBLIC

(AND THE MULTITUDE

OF T H E

POOR)

REPUBLIC

OF

PROPERTY

o f the myths o f gods are really just stories o f historical human ac-

led entire schools o f juridical and constitutional thought, from Hans

tions that through retelling have been expanded, embellished, and

Kelsen to J o h n R a w l s , to develop Kantian formalism i n legal the-

cast up to the heavens. Similarly today the believers imagine a sover-

ory. Property, w h i c h is taken to be intrinsic to human thought and

5

eign power that stands above us o n the mountaintops, w h e n i n fact

action, serves as the regulative idea o f the constitutional state and the

the dominant forms o f power are entirely this-worldly. A new p o -

rule o f law. T h i s is not really a historical foundation but rather an

litical E u h e m e r i s m might help people stop l o o k i n g for sovereignty

ethical obligation, a constitutive f o r m o f the moral order. T h e c o n -

in the heavens and recognize the structures o f power o n earth.

3

cept o f the individual is defined by not being but having; rather than

O n c e we strip away the theological pretenses and apocalyptic

to a "deep" metaphysical and transcendental unity, i n other words, it

visions o f contemporary theories o f sovereignty, once we b r i n g them

refers to a "superficial" entity endowed w i t h property or possessions,

d o w n to the social terrain, we need to look more closely at h o w

defined increasingly today i n "patrimonial" terms as shareholder. In

power functions i n society today. In philosophical terms we can

effect, through the concept o f the individual, the transcendent figure

think o f this shift i n perspective as a move from transcendent analysis

o f the legitimation o f property is integrated into the transcendental

to transcendental critique. Immanuel Kant's " C o p e r n i c a n revolution"

formalism o f legality. T h e exception, we might say, is included w i t h i n

i n philosophy puts an end to all the medieval attempts to anchor

the constitution.

reason and understanding i n transcendent

essences and things i n

Capital too functions as an impersonal f o r m o f domination

themselves. Philosophy must strive instead to reveal the transcen-

that imposes laws o f its o w n , economic laws that structure social life

dental structures immanent to thought and experience. "I call all cognition transcendental that is occupied not so m u c h w i t h objects but rather w i t h o u r mode o f cognition o f objects insofar as this is to 4

be possible a priori."

Kant's transcendental plane thus occupies a

position not w h o l l y i n the immediate, immanent facts o f experience but not w h o l l y outside them either. T h i s transcendental realm, he explains, is where the conditions o f possibility o f knowledge and experience reside.

and make hierarchies and subordinations seem natural and necessary. T h e basic elements o f capitalist society—the power o f property concentrated i n the hands o f the few, the need for the majority to sell their labor-power to maintain themselves, the exclusion o f large portions o f the global population even from these circuits o f e x p l o i tation, and so forth—all function as an a p r i o r i . It is even difficult to recognize this as violence because it is so normalized and its force is applied so impersonally. Capitalist control and exploitation rely p r i -

Whereas Kant's transcendental critique is focused primarily o n

marily not o n an external sovereign power but o n invisible, internal-

reason and knowledge, ours is aimed at power. Just as K a n t sweeps

ized laws. A n d as financial mechanisms become ever more fully de-

away the preoccupations o f medieval philosophy w i t h transcendent essences and divine causes, so too must we get beyond theories o f sovereignty based o n rule over the exception, w h i c h is really a h o l d over from o l d notions o f the royal prerogatives o f the monarch. W e must focus instead o n the transcendental plane o f power, where law and capital are the primary forces. Such transcendental powers c o m pel obedience not through the commandment o f a sovereign or even primarily through force but rather by structuring the c o n d i tions o f possibility o f social life. T h e intuition that law functions as a transcendental structure

veloped, capital's determination o f the conditions o f possibility o f social life become ever more extensive and complete. It is true, o f course, that finance capital, since it is so abstract, seems distant from the lives o f most people; but that very abstraction is what gives it the general power o f an a p r i o r i , w i t h increasingly universal reach, even w h e n people do not recognize their involvement i n finance markets—through personal and national debt, through financial instruments that operate o n all kinds o f production from soybeans to computers and through the manipulation o f currency and interest rates.

7

8

REPUBLIC

( A N D THE M U L T I T U D E

OF T H E

REPUBLIC

POOR)

F o l l o w i n g the form o f Kant's argument, then, our transcen-

OF

PROPERTY

9

conflicting political tendencies. Thomas Jefferson, late i n his life, re-

dental critique must show h o w capital and law intertwined to-

flecting

gether—what we call the republic o f property—determine and dic-

" W e imagined everything republican w h i c h was not monarchy."

tate the conditions o f possibility o f social life i n all its facets and

There was certainly an equal i f not greater range o f political posi-

phases. B u t ours is obviously an unfaithful, tendentious appropria-

tions designated by the term i n the English and French revolution-

tion o f Kant, w h i c h cuts diagonally across his work. W e appropriate

ary periods. B u t one specific definition o f m o d e r n republicanism

o n the early years o f the A m e r i c a n R e v o l u t i o n , remarks, 7

his critical perspective by recognizing that the formal structure o f

eventually w o n out over the others: a republicanism based o n the

his epistemological schema corresponds to that o f the power o f

rule o f property and the inviolability o f the rights o f private prop-

property and law, but then, rather than affirming the transcendental

erty, w h i c h excludes or subordinates those without property. T h e

realm, we seek to challenge it. K a n t has n o interest i n overthrowing

propertyless are merely, according to A b b e Sieyes, "an immense

the rule o f capital or its constitutional state. In fact Alfred S o h n -

c r o w d o f bi-ped instruments, possessing only their miserably paid

R e t h e l goes so far as to claim that Kant, particularly i n the Critique

hands and an absorbed soul." There is no necessary or intrinsic link

of Pure Reason, strives "to prove the perfect normalcy o f bourgeois

between the concept o f republic and the rule o f property, and i n -

society," making its structures o f power and property appear natural

deed one could try to restore alternative or create new notions o f

and necessary.

8

6

B u t our quarrel here is not really w i t h Kant. W e merely want

republic that are not based o n property. O u r point is simply that the republic o f property emerged historically as the dominant concept.

9

to use the tools he provides us to confront today s dominant powers.

T h e course o f the three great bourgeois revolutions—the E n -

A n d we should highlight, finally, h o w the practical consequences o f

glish, the A m e r i c a n , and the French—demonstrates the emergence

this transcendental critique o f the republic o f property overcome

and consolidation o f the republic o f property. In each case the estab-

the powerlessness and bitter resignation that characterize the "tran-

lishment o f the constitutional order and the rule o f law served to

scendent" analyses o f sovereignty and fascism. O u r critique o f cap-

defend and legitimate private property. Later i n this chapter we ex-

ital, the republican constitution, and their intersection as transcen-

plore h o w the radically democratic processes o f the English R e v o l u -

dental forms o f power does not imply either absolute rejection or, o f

tion were blocked by the question o f property: a "people o f prop-

course, acceptance and acquiescence. Instead our critique is an ac-

erty" faced off against "a multitude o f the poor." Here, instead, we

tive process o f resistance and transformation, setting free on a new

focus briefly o n the role o f property i n the U . S . and French revolu-

footing the elements that point toward a democratic future, releas-

tions.

ing, most significantly, the living labor that is closed w i t h i n capital

Just a decade after the Declaration o f Independence affirms the

and the multitude that is corralled w i t h i n its republic. S u c h a c r i -

constituent power o f the A m e r i c a n R e v o l u t i o n and projects a m e c h -

tique thus aims at not a return to the past or creation o f a future ex

anism o f self-government expressed through new, dynamic, and

nihilo but rather a process o f metamorphosis, creating a new society

open political forms, the Federalist and the debates surrounding the

w i t h i n the shell o f the o l d .

drafting o f the Constitution limit and contradict many o f these original elements. T h e dominant lines i n the constitutional debates

Republican Rights of Property

aim to reintroduce and consolidate the sovereign structure o f the

T h e term "republicanism" has been used i n the history o f m o d e r n

state and absorb the constituent drive o f the republic w i t h i n the d y -

political thought to name a variety o f different, competing, often

namic among constitutional powers. Whereas i n the Declaration

10

REPUBLIC

( A N D THE M U L T I T U D E

OF T H E

POOR)

REPUBLIC

OF

PROPERTY

11

constituent power is defined as fundamental, i n the Constitution it

constitution o f popular armies or militias rather than

is understood as something like a national patrimony that is the

armies, w h i c h are understood to be necessarily tyrannical. In the

property and responsibility o f the government, an element o f c o n -

U n i t e d States this tradition has been almost entirely obliterated, and

stitutional sovereignty.

standing 13

the Second A m e n d m e n t has been given the opposite meaning: that

Constituent power is not stripped from constituted public law

each is the enemy o f all; that each must be wary o f those w h o want

but, rather, blocked (and expelled from the practices o f citizenship)

to steal her or his property. F r o m the transformation o f the right to

by the relations o f force that the Constitution is built o n , most i m -

bear arms i n the defense o f private property follows a general rever-

portant the right to property. B e h i n d every formal constitution, le-

sal o f all the central constitutional concepts. Freedom itself, w h i c h

gal theorists explain, lies a "material" one, where by material consti-

many cast as characteristic o f U . S . political thought, i n contrast to

tution is understood the relations o f force that ground, w i t h i n a

the principles o f justice, equality, and solidarity o f the revolutionary

particular framework, the written constitution and define the o r i e n -

French experience, is reduced to an apology for capitalist civiliza-

tations and limits that legislation, legal interpretation, and executive

tion. T h e centrality o f the defense o f property also accounts for the

decision must respect.

10

T h e right to property, i n c l u d i n g originally

pessimistic conception o f human nature, w h i c h is present but sec-

the rights o f slaveholders, is the essential index o f this material c o n -

ondary i n the revolutionary period and comes to the fore i n the

stitution, w h i c h bathes i n its light all other constitutional rights and

constitutional debates. " B u t what is government itself," James M a d i -

liberties o f U . S . citizens. " T h e Constitution," writes Charles Beard

son writes, for example, "but the greatest o f all reflections o n human

in his classic analysis, "was essentially an economic document based

nature? If men were angels, no government w o u l d be necessary."

upon the concept that the fundamental private rights o f property

Freedom becomes the negative power o f human existence, w h i c h

are anterior to government and morally beyond the reach o f p o p u -

serves as a bulwark against the descent o f the innate conflicts o f h u -

lar majorities."

11

14

M a n y scholars have contested Beard's claim that

man nature into civil war. B u t at the b o t t o m o f this notion o f natu-

the founders i n drafting the Constitution were protecting their o w n

ral conflict is the struggle over property. T h e armed individual is the

individual economic interests and wealth, but what remains unchal-

only guarantor o f that freedom. Homo politicus becomes nothing

lenged and entirely convincing i n his analysis is that the participants

other than Homo proprietarius.

in the debate saw the Constitution as founded on economic interests and the rights o f property. " T h e moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws o f G o d , " writes J o h n Adams, for example, "and that there is not a force o f law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence."

12

The

sacred position o f property i n the Constitution is a central obstacle to the practice and development o f constituent power.

In the case o f the French R e v o l u t i o n , the centrality o f property rights develops i n an extraordinarily dynamic and at times v i o lent way. A simple look at the successive revolutionary French C o n stitutions (and, specifically, the Declarations o f the R i g h t s o f M a n and C i t i z e n that serve as their prologues) from 1789 to 1793 and 1795 gives a first indication o f h o w the development o f constitutional thought is constantly governed by the demands o f property.

O n e extreme but significant example o f the effect o f the right

For example, the right to property is affirmed i n almost identical

o f property on the Constitution is the way it transforms the mean-

terms i n all three versions (in Article 2 o f the 1789 and Article 1 o f

ing o f the right to bear arms. This right is affirmed i n the seven-

the 1793 and 1795 Constitutions), but whereas i n 1789 and 1793

teenth- and eighteenth-century A n g l o - A m e r i c a n tradition as the

the right to property is linked w i t h the right o f "resistance to o p -

collective right to achieve and defend freedom, and it calls for the

pression," i n 1795 it is related only to "security." As far as equality is

REPUBLIC

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OF T H E

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POOR)

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PROPERTY

concerned, whereas i n A r t i c l e 6 o f 1789 and Article 4 o f 1793 it is

ogy, come back into play. Moreover, w h e n the right to property be-

defined as a basic right o f each subject (and thus also applies to prop-

comes once again central w i t h i n the constellation o f new rights af-

erty), i n Article 6 o f 1795 the mandate o f equality is subordinated to

firmed by the bourgeois revolutions, it no longer stands simply as a

the rule o f the majority o f citizens or their representatives. Equality

real right but becomes the paradigm for all the fundamental rights.

becomes increasingly formal, increasingly defined as a legal structure

A r t i c l e 544 o f the 1804 C o d e C i v i l , for example, gives a definition

that protects wealth and strengthens the appropriative, possessive

o f property that characterizes notions still c o m m o n today: " O w n e r -

power o f the individual (understood as property owner).

ship is the right to enjoy and dispose o f things i n the most absolute

A more substantial and complex v i e w o f the centrality o f prop-

manner, provided they are not used i n a way contrary to law or 16

erty i n the republic emerges w h e n we focus o n h o w the traditional

regulations."

In the dominant line o f European political thought

conception o f "real rights"—jus reale, the right over things—is re-

from L o c k e to H e g e l , the absolute rights o f people to appropriate

discovered i n the course o f the French R e v o l u t i o n . These "real

things becomes the basis and substantive end o f the legally defined

rights," property rights i n particular, are clearly no longer those o f

free individual.

the ancien regime insofar as they no longer establish a static table o f

T h e centrality o f property i n the republican constitution can

values and set o f institutions that determine privilege and exclusion.

be substantiated from a negative standpoint by l o o k i n g at the H a i -

In the French R e v o l u t i o n "real rights" emerge from a new o n t o -

tian R e v o l u t i o n and the extraordinary hostility to it. B y liberating

logical h o r i z o n that is defined by the productivity o f labor. In France,

the slaves, o f course, Haitian revolutionaries should be considered

however, as i n all the bourgeois revolutions, these real rights have a

from the perspective o f freedom more advanced than any o f their

paradoxical relation to emerging capitalist ideology. O n the one

counterparts i n Europe or N o r t h A m e r i c a ; but the vast majority o f

hand, real rights are gradually given greater importance over the

eighteenth- and nineteenth-century

universal, abstract rights that seemed to have prominence i n the he-

embrace the Haitian R e v o l u t i o n but struggled as well to suppress it

roic Jacobin phase. Private property at least points toward the h u -

and contain its effects. F o r the subsequent two centuries i n fact, his-

man capacity to transform and appropriate nature. Article 5 o f the

torians have excluded H a i t i from the great pantheon o f m o d e r n re-

republicans not only did not

1795 Constitution, for example, reads, "Property is the right to e n -

publican revolutions to such an extent that even the m e m o r y o f the

joy and use one's o w n goods, incomes, the fruit o f one's labor and

revolutionary event has been silenced. T h e Haitian R e v o l u t i o n was

industry." As the revolution proceeds, however, there is a shift i n the

an unthinkable event from the perspective o f contemporary Europe

point o f reference from the abstract terrain o f the general w i l l to the

and the U n i t e d States, centrally, no doubt, because o f deeply embed-

concrete one o f the right and order o f property.

15

O n the other

ded ideologies and institutions o f racial superiority, but we should

hand, real rights, w h i c h constitute the foundation o f rents and i n -

also recognize that the Haitian R e v o l u t i o n was unthinkable because

comes, are opposed to "dynamic rights," w h i c h stem directly from

it violated the rule o f property. A simple syllogism is at w o r k here:

labor, and although dynamic rights appear to predominate over real

the republic must protect private property; slaves are private prop-

rights i n the early revolutionary period, gradually real rights become

erty; therefore republicanism must oppose the freeing o f the slaves.

hegemonic over the dynamic ones and end up being central. Landed

W i t h the example o f H a i t i , i n effect, the republican pretense to value

property and slave property, i n other words, w h i c h appear initially to

freedom and equality directly conflicts w i t h the rule o f property—

have been subordinated as archaic conditions o f production, cast

and property wins out. In this sense the exclusion o f the Haitian

aside i n favor o f the dynamic rights associated w i t h capitalist ideol-

R e v o l u t i o n from the canon o f republicanism is powerful evidence

REPUBLIC

( A N D THE M U L T I T U D E

OF T H E

REPUBLIC

POOR)

OF P R O P E R T Y

o f the sacred status o f property to the republic. It may be appropri-

this development w i t h extraordinary clarity. "It is most obvious," P a -

ate, i n fact, that H a i t i be excluded from the list o f republican revolu-

shukanis claims,

tions, not because the Haitian R e v o l u t i o n is somehow unworthy o f the republican spirit but, o n the contrary, because republicanism does not live up to the spirit o f freedom and equality contained i n the Haitian rebellion against slavery!

that the logic o f juridical concepts corresponds w i t h the logic o f the social relationship o f c o m m o d i t y production, and that the history o f the system o f private law should be sought i n

17

T h e primacy o f property is revealed i n all m o d e r n colonial histories. Each time a European power brings new practices o f government to its colonies i n the name o f reason, efficiency, and the rule o f law, the primary "republican v i r t u e " they establish is the rule o f property. This is evident, for example, i n the "Permanent Settlement" established i n Bengal by British colonial authorities and ad-

these relationships and not i n the dispensation o f the authorities. O n the contrary, the logical relationships o f domination and subordination are only partially included i n the system o f juridical concepts. Therefore, the juridical concept o f the state may never become a theory but w i l l always appear as an ideological distortion o f the facts.

19

ministrators o f the East India C o m p a n y i n the late eighteenth cen-

For Pashukanis, i n effect, all law is private law, and public law is

tury to guarantee the security o f property, especially landed property,

merely an ideological figure imagined by bourgeois legal theorists.

and bolster the position o f the Zamindar, the existing Bengali prop-

W h a t is central for our purposes here is that the concept o f property

ertied class, thereby solidifying taxation and revenue. Ranajit G u h a ,

and the defense o f property remain the foundation o f every m o d e r n

i n his analysis o f the debates leading to the settlement, puzzles over

political constitution. T h i s is the sense i n w h i c h the republic, from

the fact that such a quasi-feudal land settlement c o u l d have been

the great bourgeois revolutions to today, is a republic o f property.

authored by bourgeois Englishmen, some o f w h o m were great admirers o f the French R e v o l u t i o n . G u h a assumes that European

Sapere Aude!

bourgeoisies compromise their republican ideals w h e n ruling over

Kant is a prophet o f the republic o f property not so m u c h directly i n

conquered lands i n order to find a social base for their powers, but

his political or economic views but indirectly i n the f o r m o f power

i n fact they are just establishing there the core principle o f the bour-

he discovers through his epistemological and philosophical i n q u i r -

geois republics: the rule o f property. T h e security and inviolability o f

ies. W e propose to follow Kant's method o f transcendental critique,

property is so firmly fixed i n the republican mentality that colonial

but i n d o i n g so we are decidedly deviant, unfaithful followers, read-

authorities do not question the g o o d o f its dissemination.

18

Finally, w i t h the construction o f the welfare state i n the first

ing his w o r k against the grain. T h e political project we propose is not only (with Kant) an attack on transcendent sovereignty and

half o f the twentieth century, public property gains a more i m p o r -

(against Kant) a critique aimed to destabilize the

transcendental

tant role i n the republican constitution. This transformation o f the

power o f the republic o f property, but also and ultimately (beyond

right to property, however, follows the capitalist transformation o f

Kant) an affirmation o f the immanent powers o f social life, because

the organization o f labor, reflecting the increasing importance that

this immanent scene is the terrain—the only possible terrain—on

public conditions begin to exert over the relations o f production.

w h i c h democracy can be constructed.

Despite all the changes, the o l d dictum remains valid: I'esprit des lois,

O u r affirmation o f immanence is not based o n any faith i n the

c'est la propriete. Evgeny Pashukanis, w r i t i n g i n the 1920s, anticipates

immediate or spontaneous capacities o f society. T h e social plane o f

15

REPUBLIC

( A N D THE M U L T I T U D E

OF T H E

REPUBLIC

POOR)

OF

PROPERTY

immanence has to be organized politically. O u r critical project is

m o r n i n g walk. Indeed the major line o f Kant's w o r k participates i n

thus not simply a matter o f refusing the mechanisms o f power and

that solid European rationalist tradition that considers E n l i g h t e n -

w i e l d i n g violence against them. Refusal, o f course, is an important

ment the process o f the "emendation o f reason" that coincides w i t h

and powerful reaction to the imposition o f domination, but it alone

and supports the preservation o f the current social order.

does not extend beyond the negative gesture.Violence can also be a

O n the other hand, though, Kant opens the possibility o f read-

crucial, necessary response, often as a k i n d o f boomerang effect, re-

ing the Enlightenment injunction against the grain: "dare to k n o w "

directing the violence o f domination that has been deposited i n our

really means at the same time also " k n o w h o w to dare." T h i s simple

bones to strike back at the power that originated it. B u t such v i o -

inversion indicates the audacity and courage required, along w i t h

lence too is merely reactive and creates nothing. We need to educate

the risks involved, i n thinking, speaking, and acting autonomously.

these spontaneous reactions, transforming refusal into resistance and

This is the m i n o r Kant, the bold, daring Kant, w h i c h is often h i d -

violence into the use o f force. T h e former i n each case is an i m m e -

den, subterranean, buried i n his texts, but from time to time breaks

diate response, whereas the latter results from a confrontation w i t h

out w i t h a ferocious, volcanic, disruptive power. Here reason is n o

reality and training o f our political instincts and habits, our imagina-

longer the foundation o f duty that supports established social au-

tions and desires. M o r e important, too, resistance and the c o o r d i -

thority but rather a disobedient, rebellious force that breaks through

nated use o f force extend beyond the negative reaction to power

the fixity o f the present and discovers the new. W h y , after all, should

toward an organizational project to construct an alternative o n the

we dare to think and speak for ourselves i f these capacities are only

immanent plane o f social life.

to be silenced immediately by a muzzle o f obedience? Kant's critical

T h e need for invention and organization paradoxically brings

method is i n fact double: his critiques do determine the system o f

us back to Kant, or, really, to a m i n o r voice that runs throughout

transcendental conditions o f knowledge and phenomena, but they

Kant's writings and presents an alternative to the c o m m a n d and au-

also occasionally step beyond the transcendental plane to take up a

thority o f m o d e r n power. T h i s alternative comes to the surface

humanistic notion o f power and invention, the key to the free, b i o -

clearly, for example, i n his brief and w e l l - k n o w n text " A n Answer to

political construction o f the w o r l d . T h e major K a n t provides the

T h e key to emerging

tools for stabilizing the transcendental ordering o f the republic o f

from the state o f immaturity, the self-sustained state o f dependency

property, whereas the m i n o r K a n t blasts apart its foundations, o p e n -

i n w h i c h we rely o n those i n authority to speak and think for us,

ing the way for mutation and free creation o n the biopolitical plane

and establishing our ability and w i l l to speak and think for ourselves,

o f immanence. '

the Question: ' W h a t is E n l i g h t e n m e n t ? ' "

20

2

Kant begins, recalling Horace's injunction, is sapere aude, "dare to

This alternative w i t h i n Kant helps us differentiate between two

know." T h i s notion o f Enlightenment and its defining injunction,

political paths. T h e lines o f the major Kant are extended i n the field

however, become terribly ambiguous i n the course o f Kant's essay.

o f political thought most faithfully today by theorists o f social de-

O n the one hand, as he explains the k i n d o f reasoning we should

mocracy, w h o speak about reason and Enlightenment but never re-

adopt, it becomes clear that it is not very daring at all: it compels us

ally enter onto the terrain where daring to k n o w and k n o w i n g h o w

dutifully to fulfill our designated roles i n society, to pay taxes, to be a

to dare coincide. Enlightenment for them is a perpetually u n f i n -

soldier, a c i v i l servant, and ultimately to obey the authority o f the

ished project that always requires acceptance o f the established social

sovereign, Frederick II. T h i s is the K a n t whose life is so regularly

structures, consent to a compromised vision o f rights and d e m o c -

ordered, they say, that y o u can set your watch by the time o f his

racy, acquiescence to the lesser evil. Social democrats thus never rad-

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POOR)

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PROPERTY

ically question the republic o f property, either blithely i g n o r i n g its

o f reformist mediation emerging directly from social reality, G i d -

power or naively assuming that it can be reformed to generate a so-

dens takes recourse to a sovereign power that can b r i n g to c o n c l u -

ciety o f democracy and equality.

sion the process o f reform. Paradoxically, Giddens introduces a tran-

T h e social democratic projects o f j i i r g e n Habermas and J o h n

scendental project and then is subsequently forced to violate it w i t h

Rawls, for example, aim to maintain a social order based o n tran-

such an appeal to a transcendent power. U l r i c h B e c k , more than

scendental, formal schema. Early i n their careers Habermas and

Giddens and indeed more than any other social democratic theorist,

Rawls both propose more dynamic concepts oriented toward social

is w i l l i n g to set his feet solidly i n the real social field and deal w i t h

transformation: Habermas works w i t h a Hegelian n o t i o n o f inter-

all the ambiguous struggles, the uncertainty, fear, and passions that

subjectivity that opens the possibility for radical productive subjec-

constitute it. B e c k is able to recognize, for example, the dynamics o f

tive capacity, and R a w l s insists o n a "difference p r i n c i p l e " whereby

workers' struggles against the factory regime and against factory

social decisions and institutions should benefit most the least advan-

closings. A l t h o u g h he can analyze the exhaustion o f one social form,

taged members o f society. These proposals, albeit i n different ways,

however, such as the modernity o f the factory regime o f production,

suggest a dynamic o f social transformation. In the course o f their

he cannot grasp fully the emergence o f new social forces. H i s think-

careers, however, these possibilities o f social transformation and sub-

ing thus runs up against the fixity o f the transcendental structure,

jective capacity are diluted or completely abandoned. Habermas's

w h i c h even for h i m ultimately guides the analysis. M o d e r n i t y gives

notions o f communicative reason and action come to define a pro-

way to hypermodernity i n Beck's view, w h i c h is really, i n the end,

cess that constantly mediates all social reality, thus accepting and

only a continuation o f modernity's primary structures.

23

even reinforcing the given terms o f the existing social order. R a w l s

Analogous social democratic positions are c o m m o n among

constructs a formal, transcendental schema o f judgment that n e u -

contemporary theorists o f globalization as diverse as D a v i d H e l d ,

tralizes subjective capacities and transformative processes, putting

Joseph Stiglitz, and Thomas Friedman. T h e Kantian resonances are

the emphasis instead o n maintaining the e q u i l i b r i u m o f the social

not as strong here, but these theorists do preach reform o f the global

system. T h e version o f social democracy we find i n Habermas and

system w i t h o u t ever calling into question the structures o f capital

R a w l s thus echoes the notion o f Enlightenment o f the major Kant,

and property. T h e essence o f social democracy i n all these various

w h i c h , despite its rhetoric o f emendation, reinforces the existing so-

figures is the proposition o f social reform, sometimes even aimed at

cial order through schemas o f transcendental formalism.

22

24

equality, freedom, and democracy, that fails to draw into question—

A n t h o n y Giddens and U l r i c h B e c k propose a version o f social

and even reinforces—the structures o f the republic o f property. In

democracy whose basis is m u c h more empirical and pragmatic.

this way social democratic reformism dovetails perfectly w i t h the

Whereas Habermas and R a w l s require a point o f departure and m e -

reformism o f capital. Social democrats like to call their m o d e r n proj-

diation that is i n some sense "outside" the social plane, Giddens and

ect unfinished, as i f w i t h more time and greater efforts the desired

B e c k start "inside." Giddens, adopting a skeptical standpoint, at-

reforms w i l l finally come about, but really this claim is completely

tempts to fashion from the empirical and the phenomenal level an

illusory because the process is blocked from the outset by the u n -

adequate representation o f society i n the process o f reform, w o r k i n g ,

questioned transcendental structures o f law and property. Social

one could say, from the social to the transcendental plane. W h e n so-

democrats continue faithfully the transcendental position o f the m a -

ciety refuses to comply, however, w h e n ghettos i n revolt and social

j o r Kant, advocating a process o f Enlightenment i n w h i c h , paradoxi-

conflicts sprouting all around make it impossible to maintain an idea

cally, all elements o f the existing social order stay firmly i n place.

19

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R e f o r m i n g or perfecting the republic o f property w i l l never lead to

dares to k n o w and act rather than maintaining the rules o f an E n -

equality and freedom but only perpetuate its structures o f inequality

lightenment that has become mere routine.

reac-

W e w i l l try instead i n the pages that follow to develop the

tionary, recognizes clearly, i n the passage that serves as an epigraph to

m e t h o d o f the m i n o r Kant, for w h o m daring to k n o w requires s i -

this chapter, that liberty and property are as contrary as fire and w a -

multaneously k n o w i n g h o w to dare. This too is an Enlightenment

ter, and cannot stand together.

project, but one based o n an alternative rationality i n w h i c h a m e t h -

and unfreedom. R o b e r t Filmer, a lucid seventeenth-century

Such neo-Kantian positions may appear harmless, even i f i l l u -

odology o f materialism and metamorphosis calls o n powers o f resis-

sory, but at several points i n history they have played damaging roles,

tance, creativity, and invention. Whereas the major Kant provides the

particularly i n the p e r i o d o f the rise o f fascism. N o one, o f course, is

instruments to support and defend the republic o f property even up

blameless w h e n such tragedies occur, but from the late nineteenth

to today, the m i n o r Kant helps us see h o w to overthrow it and c o n -

century to the 1920s and 1930s neo-Kantianism constituted the

struct a democracy o f the multitude.

central ideology o f bourgeois society and European politics, and i n deed the only ideology open to social democratic reformism. P r i marily i n M a r b u r g (with H e r m a n n C o h e n and Paul Natorp) and Heidelberg (with H e i n r i c h R i c k e r t and W i l h e l m Windelband) but also i n O x f o r d , Paris, Boston, and R o m e , all the possible Kantian variations blossomed. Seldom has an ideological concert been as widespread and its influence as profound over an entire system o f Geisteswissenschaften. Corporate bosses and syndicalists, liberals and socialists divided the parts, some playing i n the orchestra, others w i t h the chorus. B u t there was something profoundly out o f tune i n this concert: a dogmatic faith i n the inevitable reform o f society and progress o f spirit, w h i c h meant for them the advance o f bourgeois rationality. This faith was not based o n some political w i l l to b r i n g about transformation or even any risk o f engaging i n struggle. W h e n the fascisms emerged, then, the transcendental consciousness o f m o dernity was immediately swept away. D o we have to m o u r n that fact? It does not seem that contemporary social democratic thinkers w i t h their transcendental illusion have any more effective response than their predecessors to the risks and dangers we face, w h i c h , as we said earlier, are different from those o f the 1930s. Instead the i l lusory faith i n progress masks and obstructs the real means o f p o l i t i cal action and struggle while maintaining the transcendental mechanisms o f power that continue to exercise violence over anyone w h o

21

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an activity w h o l l y alien to itself, to man and to nature, and

1.2

hence to consciousness and vital expression, the abstract existence o f man as a mere workman w h o therefore tumbles day after day from his fulfilled nothingness into absolute n o t h i n g -

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ness, into his social and hence real non-existence; and o n the other, the production o f the object o f human labour as capital, i n w h i c h all the natural and social individuality o f the object is extinguished and private property has lost its natural and social

In girum imus nocte Et consumimur igni.

quality (i.e. has lost all political and social appearances and is

(We traveled through the night

not even apparently tainted w i t h any human relationships) .

2 5

A n d were consumed / redeemed by fire.) —Guy Debord

Private property i n its capitalist f o r m thus produces a relation o f exploitation i n its fullest sense—the production o f the human as c o m m o d i t y — a n d excludes from view the materiality o f human needs and poverty.

From the Marxist Critique of Property . . .

Marx's critical approach i n these early texts is powerful but not

K a r l M a r x develops i n his early w o r k — f r o m " O n the Jewish Q u e s -

sufficient to grasp the entire set o f effects that property, operating

t i o n " and the " C r i t i q u e o f Hegel's Philosophy o f R i g h t " to his " E c o -

through law, determines over human life. M a n y twentieth-century

n o m i c and Philosophical Manuscripts"—an analysis o f private prop-

Marxist authors extend the critique o f private property beyond the

erty as the basis o f all capitalist legal structures. T h e relationship

legal context to account for the diverse material dynamics that c o n -

between capital and law defines a paradoxical power structure that is

stitute oppression and exploitation i n capitalist society. Louis A l -

at once extraordinarily abstract and entirely concrete. O n the one

thusser, for one, clearly defines this shift i n perspective, configuring

hand, legal structures are abstract representations o f social reality, rel-

it i n philological and scholastic terms as a break w i t h i n Marx's o w n

atively indifferent to social contents, and o n the other, capitalist

thought from his youthful humanism to his mature materialism. A l -

property defines the concrete conditions o f the exploitation o f l a -

thusser recognizes, i n effect, a passage from the analysis o f property

bor. B o t h are totalizing social frameworks, extending across the e n -

as exploitation i n terms o f a transcendental f o r m to the analysis o f it

tire social space, w o r k i n g i n coordination and h o l d i n g together, so

i n terms o f the material organization o f bodies i n the production

to speak, the abstract and concrete planes. M a r x adds to this para-

and reproduction o f capitalist society. In this passage critique is, so to

doxical synthesis o f the abstract and the concrete the recognition

speak, raised to the level o f truth and at the same time superseded, as

that labor is the positive content o f private property. " T h e relation o f

philosophy gives way to politics. In roughly the same p e r i o d M a x

private property contains latent w i t h i n itself," M a r x writes,

H o r k h e i m e r , T h e o d o r A d o r n o , and other authors o f the Frankfurt School, especially w h e n they confront the conditions o f U . S . cap-

the relation o f private property as labour, the relation o f private

italist development, operate a corresponding shift w i t h i n M a r x i s m :

property as capital and the connection o f these two. O n the one

emphasizing the breakdown o f the conceptual boundary between

hand we have the production o f human activity as labour, i.e. as

structure and superstructure, the consequent construction o f mate-

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rially effective ideological structures o f rule (corresponding to A l -

the break w i t h every transcendental concept o f the revolutionary

thusser's "ideological state apparatuses"), and the accomplishment o f

process such that every theoretical notion o f constitution has to be

the real subsumption o f society w i t h i n capital. T h e result o f these

grounded i n concrete experience.

diverse interventions is a "phenomenologization" o f critique, that is, a shift to consider the relationship between critique and its object as a material dispositif, w i t h i n the collective dimension o f bodies—a shift, i n short, from the transcendental to the immanent.

28

It is interesting i n this context to l o o k back at the 1970 Situationist manifesto titled " C o n t r i b u t i o n a la prise de conscience d'une classe qui sera la derniere."What is fascinating about this avant-garde

26

text is certainly not its ridiculous Dadaist declarations or its sophisti-

T h i s shift moves toward a perspective that had been difficult to

cated "Letterist" paradoxes but rather the fact o f its being an investi-

recognize w i t h i n the Marxist tradition: the standpoint o f bodies.

gation o f the concrete conditions o f labor, one that is able to grasp

W h e n we credit this shift to Althusser and the Frankfurt School, we

i n initial and partial but nonetheless correct terms the separation o f

do so rather maliciously because we are convinced that the real pas-

labor-power from the control o f capital w h e n immaterial produc-

sage, w h i c h is only intuited or suspected o n the scholastic level o f

tion becomes hegemonic over all the other valorization processes.

such authors, is accomplished on the level o f theory developed

This Situationist worker investigation anticipates i n some extraordi-

w i t h i n militancy or activism. T h e journals Socialisme ou barbarie i n

nary ways the social transformations o f the twenty-first century. L i v -

France and Quaderni rossi i n Italy are among the first i n the 1960s to

ing labor oriented toward producing immaterial goods, such as c o g -

pose the theoretical-practical importance o f the standpoint o f b o d -

nitive or intellectual labor, always exceeds the bounds set o n it and

ies i n Marxist analysis. In many respects the investigations o f worker

poses forms o f desire that are not consumed and forms o f life that

and peasant insurgencies i n the South Asian j o u r n a l Subaltern Studies

accumulate. W h e n immaterial production becomes hegemonic, all

develop along parallel lines, and certainly there are other similar ex-

the elements o f the capitalist process have to be viewed i n a new

periences that emerge i n the Marxist analyses o f this period through-

light, sometimes i n terms completely inverted from the traditional

out the w o r l d . K e y is the immersion o f the analysis i n the struggles

analyses o f historical materialism. W h a t was called "the transition

o f the subordinated and exploited, considered as the matrix o f every

from capitalism to c o m m u n i s m " takes the form o f a process o f l i b -

institutional relationship and every figure o f social organization. " U p

eration i n practice, the constitution o f a new world. T h r o u g h the

to this point we have analyzed capital," M a r i o Tronti writes i n the

activity o f conducting a worker investigation, i n other words, the

early 1960s, but "from n o w o n we have to analyze the struggles as the principle o f all historical movement."

27

R a n i e r o Panzieri, w h o

like Tronti is a central figure i n Quaderni rossi, adds that although M a r x i s m is b o r n as sociology, the fundamental task is to translate that sociological perspective into not just political science but really the science o f revolution. In Socialisme ou barbarie, to give another example, Cornelius Castoriadis emphasizes that revolutionary research constantly has to follow and be redefined by the forms o f the social movements. A n d finally Hans-Jiirgen K r a h l , i n the midst o f one o f those extraordinary discussions at the heart o f the G e r m a n socialist youth movements that precede the events o f 1968, insists o n

"phenomenologization" o f critique becomes

revolutionary—and

we find M a r x redivivus. This entry o f the phenomenology o f bodies into Marxist theory, w h i c h begins by opposing any ideology o f rights and law, any transcendental mediation or dialectical relationship, has to be organized politically—and indeed this perspective provides some o f the bases for the events o f 1968.This intellectual development recalls i n some respects the scientific transformations o f the Italian R e n a i s sance three centuries earlier. Renaissance philosophers combined their critique o f the scholastic tradition w i t h experiments to understand the nature o f reality, c o m b i n g the city, for example, for animals

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to dissect, using their bistoury and scalpels to reveal the functioning

o f genocide—forces Marxist theorists o f that generation to recog-

o f individual bodies. So too the theorists i n the 1950s and 1960s,

nize not only the commodification o f laboring bodies but also the

w h e n , one might say, modernity arrives at its conclusion, recognize

torture o f gendered and racialized bodies. It is no coincidence that

the necessity not only to develop a philosophical critique o f the

the series o f classic studies o f the discontent and poverty o f the h u -

Marxist tradition but also to ground it i n militant experience, using

man spirit—from Freud to Marcuse—can be read as an encyclope-

the scalpels that reveal, through readings o f the factory and social

dia o f colonial-capitalist violence. T h e paradox, though, is that even i n the moment o f capital's

struggles, the new anatomy o f collective bodies. M a n y different paths trace this passage i n European Marxist

t r i u m p h i n the 1960s, w h e n bodies are directly invested by the mode

theory. T h e fundamental genealogy no doubt follows the develop-

o f production and the commodification o f life has rendered their

ment o f workers' struggles inside and outside the factories, m o v i n g

relations entirely abstract, that is the point w h e n , immediately w i t h i n

from salary demands to social demands and thus extending the ter-

the processes o f industrial and social production, bodies spring back

rain o f struggle and analysis to reach all corners o f social life. T h e

onto center stage i n the f o r m o f revolt. This returns us to the p r i -

dynamic o f struggles is not only antagonistic but also constructive

mordial necessity o f bourgeois society we analyzed earlier, that is,

or, better, constituent, interpreting a new era o f political economy

the right o f property as the basis o f the republic itself. This is not the

and proposing w i t h i n it new alternatives. (We w i l l return i n detail to

exception but the normal c o n d i t i o n o f the republic that reveals both

this economic transformation and the constituent struggles w i t h i n it

the transcendental c o n d i t i o n and the material foundation o f the so-

i n Part 3.) B u t other important intellectual developments undoubt-

cial order. O n l y the standpoint o f bodies and their power can chal-

edly allow and force European Marxist theorists to move toward a

lenge the discipline and control wielded by the republic o f prop-

standpoint o f bodies. T h e w o r k o f Simone de Beauvoir and the be-

erty.

ginnings o f second wave feminist thought, for example, focus attention powerfully o n the gender differences and hierarchies that are

. . . To the Phenomenology of Bodies

profoundly material and corporeal. Antiracist thought, particularly

Philosophy is not always the o w l o f M i n e r v a , arriving at dusk to i l -

emerging from the anticolonial struggles i n these years, put pressure

luminate retrospectively a waning historical period. Sometimes it

on European Marxist theory to adopt the standpoint o f bodies to

anticipates history—and that is not always a good thing. In Europe

recognize both the structures o f domination and the possibilities for

reactionary philosophies have often anticipated and posed the i d e o -

liberation struggles. W e can recognize another, rather different path

logical bases for historical events, i n c l u d i n g the rise o f fascisms and

toward the theoretical centrality o f the body i n two films by A l a i n

the great totalitarianisms o f the twentieth century.-' Consider, for

Resnais from the 1950s. Night and Fog and Hiroshima mon amour

example, two authors w h o dominate European thought i n the first

(written by Marguerite Duras) mark the imaginary o f a generation

decades o f the century and effectively anticipate the totalitarian

o f European intellectuals w i t h the horrors o f the Jewish Holocaust

events: H e n r i Bergson and G i o v a n n i Gentile. T h e i r w o r k helps us

and the atomic devastation i n Japan. T h e threat and reality o f geno-

trace another important genealogy that brings us back to the phe-

cidal acts thrusts the theme o f life itself onto center stage so that ev-

nomenology o f bodies w i t h a new and powerful perspective.

ery reference to economic production and reproduction cannot for-

T h e essential anticipatory element o f this stream o f early-

get the centrality o f bodies. Each o f these perspectives—feminist

twentieth-century European thought, w h i c h has a profound influ-

thought, antiracist and anticolonial thought, and the consciousness

ence o n reactionary political ideologies, is its invention o f a philoso-

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phy o f life that poses at its center an ethics o f radical action.Vitalism,

positions to become hegemonic i n the confused scene o f European

w h i c h unleashes a destructive fury o n the critical tradition, tran-

cultural and political debates.

scendental epistemologies, and Kantian liberal ideology, has such i n -

Phenomenology emerges i n this context to operate an anti-

fluence in part because it corresponds to some o f the dominant p o -

Platonic, anti-idealist, and above all anti-transcendental revolution.

litical and economic developments o f the times. Capitalist c o m m a n d

Phenomenology is posed primarily as an attempt to go beyond the

has been thrown into crisis by the first serious expressions o f the

skeptical and relativist effects o f post-Hegelian historicism, but at

workers' movement as a subversive force, and capital's stable values

the same time it is driven to rediscover i n every concept and every

seem to be threatened by a chaotic relativism. Capitalist ideology

idea modes o f life and material substance. Reflecting o n the c o m -

needs to return to its beginnings, reaffirming its values, verifying its

plex legacy o f Kantianism and the violent consequences o f vitalism,

decision-making powers, and destroying every obstacle posed by

phenomenology pulls critique away from transcendental abstraction

mechanisms o f social mediation. Such a context provides fertile soil

and reformulates it as an engagement w i t h lived experience. T h i s

for a blind and proud voluntarism. Vitalism, w h i c h Bergson config-

immersion i n concrete and determinate being is the great strength

ures as flux and Gentile as a dialectic without negativity, presents a

o f twentieth-century phenomenology, w h i c h corresponds to the

powerful ideology for affirming a hegemonic w i l l . Transcendental

transformation o f M a r x i s m that we traced earlier, from the critique

abstraction pays the price as the conception o f history is forced to

o f property to the critique o f bodies.

m o l d itself to the teleology o f power. Bergson ends his life a C a t h o lic and Gentile a fascist: that is h o w history reenters their thought. W h e n history is believed to be threatened by an absolute relativism, religious values or voluntaristic affirmations seem the only alternative.

M a r t i n Heidegger marks out one influential path o f p h e n o m enology, but one that fails to arrive at the critique and affirmation o f bodies that interests us here. H i s thought is permeated by a brooding reflection over the failure o f modernity and destruction o f its values. H e brings phenomenology back to classical ontology not i n order

T h e great historicist thinkers o f the period are also caught be-

to develop a means to reconstruct being through human productive

tween these two poles: either relativism or a religious/voluntarist

capacities but rather as a meditation on our telluric condition, our

escape.The lines are already clear, for example, i n the late-nineteenth-

powerlessness, and death. A l l that can be constructed, all that resis-

century exchanges between W i l h e l m Dilthey and G r a f Paul Yorck

tances and struggles produce, is here instead disempowered and

von Wartenburg. For Yorck relativism means cynicism and material-

found " t h r o w n " onto the surface o f being. W h a t phenomenology

ism, whereas for Dilthey it opens the possibility o f a vital and singu-

casts o u t — i n c l u d i n g Bergsonian vitalism, Gentile's voluntarism, and

3

lar affirmation w i t h i n and through the historical process. " This de-

historicist relativism—Heidegger brings i n the back door, positing it

bate prefigures, i n epistemological terms and i n the relationship

as the fabric o f the present constitution o f being. Heidegger's n o t i o n

between history and event, the tragedies o f twentieth-century E u -

o f Gelassenheit, letting go, withdrawing from engagement, for ex-

rope i n w h i c h the event and transcendence take horrifying forms i n

ample, not only brings back the earlier vitalism and voluntarism by

the l o n g "European civil war" and historicism comes to mean s i m -

confusing history w i t h destiny but also reconfigures them as an

ply political disorientation, i n the various figures o f fascism and

apology for fascism. " W h o w o u l d have thought reading Being and

populism. T h e destruction o f the critical tradition and the dissolu-

Time," R e i n e r Schiirmann reflects,"that a few years later Heidegger

tion o f neo-Kantianism is one necessary prerequisite for the vitalist

w o u l d have entrusted the Da-sein to someone's will? T h i s institution

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o f a contingent w i l l that rules over the Da determines the anthro-

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Tracing the genealogy o f phenomenology through the w o r k

31

o f Merleau-Ponty i n this way also provides us w i t h a particularly i l -

T h e critique and affirmation o f bodies that characterizes phenome-

luminating perspective o n the w o r k o f M i c h e l Foucault. In his anal-

nology's revolution i n philosophy thus gets completely lost i n

yses o f power we can already see h o w Foucault adopts and pushes

Heidegger.

forward the central elements, posing being not i n abstract or tran-

pology, the theology, and the populism o f Heidegger's

thought."

This Heideggerian trajectory, however, should not obscure the

scendental figures but i n the concrete reality o f bodies and their a l -

m u c h more important path o f phenomenology that extends from

terity. W h e n he insists that there is no central, transcendent locus

E d m u n d Husserl to M a u r i c e Merleau-Ponty. Even though closed i n

o f power but only a myriad o f micropowers that are exercised i n

the speculative cage o f the transcendental, imposed by the G e r m a n

capillary forms across the surfaces o f bodies i n their practices and

academy, Husserl spends his life trying to break d o w n the consis-

disciplinary regimes, many commentators object that he is betraying

tency o f the subject as individual and reconstruct subjectivity as a

the Marxist tradition (and Foucault himself contributes to this i m -

relation w i t h the other, projecting knowledge through intentional-

pression). In our view, though, Foucault's analyses o f bodies and

ity. (This project leads h i m i n the 1930s to denounce the develop-

power i n this phase o f his work, following a line initiated by

ment o f the European sciences and the crisis o f their ethical content,

Merleau-Ponty, really make g o o d o n some o f the intuitions that the

w h e n capitalism and national sovereignty, imperialism, and war have

y o u n g M a r x c o u l d not completely grasp about the need to b r i n g

usurped their goals and meaning.) In M e r l e a u - P o n t y being-inside

the critique o f property, along w i t h all the transcendental structures

the concrete reality o f bodies implies an even more

o f capitalist society, back to the phenomenology o f bodies. Foucault

32

fundamental

relation to alterity, being among others, i n the perceptive modalities

adopts many disguises—larvatus prodeo—in

and the linguistic forms o f being. A n d the experience o f alterity is

M a r x i s m , but that relationship is nonetheless extremely profound.

his relationship w i t h

always traversed by a project to construct the c o m m o n . Immanence

T h e phenomenology o f bodies i n Foucault reaches its highest

thus becomes the exclusive h o r i z o n o f philosophy, an immanence

point i n his analysis o f biopolitics, and here, i f y o u focus o n the es-

that is opposed not only to metaphysical transcendence but also to

sential, his research agenda is simple. Its first a x i o m is that bodies are

epistemological transcendentalism. It is no coincidence, then, that

the constitutive components o f the biopolitical fabric o f being. O n

this path o f phenomenology intersects at this point, i n M e r l e a u -

the biopolitical terrain—this is the second a x i o m — w h e r e powers

Ponty and others, w i t h Marxist critiques o f law and the rule o f prop-

are continually made and unmade, bodies resist. T h e y have to resist

erty, o f human rights as a natural or originary structure, and even o f

in order to exist. H i s t o r y cannot therefore be understood merely as

the concept o f identity itself (as individual, nation, state, and so

the h o r i z o n o n w h i c h biopower configures reality through d o m i n a -

forth). Phenomenology, o f course, is not the only philosophical ten-

tion. O n the contrary, history is determined by the biopolitical an-

dency i n this period to cast aside transcendental critique and oper-

tagonisms and resistances to biopower. T h e third a x i o m o f his re-

ate such a construction from below that affirms the resistance and

search agenda is that corporeal resistance produces subjectivity, not

productivity o f bodies; we have elsewhere investigated similar prop-

in an isolated or independent way but i n the complex dynamic w i t h

ositions, for example, i n the materialist traditions that b r i n g together

the resistances o f other bodies. T h i s production o f subjectivity

a constitutive Spinozist ethics w i t h a Nietzschean critique o f fixed

through resistance and struggle w i l l prove central, as our analysis

values. B u t phenomenology highlights perhaps more strongly than

proceeds, not only to the subversion o f the existing forms o f power

others the fundamental relation between corporeality and alterity.

but also to the constitution o f alternative institutions o f liberation.

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Here we can say, to return to our earlier discussion, that Foucault

mentalists from other religious practitioners, i n fact, is the extreme

carries forward the banner o f the m i n o r Kant, the Kant w h o not

importance they give to the body: what it does, what parts o f it ap-

only dares to k n o w but also knows h o w to dare.

pear i n public, what goes into and comes out o f it. E v e n w h e n fundamentalist norms require hiding a part o f the body behind a veil,

The Vanishing Bodies of Fundamentalism

headscarf, or other articles o f clothing, they are really signaling its

"Fundamentalism" has become a vague, overused term, w h i c h refers

extraordinary importance. Women's bodies are obviously the object

most often to belief systems that are rigid and unyielding. W h a t

o f the most obsessive scrutiny and regulation i n religious fundamen-

unites the various fundamentalisms to a surprisingly large degree,

talism, but no bodies are completely exempt from examination and

however, is their peculiar relation to the body. A t first glance one

control—men's bodies, adolescents' bodies, infants' bodies, even the

might assume that fundamentalisms provide an extreme example o f

bodies o f the dead. T h e fundamentalist body is powerful, explosive,

the corporeal perspective that is central to biopolitics. T h e y do i n -

precarious, and that is w h y it requires constant inspection and care.

deed focus extraordinary, even obsessive attention o n bodies, mak-

T h e religious fundamentalisms are also united, however, at the

ing all their surfaces along w i t h their intake and output, their habits

same time, i n their ultimate dissolution o f bodies into the transcen-

and practices the object o f intense scrutiny and evaluation. W h e n

dent realm. T h e fundamentalist religious focus o n the body really

we l o o k a bit closer, though, we see that fundamentalist vigilance

looks through it like an x ray to grasp the soul. I f dietary restrictions

about the body does not allow for the productivity o f bodies that is

were merely a matter o f the health o f the body, o f course, they w o u l d

central to biopolitics: the construction o f being from below, through

simply constitute an elaborate nutritionist's guide, and dictates about

bodies i n action. O n the contrary, the preoccupation o f fundamen-

consumption o f pork or beef or fish w o u l d rely o n issues o f calories

talisms is to prevent or contain their productivity. In the final analy-

and food-borne diseases. W h a t goes into the body, however, is really

sis, i n fact, fundamentalisms make bodies vanish insofar as they are

important for what it does and means for the soul—or rather for the

revealed to be not really the objects o f obsessive attention but merely

subject's belonging to the religious community.These two issues are

signs o f transcendent forms or essences that stand above them. ( A n d

i n fact not very distant, because the health o f the soul from this per-

this is one reason w h y fundamentalisms seem so out o f step w i t h

spective is just one index o f gauging identitarian belonging. S i m i -

contemporary power structures: they refer ultimately to the tran-

larly the clothing covering the body is an indication o f inner virtue.

scendent rather than the transcendental plane.) This double relation

T h e ultimate eclipse o f the body, though, is clearest i n fundamental-

to the body—at once focusing o n it and m a k i n g it disappear—is a

ist notions o f martyrdom. T h e body o f the martyr is central i n its

useful definition for fundamentalism, allowing us to b r i n g together

heroic action, but that action really points to a transcendent w o r l d

the various disparate fundamentalisms o n this c o m m o n point and,

beyond. Here is the extreme point o f the fundamentalist relation to

through contrast, cast into sharper relief the characteristics and value

the body, where its affirmation is also its annihilation.

o f the biopolitical perspective.

Nationalist fundamentalisms similarly concentrate o n bodies

T h e major religious fundamentalisms—Jewish, Christian, M u s -

through their attention to and care for the population.The national-

l i m , and H i n d u — c e r t a i n l y all demonstrate intense concern for and

ist policies deploy a w i d e range o f techniques for corporeal health

scrutiny o f bodies, through dietary restrictions, corporeal rituals,

and welfare, analyzing birthrates and sanitation, nutrition and hous-

sexual mandates and prohibitions, and even practices o f corporeal

ing, disease control and reproductive practices. Bodies themselves

mortification and abnegation. W h a t primarily distinguishes funda-

constitute the nation, and thus the nation's highest goal is their pro-

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m o t i o n and preservation. L i k e religious fundamentalisms, however,

T h i s same double relation to the body indicates, finally, h o w

nationalisms, although their gaze seems to focus intently o n bodies,

economism should be considered a type o f fundamentalism. A t first

really see them merely as an indication or symptom o f the ultimate,

sight economism too is all about bodies i n their stark materiality

transcendent object o f national identity. W i t h its moral face, nation-

insofar as it holds that the material facts o f economic relations and

alism looks past the bodies to see national character, whereas w i t h its

activity are sufficient for their o w n reproduction without the i m p l i -

militarist face, it sees the sacrifice o f bodies i n battle as revealing the

cation o f other, less corporeal factors such as ideology, law, politics,

national spirit. T h e martyr or the patriotic soldier is thus for nation-

culture, and so forth. E c o n o m i s m focuses primarily o n the bodies o f

alism too the paradigmatic figure for h o w the body is made to dis-

commodities, recognizing as commodities both the material goods

appear and leave behind only an index to a higher plane.

produced and the material human bodies that produce and carry

G i v e n this characteristic double relation to the body, it makes

them to market.The human body must itself constantly be produced

sense to consider white supremacy (and racism i n general) a f o r m o f

and reproduced by other commodities and their productive c o n -

fundamentalism. M o d e r n racism i n the nineteenth and twentieth

sumption. E c o n o m i s m i n this sense sees only a w o r l d o f bodies—

centuries is characterized by a process o f "epidermalization," e m -

productive bodies, bodies produced, and bodies consumed. A l t h o u g h

bedding racial hierarchies i n the skin—its color, smells, contours,

it seems to focus exclusively o n bodies i n this way, however, it really

A l t h o u g h white supremacy and colonial power are

looks through them to see the value that transcends them. H e n c e

characterized by a maniacal preoccupation w i t h bodies, the c o r p o -

"the metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties" o f economism

real signs o f race are not entirely stable and reliable. T h e one w h o

in both its capitalist and socialist forms.

passes for white but is not poses the greatest anxiety for the white

tual bodies, o f humans and other commodities, are ultimately not

supremacist, and indeed the cultural and literary history o f the

the object o f economism; what really matters is the quantity o f eco-

U n i t e d States is filled w i t h angst created by "passing" and racial a m -

n o m i c value that stands above or behind them. That is w h y human

biguity. Such anxieties make clear, though, that white supremacy is

bodies can become commodities, that is, indifferent from all other

not really about bodies, at least not i n any simple way, but rather

commodities, i n the first place, because their singularity disappears

looks beyond the body at some essence that transcends it. Discourses

w h e n they are seen only i n terms o f value. A n d thus economism too

o n b l o o d that gesture toward ancestry and lineage, w h i c h constitute

has a typically fundamentalist relation to the body: the material body

the primary c o m m o n link between racisms and nationalisms, are

is all-important and, at the same time, eclipsed by the transcendent

one way this essential difference beyond the body is configured. I n -

plane o f value.

and textures.

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35

F r o m this perspective ac-

deed recent racial discourse has migrated i n certain respects from

W e need to follow this argument, however, through one final

the skin to the molecular level as biotechnologies and D N A testing

twist. Even though all o f these fundamentalisms—religious, nation-

are m a k i n g possible new characterizations o f racial difference, but

alist, racist, and economistic—ultimately negate the body and its

these molecular corporeal traits too, w h e n seen i n terms o f race, are

power, they do, at least initially, highlight its importance. That is

34

really only indexes o f a transcendent racial essence. There is finally

something to w o r k w i t h . T h e deviation from and subversion o f the

always something spiritual or metaphysical about racism. B u t all this

fundamentalist focus on the body, i n other words, can serve as the

should not lead us to say that white supremacy is not about bodies

point o f departure for a perspective that affirms the needs o f bodies

after all. Instead, like other fundamentalisms it is characterized by a

and their full powers.

double relation to the body. T h e body is all-important and, at the, same time, vanishes.

W i t h regard to religious fundamentalism, one o f the richest and most fascinating (but also most complex and contradictory) ex-

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amples is the biopolitical potential that Foucault glimpses i n the Is-

Particularly d u r i n g the course o f national liberation struggles, na-

lamic popular movements against the shah's government i n the year

tionalisms have served as the w o r k b e n c h for the experimentation o f

leading up to the Iranian R e v o l u t i o n . O n commission from the Ital-

numerous political practices. T h i n k , for example, o f the intensely

ian newspaper Corriere della Sera, he makes two w e e k - l o n g visits to

corporeal nature o f oppression and liberation that Frantz Fanon a n -

Iran i n September and N o v e m b e r 1978 and writes a series o f b r i e f

alyzes w h i l e w o r k i n g as a psychiatrist i n the midst o f the Algerian

essays i n w h i c h he recounts i n simple, often m o v i n g prose the devel-

R e v o l u t i o n . T h e violence o f colonialism that runs throughout its

opment o f the uprising against the regime, offering basic political

institutions and daily regimens is deposited i n the bones o f the c o l o -

analyses o f the relations o f force i n the country, the importance o f

nized. D r . Fanon explains that, as i n a thermodynamic system, the

Iran's o i l i n the cold war, the political power o f the shah, the brutal-

violence that goes i n has to come out somewhere: it is most c o m -

ity o f the repression, and so forth. In the essays Foucault, o f course,

m o n l y manifested i n the mental disorders o f the colonized—a v i o -

does not endorse political Islam, and he clearly insists that there is

lence directed inward, self-inflicted—or i n forms o f violence among

nothing revolutionary about the Shiite clergy or Islam as such, but

the colonized, i n c l u d i n g bloody feuds among tribes, clans, and i n d i -

he does recognize that, as it had i n Europe and elsewhere i n other

viduals. T h e national liberation struggle, then, is for Fanon a k i n d o f

historical instances, religion defines the f o r m o f struggle i n Iran that

training o f the body to redirect that violence outward, back whence

37

mobilizes the popular classes. It is easy to imagine, although he does

38

it came, against the colonizer. U n d e r the flag o f revolutionary na-

not use these terms, that Foucault is t h i n k i n g about the biopolitical

tionalism, then, tortured, suffering bodies are able to discover their

powers o f Islamic fundamentalism i n the Iranian resistance. Just two

real power. Fanon is well aware, o f course, that once independence

years earlier he published the first volume o f his History of Sexuality,

has been achieved, the nation and nationalism become again an o b -

and soon afterwards he w o u l d deliver his lectures at the College de

stacle, closing d o w n the dynamics that the revolution had opened.

France o n the birth o f biopolitics. So it comes as no surprise that i n

Nationalism can never fully escape fundamentalism, but that should

these essays he is sensitive to the way that i n the popular movements

not blind us to the fact that, particularly i n the context o f national

religious forces regulate w i t h such care daily life, family ties, and so-

liberation struggles, nationalism's intense focus o n bodies suggests

cial relations. In the context o f the rebellion, he explains, "religion

biopolitical practices that, i f oriented differently, can be extraordi-

for them was like the promise and guarantee o f finding something

narily powerful.

36

that w o u l d radically change their subjectivity." W e have no inten-

W e have to approach the fundamentalism o f white supremacy

tion o f blaming Foucault for the fact that after the overthrow o f the

a bit ironically to see h o w it provides an opening toward a b i o p o l i t i -

shah a repressive theocratic regime took power, a regime against

cal practice through its focus o n the body. T h e Black Power m o v e -

w h i c h he protested. W h a t we find most significant i n his articles i n -

ment i n the U n i t e d States i n the 1960s and 1970s, to give one ex-

stead is h o w he recognizes i n the religious fundamentalism o f the

ample, transforms

rebellion and its focus o n bodies the elements o f a biopolitical power

differences that grounds racist thought. Black Power focuses o n the

that, i f deployed differently, diverted from its closure i n the theo-

surfaces o f the b o d y — s k i n color, hair quality, facial features, and so

cratic regime, could b r i n g about a radical transformation o f subjec-

forth—but not to w h i t e n skin or straighten hair. B e c o m i n g black is

tivity and participate i n a project o f liberation.

the aim, because not only is black beautiful but also the meaning o f

For nationalism we do not need any such complex example to recognize the potentially progressive elements contained w i t h i n it.

and revalues the epidermalization o f human

39

blackness is the struggle for freedom. T h i s is not so m u c h an anti.

racist discourse as a counterracist one, one that uses the focus o n

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bodies as a means to affirm blackness. W e should note, though, that this boomerang o f counterracism does not couple the focus o n b o d -

1.3

ies w i t h some transcendent, metaphysical moment i n w h i c h bodies vanish and the dominant element is really some essential, spiritual blackness—or rather, i n the cases w h e n it does, it becomes yet an-

THE M U L T I T U D E OF T H E POOR

other fundamentalism. Counterracism that remains tied to the m a terial, to the beauty and power o f bodies, opens the possibility for a biopolitical practice. Finally, M a r x reveals the possibility o f subverting economism i n his early readings o f classical political economy. H e grasps the i n -

A Common-wealth is . . . the Government of the whole multitude of the base and poorer sort, without respect to the other Orders. —Sir Walter Raleigh, Maxims of State

tense focus o n bodies and their productivity i n the w o r k o f A d a m Smith and others, but he also recognizes h o w that productivity o f

The humor and the wit o f the mariners, renegades, and castaways are

laboring bodies is narrowed and finally eclipsed w h e n bodies be-

beyond the cultivated inter-changes of those who sit around mahog-

come merely producers o f value for capital. This inspires some o f the

any tables.They have to be. Hangman's nooses hang loose around the

most lyrical passages i n Marx's work, i n w h i c h he tries to restore the full productivity o f bodies across all the domains o f life. Labor, freed from private property, simultaneously engages all our senses and ca-

necks of countless millions today, and for them their unfailing humor is an assertion of life and sanity against the ever-present threat of destruction and a world in chaos. — C . L. R. James, Mariners, Renegades, and Castaways

pacities, i n short, all our "human relations to the world—seeing hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling, thinking, contemplating, sensing, want40

ing, acting, l o v i n g . " W h e n labor and production are conceived i n this expanded form, crossing all the domains o f life, bodies can never be eclipsed and subordinated

to any transcendent

measure or

power.

Multitude: The Name of the Poor Since the dominant f o r m o f the republic is defined by property, the

In each o f these frameworks, then, the intense concentration

multitude, insofar as it is characterized by poverty, stands opposed to

o n the body that characterizes fundamentalism offers an opening for

it. T h i s conflict, however, should be understood i n terms o f not only

a biopolitical perspective. Biopolitics thus is the ultimate antidote to

wealth and poverty but also and more significantly the forms o f sub-

fundamentalism because it refuses the imposition o f a transcendent,

jectivity produced. Private property creates subjectivities that are at

spiritual value or structure, refuses to let the bodies be eclipsed, and

once individual (in their competition w i t h one another) and unified

insists instead o n their power.

as a class to preserve their property (against the poor).The constitutions o f the great m o d e r n bourgeois republics mediate this balance between the individualism and class interests o f property. T h e p o v erty o f the multitude, then, seen from this perspective, does not refer to its misery or deprivation or even its lack, but instead names a production o f social subjectivity that results i n a radically plural and open body politic, opposed to both the individualism and the e x c l u -

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sive, unified social body o f property. T h e poor, i n other words, refers

"has a life to live as the greatest he; and therefore truly, sir, I think it's

not to those w h o have nothing but to the w i d e multiplicity o f all

clear, that every man that is to live under a government ought first

those w h o are inserted i n the mechanisms o f social production re-

by his o w n consent to put himself under that government; and I do

gardless o f social order or property. A n d this conceptual conflict is

think that the poorest man i n England is not at all b o u n d i n a strict

also a political conflict. Its productivity is what makes the multitude

sense to that government that he has not had a voice to put himself

o f the p o o r a real and effective menace for the republic o f property.

under."

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R a i n s b o r o u g h is gesturing toward a political body w h e n

T h e essential foundations for understanding the constitutive

he refers to this extreme point, "the poorest he," but this is not a

relation between multitude and poverty i n this way are established

subject that is limited to or even defined by this lack. Rather this

i n the political struggles o f seventeenth-century England. T h e term

multitude o f the p o o r is a political body without distinction o f

"multitude" acquired then an almost technical meaning i n popular

property, a mixed body that is unbounded, w h i c h w o u l d include

political discourse and pamphlets to name all those gathered to-

Tate's list o f tradesmen but not be limited to them. For R a i n s b o r -

It is

ough, furthermore, this conception o f the p o o r as an open and i n -

understandable that multitude, defined i n this way, comes to c o n -

clusive political body directly supports and even necessitates univer-

note the lowest rank o f society and the propertyless, since they are

sal (or at least extended) suffrage and equal representation. A n d

gether to f o r m a political body regardless o f rank and property.

41

the most visibly excluded from the dominant political bodies, but

indeed Commissary Ireton o f the army, Rainsborough s primary i n -

really it is an open, inclusive social body, characterized by its b o u n d -

terlocutor i n the Putney Debates, immediately recognizes the threat

lessness and its originary state o f mixture among social ranks and

to the rule o f property posed by this conception o f the political sub-

groups. N a h u m Tate i n Richard the Second (1681), for example, his

ject. If the vote belongs to everyone, Ireton reasons, w h y should not

rewriting o f Shakespeare, gives an idea o f this m i x e d social body

all property belong to everyone? That is indeed exactly where the

w h e n he describes the multitude w i t h a list o f occupations: " S h o o -

logic leads.

maker, Farrier, Weaver, Tanner, Mercer, Brewer, Butcher, Barber, and infinite others w i t h a Confused N o i s e . "

42

Tracing the history o f the t e r m "multitude" presents a p h i l o -

B u t even Tate's multiplic-

logical c o n u n d r u m because there is little textual record o f the p o -

ity o f trades, w h i c h could serve as a reference to a nascent w o r k i n g

litical speech and w r i t i n g o f the proponents o f the multitude. T h e

class, does not adequately capture the multitude's unbounded na-

vast majority o f references i n the archive o f seventeenth-century

ture—its being without regard to rank or property—or its power as

English texts are negative, written by those w h o want to destroy,

a social and political body.

denigrate, and deny the multitude. T h e t e r m is almost always pre-

W e begin to see more clearly the defining relation to poverty

ceded by a derogatory adjective to double the weight against it: the

o f the multitude i n the 1647 Putney Debates between the Levellers

lawless multitude, the headless multitude, the ignorant multitude,

and factions o f the N e w M o d e l A r m y o n the nature o f a new c o n -

and so forth. R o b e r t F i l m e r and Thomas Hobbes, to cite two p r o m -

stitution for England and particularly o n the right o f suffrage. T h e

inent figures, seek to deny not only the rights o f the multitude but

Levellers argue strongly against the restriction o f the vote to those

also its very existence. Filmer, arguing o n scriptural grounds, cast as

w h o o w n property. C o l o n e l Thomas Rainsborough, speaking for

i f they were historical, contests the claims, made by authors such as

them, does not use the t e r m "multitude," but i n his arguments he

Cardinal Bellarmine, that the multitude because o f c o m m o n natural

does present the poor as an unbounded and m i x e d political body. "I

right has the power to determine the civil order. Power was given

think that the poorest he that is i n England," R a i n s b o r o u g h affirms,-

not equally by natural right to the entire multitude, he contends, but

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to A d a m , the father, whose authority passes rightly to all patriarchs.

To complete this connection between the physical and p o l i t i -

"There never was any such thing as an independent multitude, w h o

cal notions o f the multitude, we have to travel across the English

at first had a natural right to a community," Filmer proclaims. " T h i s

C h a n n e l to H o l l a n d . B a r u c h Spinoza's physics, like Boyle's, opposes

is but a fiction or fancy o f too many i n these days."

44

Hobbes chal-

any atomism o f pure bodies and focuses instead o n processes o f m i x -

lenges the existence o f the multitude o n more directly political

ture and composition.There is n o need here to enter into the details

grounds. T h e multitude is not a political body, he maintains, and for

o f their different epistemologies—between a rationalist-mechanist

it to become political it must become a people, w h i c h is defined by its unity o f w i l l and action. T h e many, i n other words, must be reduced to one, thereby negating the essence o f the multitude itself: " W h e n the multitude is united into a body politic, and thereby are a people . . . and their wills virtually i n the sovereign, there the rights and demands o f the particulars do cease; and he or they that have the sovereign power, doth for them all demand and vindicate under

theory and a corpuscular-experimental conception—since both authors conceive o f nature as composed through encounters among elementary particles.

48

Encounters result either i n decomposition

into smaller bodies or composition into a new, larger body. In S p i noza's politics the multitude is a similarly mixed, complex body that is composed by the same logic o f clinamen and encounter. The m u l titude is thus an inclusive body i n the sense that it is open to en-

45

the name o f his, that w h i c h before they called i n the plural, theirs."

Filmer and Hobbes are representative o f the dominant stream o f seventeenth-century English political thought, w h i c h gives us only a negative reflection o f or reaction to the multitude. B u t certainly the intensity o f that reaction—the fear and hatred inspired i n Filmer and Hobbes—is testimony to the power o f the cause. A n o t h e r strategy for investigating the politics o f the multitude in seventeenth-century English thought is to turn to the field o f physics, since the same set o f basic laws were thought to apply equally to physical and political bodies. R o b e r t Boyle, for example, challenges the dominant view that all existing bodies are compounds o f homogeneous, simple elements by arguing instead that multiplicity and mixture are primary i n nature. "Innumerable swarms o f little bodies," he writes, "are m o v ' d to and fro," and " M u l t i t u d e s " o f corpuscles are "driven to associate themselves, n o w w i t h one Body, and presently w i t h another."

46

A l l bodies are always already mixed m u l t i -

tudes and constantly open to further combination through the logic o f corpuscular association. Since physical and political bodies obey the same laws, Boyle's physics o f unbounded multitudes i m m e d i ately implies an affirmation o f the political multitude and its mixed body. A n d indeed it should be no surprise that Hobbes, understanding this threat, argues vociferously against B o y l e .

counters w i t h all other bodies, and its political life depends o n the qualities o f these encounters, whether they are joyful and compose more powerful bodies or whether they are sad and decompose into less powerful ones. This radical inclusiveness is one element that clearly marks Spinoza's multitude as a multitude o f the poor—the poor conceived, once again, as not limited to the lowest i n society but open to all regardless o f rank and property. Spinoza, finally, makes the essential and decisive step o f defining this multitude as the only possible subject o f democracy.

49

To understand better this connection between the multitude and poverty we should step back a few centuries to see h o w the same spectacle o f the multitude o f the p o o r confronts the tribunals o f civil and church authorities i n Renaissance Italy. T h e mendicant order o f Francis o f Assisi preaches the virtue o f the poor i n order to oppose both the corruption o f church power and the institution o f private property, w h i c h were intimately connected. T h e Franciscans give prescriptive value to the mottos o f Gratian s

Decretum—"iure

naturali sunt omnia omnibus" (by natural law all belongs to everyone) and "iure divino o m n i sunt c o m m u n i a " (by divine law all things are c o m m o n ) — w h i c h themselves refer to basic principles o f the church fathers and the Apostles, "habebant o m n i a c o m m u n i a " (keep

47

all things i n c o m m o n ) (Acts 2:44). A bitter debate, foreshadowing

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the events o f Putney three centuries later, emerges between the pa-

tics is the struggle between the p o o r and the r i c h " or, more precisely,

pacy and the Franciscans (and w i t h i n the Franciscan order) pitting

he goes o n to say, the struggle between those w h o have no part i n

those w h o affirm the rule o f property, and thus negate the c o m m u -

the management o f the c o m m o n and those w h o control i t .

n i o n dictated by natural law, against the Franciscan groups w h i c h

exists w h e n those w h o have no right to be counted, as Ranciere

believe that only on the basis o f c o m m o n wealth can a good and just

says, make themselves o f some account. T h e part o f those w h o have

society be created o n earth. O n l y a few years later, i n fact, i n 1324,

no part, the party o f the poor, is an excellent initial definition o f the

Marsilius o f Padua w o u l d pose poverty as the sole basis for not only

multitude, as l o n g as we add immediately that the party o f the p o o r

Christian perfection but also, what primarily interests us, democratic

is by no means homologous to the party o f the r i c h . T h e party o f

society.

53

Politics

the r i c h makes false claim to universality, pretending i n the guise o f

50

T h r o u g h o u t the centuries o f modernity the term "multitude" is not used i n other parts o f the w o r l d w i t h the technical political sense it acquires i n seventeenth-century England, but the specter o f a multitude o f the poor circulates around the globe and threatens the rule o f property everywhere it takes root. It appears, for example, in the great sixteenth-century peasant wars waged by Thomas M i i n 5

zer and the Anabaptists against the G e r m a n princes. ' In the rebellions against European colonial regimes, from the 1781 Tupac Katari attack o n Spanish rule i n L a Paz to the 1857 Indian rebellion against

the republic o f property to represent the entire society, w h e n i n fact it is based only o n an exclusive identity, the unity and homogeneity o f w h i c h is guaranteed by the ownership o f property. T h e party o f the poor, i n contrast, is not an identity o f one exclusive p o r t i o n o f society but rather a formation o f all those inserted i n the mechanisms o f social production w i t h o u t respect to rank or property, i n all their diversity, animated by an open and plural production o f subjectivity. B y its very existence the multitude o f the poor presents an objective menace to the republic o f property.

the rule o f the British East India Company, the multitude o f the p o o r challenges the republic o f property. A n d at sea, o f course, the

Who Hates the Poor?

multitude populates the maritime circuits o f production and trade,

It often seems as i f everyone hates the poor. Certainly the r i c h do,

as well as the pirate networks that prey o n them. T h e negative image

usually casting their loathing i n moral terms—as i f poverty were the

is i n this case, too, the one most strongly conveyed to us: the m u l t i -

sign o f some inner failure—or sometimes masking it i n terms o f

tude is a many-headed hydra that threatens property and order.

52

pity and compassion. Even the not-quite-so-poor hate the poor, i n

Part o f the threat o f this multitude is its multiplicity, composed at

part because they see i n them an image o f what they might soon

times o f combinations o f sailors, maroons, servants, soldiers, trades-

become. W h a t stands behind the hatred o f the poor i n its different

men,

others

forms is fear, since the poor constitute a direct threat to property—

circulating through the great oceans. T h e threat is also, though, that

not only because they lack wealth and might even be justified i n

this multitude w i l l undermine property and its structures o f rule.

stealing it, like the noble Jean Valjean, but also because they have the

W h e n m e n o f power and property warn about the dangerous hydra

power to undermine and overthrow the republic o f property. " T h e

loose i n the seas, they are not telling fairy tales but trying to grasp

vile multitude not the people is what we want to exclude," pro-

and neutralize a real and powerful political threat.

claims A d o l p h e Thiers i n a session o f the French National Assembly

laborers, renegades, castaways, pirates, and numerous

Jacques Ranciere, finally, understands the nature o f politics i t self in terms very close to those we find i n the seventeenth-century debates about the multitude. F o r Ranciere "the w h o l e basis o f p o l i -

in 1850. T h e multitude is dangerous and must be banished by law, Thiers continues, because it is so mobile and impossible to grasp as a unified object o f r u l e .

54

Every such instance o f hatred and fear

45

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should be read i n an inverted way, as an affirmation, or at least an

centrated o n the spiritual, we have become p o o r to become rich."

acknowledgment, o f the power o f the poor.

A n d i n the margins o f the manuscript at the point where he first

Alongside the history o f practical maneuvers—dividing the

cites this sentence, he adds, " W h y , i n the present m o m e n t o f w o r l d

poor, depriving them o f the means o f action and expression, and so

history, I choose to comment o n this sentence for us w i l l be made

forth—is the equally l o n g record o f ideological efforts to tame, u n -

clear by the commentary itself." Heidegger, l o o k i n g into the face o f

dermine, and nullify the power o f the poor. It is interesting that so

a disaster o f historic proportions—the end o f the N a z i project, the

many o f these ideological operations have been conducted w i t h i n

end o f G e r m a n y and the G e r m a n people as he conceives them,

the context o f Christian theology and doctrine, perhaps precisely

and the advance o f communism—responds w i t h an ontological dis-

because the threat posed by the poor to the rule o f property has

course o n poverty.

56

been experienced so intensely w i t h i n Christianity. Pope Benedict

Let us begin by e x p l o r i n g the philosophical content o f the lec-

X V I , i n his 2006 encyclical Deus caritas est, seeks direcdy to chal-

ture, even though Heidegger has already indicated that its full mean-

lenge the scriptural bases o f and mystify ideologically the power o f

ing w i l l only be revealed i n relation to its moment o f w o r l d history.

the poor. H e claims that the apostolic mandate to share all things i n

Heidegger proceeds, following his usual method, by questioning

c o m m o n is impractical i n the m o d e r n w o r l d and moreover that the

each key t e r m i n Holderlin's sentence. W h a t does H o l d e r l i n mean

Christian c o m m u n i t y should not engage such questions o f social

by "us"? T h e answer is easy: we Germans. W h a t does he mean by

justice but leave them for governments to resolve. W h a t he advocates instead is charitable activity o n behalf o f the p o o r and suffering, casting the p o o r as objects o f pity rather than powerful subjects. There is n o t h i n g very original i n Benedict X V I ' s operation. H e is just the newest epigone i n a l o n g line o f Christian ideological c r u saders against the p o o r .

"spiritual"? Readers o f Heidegger w i l l not be surprised by this e i ther: by spiritual he means the essential ontological relation, that is, the fact that human essence is defined by its relation to B e i n g . This concentration o n the spiritual, then, this accent o n B e i n g , prepares Heidegger for an ontological reading o f poverty and wealth i n the

55

second half o f the sentence. Poverty, he begins, does not really have

O n e pinnacle (or nadir) o f the ideological effort to cancel the

to do w i t h possessions, as n o r m a l usage w o u l d suggest, whereby

power o f the poor through mystification is the brief June 1945 lec-

poverty w o u l d be a state o f not having material necessities. Poverty

ture by M a r t i n Heidegger titled simply "Poverty" ("Die A r m u t " ) .

refers not to having but to being. " T h e essence o f poverty resides i n

T h e scene o f the lecture is dramatic and significant. Since M a r c h o f

a being. B e i n g truly poor means: being i n such a way that we lack

that year, w h e n French troops crossed the R h i n e , Heidegger and

nothing, except the non-necessary."

some o f his colleagues from the philosophy department o f the U n i -

c o m i n g to a banal conclusion that poverty is defined by necessity

versity o f Freiburg have taken refuge i n the Wildenstein castle i n the hills o f the Black Forest east o f the city, where they continue to give lectures. B y late June the arrival o f French troops at the castle is i m minent, and Heidegger is undoubtedly well aware that the Soviet army is o n the banks o f the Elba, V i e n n a has fallen, and B e r l i n cannot be far behind. H e chooses for his final lecture to comment o n a sentence from H o l d e r l i n , written i n the final years o f the eighteenth century, d u r i n g the French R e v o l u t i o n : " W i t h us, everything is c o n -

57

A t this point Heidegger risks

and thus constraint, whereas wealth, w h i c h offers the privilege o f engaging the non-necessary, is capable o f freedom. Such a conception, though, i n addition to being banal, cannot explain the causality o f Holderlin's phrase that leads from becoming poor to b e c o m i n g rich. Heidegger solves the riddle, as he often does, w i t h recourse to G e r m a n etymology. T h e o l d G e r m a n word/n", from w h i c h freie or "free" derives, means to preserve or protect, allowing something to

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reside i n its proper essence. Freeing something, he continues, means

emy o n its home turf. Indeed Heidegger's battle against c o m m u n i s m

guarding its essence against any constraints o f necessity. T h e freeing

becomes explicit i n the final pages o f the lecture. T h e poor are not

o f freedom, then, reverses or transforms necessity: " T h u s necessity is

opposed to the rich, as he imagines c o m m u n i s m to claim, but rather

in no way, as all o f Metaphysics understands it, the opposite o f free-

the real meaning o f poverty can be discovered only from the " s p i r i -

d o m , but rather only freedom is i n itself necessity converted." T h i s

tual" perspective that recognizes the relation o f human essence to

allows Heidegger to turn the trick. It is true, o f course, that the poor

Being.

59

lack the non-necessary, w h i c h is at the center o f freedom. " W h a t we

This is certainly a bizarre and ineffective challenge to c o m m u -

lack we do not have, but it is what we lack that has us."We recognize

nist ideology, but what concerns us more here is the way Heidegger

this to the extent that "everything is concentrated o n the spiritual,"

mystifies the power o f the poor and h o w i n the guise o f saving the

that is, o n the relation to B e i n g at the essence o f humanity. Even i n

concept o f poverty he really condemns it. E v e n though the p o o r are

our lacking we belong, i n some sense, through our relation to B e i n g ,

dignified i n Heidegger's eyes by their relation to B e i n g , they remain

to the freedom o f the non-necessary: " O n c e the essence o f h u m a n -

completely passive i n this relation, like powerless creatures i n the

ity holds properly to the relation between freeing B e i n g and h u -

face o f an all-powerful god. In this respect Heidegger's approach to

manity, that is, once human essence lacks the non-necessary, then

the poor is really only a more sophisticated version o f Pope B e n e -

58

humanity becomes p o o r i n the true sense." B e c o m i n g p o o r leads

dict X V I ' s charity. T h e poor can be an object o f pity and generosity

to b e c o m i n g r i c h because poverty itself marks a relation to B e i n g ,

w h e n , and only w h e n , their power has been completely neutralized

and i n that relation, necessity is converted into freedom, that is, the

and their passivity is assured. A n d the fear o f the poor that is thinly

preservation and protection o f its proper essence. B e i n g - p o o r is thus

veiled behind this benevolent facade is immediately linked to a fear

i n itself, Heidegger concludes, being-rich.

o f c o m m u n i s m (embodied for the pope i n liberation theology).

Those not initiated into the intricacies o f Heideggerian p h i -

Heidegger makes the explicit link between poverty and c o m -

losophy might well ask at this point, W h y go through such gymnas-

munism, but one should also remember h o w often hatred o f the

tics just to confuse the distinction between poverty and wealth? T h e

poor serves as a mask for racism. In Heidegger's case one can i m a g -

answer, as Heidegger himself tells us i n his marginal note at the be-

ine a speculative argument, following A d o r n o , about the link i n N a z i

ginning, has to be found i n the "world-historical" situation he is

Germany between the authoritarian personality and anti-Semitism.

facing, specifically the impending N a z i defeat and the approaching

A n d i f we switch to the context o f the Americas, it is almost always

Soviet troops. R e m e m b e r that Heidegger elsewhere i n his w o r k ex-

the case that hatred o f the p o o r expresses a thinly veiled or displaced

60

presses his anticommunism i n ontological terms. A decade earlier,

racism. Poverty and race are so intimately linked throughout

for example, i n his Introduction to Metaphysics, he claims that from the

Americas that this hatred is inevitably intermingled w i t h disgust for

metaphysical standpoint, the U n i t e d States and the Soviet U n i o n are

black bodies and a revulsion toward darker-skinned people. " R a c e

really united i n projects o f unleashed technique. These are clearly

differences and class differentials have been ground together i n this

peoples, i n his view, for w h o m everything is not concentrated on

country i n a crucible o f misery and squalor," H e n r y Louis Gates Jr.

the spiritual. B u t w h y i n June 1945 should Heidegger decide to i n -

and C o r n e l l West write about the U n i t e d States, " i n such a way that

vestigate the ontological position o f poverty? T h e answer seems to

few o f us k n o w where one stops and the other begins."

be that he considers a certain notion o f poverty to be the essence o f

where there is hatred o f the poor there is likely to be racial fear and

c o m m u n i s m and its primary appeal, so he wants to combat the e n -

hatred l u r k i n g somewhere nearby.

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the

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A n o t h e r connection, w h i c h is not so obvious, links Heidegger's

guard property. Property is the key that defines not only the republic

ontological subordination o f the poor to C a r l Schmitt's political

but also the people, both o f w h i c h are posed as universal concepts

theology and his affirmation o f transcendent sovereign power. Such

but i n reality exclude the multitude o f the poor.

a connection might seem counterintuitive since Heidegger is so i n -

T h i s exclusion is the essential content o f Hobbes's conceptual

sistent about the end o f metaphysics and refuses to locate B e i n g as a

division between the multitude and the people. T h e k i n g is the peo-

transcendent essence, w h i c h w o u l d , i n the realm o f ontology, o c -

ple, Hobbes declares, because the people, i n contrast to the m u l t i -

cupy an analogous position to Schmitt's political sovereign.The link

tude, is a unified subject and can thus be represented by a single

appears clearly, however, at the other end o f the spectrum, i n their

person. O n the surface his distinction is simply geometrical: the

denigration and fear o f the power o f immanence. Schmitt's n o t i o n

people is one (and thus capable o f sovereignty), whereas the m u l t i -

o f sovereign power and his theory o f the Fiihrer seek to contain p o -

tude is plural (and thus incoherent, unable to rule itself).This is just a

liticallyjust as Heidegger's analysis denigrates ontologically, the m u l -

translation o f the debate about the physics o f bodies, w h i c h we saw

titude o f the poor and its power. This is one moment w h e n it is not

in relation to Boyle and Spinoza, w i t h a small extension to i n d i -

insignificant or anecdotal fact that both Schmitt and Heidegger sup-

cate the political consequences. W e need to ask at this point, h o w -

port the N a z i regime. There should by n o means be a prohibition

ever, what stands behind the unity o f the people for Hobbes? In

on learning from reactionary thinkers, and indeed many leftist schol-

seventeenth-century English political discourse it is not unusual to

ars have relied heavily o n the w o r k o f Schmitt and Heidegger i n

conceive o f "the people" as "freeholders," that is, those w i t h suffi-

recent years, but one should never forget that they are reactionaries,

cient independent property to qualify to vote for members o f par-

a fact that unfailingly comes out i n their w o r k .

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liament. T h e glue that holds this people together, i n other words,

W h a t Heidegger and Schmitt do not challenge but simply

and whose lack dictates the plurality o f the multitude, is property.

mystify and try to contain is an ontological relation o f the poor that

Hobbes makes even clearer i n Behemoth the function o f property to

points i n the opposite direction, based o n the innovation, the sub-

expel the poor from the people. T h e only glory o f merchants, he

jectivity, and the power o f the poor to intervene i n the established

writes, "whose profession is their private gain," is "to grow exces-

reality and create being. T h i s may be spiritual i n the sense that it

sively r i c h by the w i s d o m o f b u y i n g and selling" and "by m a k i n g

poses a relation between humanity and being, but it is also equally

poor people sell their labour to them at their o w n prices; so that

material i n its corporeal, material constructive practices. This is the

poor people, for the most part, might get a better living by w o r k i n g

ontological power o f the poor that we want to investigate—one that

i n B r i d e w e l l [prison], than by spinning, weaving, and other such l a -

is at the center o f a n o t i o n o f c o m m u n i s m that Heidegger and

bour as they can d o . "

Schmitt w o u l d have no idea h o w to confront.

poor from the people, is not a contingent fact for Hobbes but a nec-

Poverty and Power

property to maintain and increase it. T h e multitude o f the poor is

In the course o f the great bourgeois revolutions o f the seventeenth

the essential pillar that supports the people and its republic o f prop-

and eighteenth centuries, the concept o f the multitude is w i p e d out

erty.

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T h e lack o f property, w h i c h excludes the

essary and constantly reproduced condition that allows those w i t h

from the political and legal vocabulary, and by means o f this era-

Machiavelli shows us this relationship from the other side and

sure the conception o f republic (res publica rather than res communis)

illuminates the resistance that animates the poor. "Strip all o f us na-

comes to be narrowly defined as an instrument to affirm and safe-

ked, y o u w i l l see that we are alike," he writes i n a speech invented

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for an anonymous rebel i n the revolt o f the ciompi, the fourteenth-

and wealth, i n the first place, but also between subordination and

century w o o l carders, against the popolo grasso, the wealthy F l o r e n -

production, and hierarchy and the c o m m o n . W h a t is most important

tines. "Dress us i n their clothes and them i n ours," Machiavelli's agi-

about the alternative Machiavelli reveals, however, is that these social

tator continues, referring to the r i c h owners o f the w o o l factory,

contradictions are dynamic, animated by antagonism and resistance.

"and without a doubt we shall appear noble and they ignoble, for

Key to his histories and political analyses is the progression that leads

only poverty and riches make us unequal." There is no need for the

from indignation to the creation o f social disorders or riots (tumulti),

p o o r to feel remorse for the violence o f their rebellions because

and i n t u r n poses the conditions for the rebellion o f the multitude,

"where there is, as w i t h us, fear o f hunger and prison, there cannot

w h i c h is excluded from wealth but included i n its production. H u -

and should not be fear o f hell." Faithful servants, the orator explains,

manity is never naked, never characterized by bare life, but rather

are still just servants, and good people are always poor. N o w is the

always dressed, endowed w i t h not only histories o f suffering but also

time, then, "not only to free ourselves from them but to become so

capacities to produce and the power to rebel.

m u c h their superiors that they w i l l have more to lament and fear from you than y o u from them."

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Spinoza carries forward this Machiavellian alternative and,

Central to this passage is the fact

among many other conceptual advances, highlights the corporeal

that poverty is not a characteristic o f human nature itself. In other

aspects o f this power. H e not only recognizes that the body is a site

texts Machiavelli falls into a naturalistic version o f human poverty

where poverty and needs are expressed, but also emphasizes that i n

and frailty, lamenting the fate o f humanity i n a cruel, unfeeling u n i -

the body resides a power the limits o f w h i c h are still u n k n o w n : " N o

verse, as Lucretius d i d before h i m and Leopardi after. " E v e r y animal

one has yet determined what a B o d y can do."

among us is b o r n fully clad," he proclaims, for example, i n The

two conditions, poverty and power, i n a dynamic that strives toward

Golden Ass. " O n l y man is b o r n naked [ignudo] o f all protection; he

the production o f community. W h e n Spinoza remarks on the i g n o -

has neither hide nor spine nor feather nor fleece nor bristles nor

rance o f children, for instance, or the weakness o f our bodies or the

65

66

H e connects these

scales to make h i m a shield." B u t this traditional realist line, w h i c h

brutality o f the human social condition, he always poses such states

derives from the static character o f older materialist analyses, does

o f poverty as the point o f departure for a logic o f transformation

not satisfy Machiavelli. H i s materialist method needs, o n the c o n -

that moves out o f solitude and weakness by means o f the construc-

trary, to become joyful—not only realist but also dynamic and rebel-

tion o f sociality and love. T h e power Spinoza identifies i n these var-

lious, as i n the case o f the ciompi, against property and its institu-

ious forms can be summarized as a quest for the c o m m o n : just as i n

tions.

epistemology he focuses o n " c o m m o n notions" that constitute ra-

Machiavelli reveals here a fundamental alternative path w i t h i n

tionality and give us greater power to think, and i n ethics he o r i -

m o d e r n political thought, w h i c h poses the p o o r as not only the re-

ents action toward c o m m o n goods, so too i n politics Spinoza seeks

mainder left by the violent appropriation conducted by nascent

mechanisms whereby singular bodies can together compose a c o m -

powers o f capital, not only prisoners o f the new conditions o f the

m o n power. This c o m m o n power by w h i c h the multitude battles

production and reproduction, but also a force o f resistance that rec-

poverty and creates c o m m o n wealth is for Spinoza the primary force

ognizes itself as exploited w i t h i n a regime that still bears the marks

that supports the possibility o f democracy.

o f the c o m m o n : a c o m m o n social life, c o m m o n social wealth. T h e

M a r x adds one more step to this alternative trajectory, c o n -

poor occupies a paradoxical position, at once excluded and included,

firming Machiavelli's intuition that the power o f the poor stands at

w h i c h highlights a series o f social contradictions—between poverty

the center o f social rebellion and Spinoza's hypothesis that the power

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o f the multitude is essential to the possibility o f democracy. Like the

ies conventionally drawn around the w o r k i n g class. O n e important

others, M a r x begins his reasoning w i t h poverty, identifying the o r i -

change is that exploitation today tends to be no longer a productive

gin o f the properly capitalist form o f poverty i n the l o n g and varied

function but rather a mere instrument o f domination. T h i s corre-

processes o f so-called primitive accumulation. W h e n they are sepa-

sponds to the fact that, i n different ways i n various contexts around

rated from the soil and from all other means o f production, workers

the w o r l d , as modes o f life and w o r k characterized by mobility, flex-

are doubly free: free i n the sense that they are not b o u n d i n servi-

ibility, and precarity are ever more severely imposed by capitalist re-

tude and also free i n that they have no encumbrances, that is, no

gimes o f production and exploitation, wage laborers and the p o o r

property or even any right to access the land. T h e proletariat is cre-

are no longer subjected to qualitatively different conditions but are

ated as a multitude o f the poor. " L a b o r capacity," M a r x writes, "de-

both absorbed equally into the multitude o f producers. T h e poor,

nuded o f the means o f labour and the means o f life is . . . absolute

whether they receive wages or not, are located no longer only at the

poverty as such and the worker [is] the mere personification o f the

historic o r i g i n or the geographical borders o f capitalist production

labour capacity. . . . As such, conceptually speaking, he is a pauper."

but increasingly at its heart—and thus the multitude o f the poor

T h e pauper M a r x is talking about here refers not just to those w h o

emerges also at the center o f the project for revolutionary transfor-

live i n misery o n the limits o f starvation but to all workers insofar as

mation.

their living labor is separated from the objectified labor accumulated i n capital. B u t nakedness and poverty is only one side o f the matter. Like Machiavelli and Spinoza, M a r x links the proletariat's poverty directly to its power i n the sense that living labor is "the general possibility o f material wealth" i n capitalist society. L i v i n g labor is thus at once "absolute poverty" as object and "general possibility" as subject. M a r x conceives this explosive combination o f poverty and power as the ultimate threat to private property, one w h i c h resides at its very heart.

67

Some readers are likely to object at this point that our reliance o n concepts such as poverty and the multitude hopelessly confuses Marxist categories, obscuring the difference, for example, between the "precapitalist" misery that results from violent expropriation and the properly capitalist misery o f wage labor and exploitation. In this way we betray Marx's materialist method and muddle the class character o f his analysis. N o t even the Utopian socialists, our critics can exclaim, so thoroughly mystify the analysis o f exploitation i n M a r x and scientific socialism! W e maintain, though, that our approach is just as materialist as traditional Marxist analyses, but i n part because o f the changing nature o f labor and exploitation, w h i c h we engage i n detail i n later chapters, we break d o w n some o f the boundar-

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DE C O R P O R E

1: B I O P O L I T I C S

AS

EVENT

Here too Foucault's attention is focused primarily o n the power over life—or, really, the power to administer and produce life—that functions through the government o f populations, managing their

DE C O R P O R E

1: BIOPOLITICS A S EVENT

health, reproductive capacities, and so forth. B u t there is always a m i n o r current that insists o n life as resistance, an other power o f life that strives toward an alternative existence. T h e perspective o f resistance makes clear the difference between these two powers: the biopower against w h i c h we struggle is not comparable i n its nature

I am painting, I am Nature, I am truth. —Gustave Courbet

or f o r m to the power o f life by w h i c h we defend and seek our freed o m . To mark this difference between the two "powers o f life," we adopt a terminological distinction, suggested by Foucault s writings but not used consistently by h i m , between biopower and b i o p o l i -

To grasp h o w M i c h e l Foucault understands biopower,

tics, whereby the former could be defined (rather crudely) as the

we have to situate it i n the context o f the broader theory o f power

power over life and the latter as the power o f life to resist and de-

he develops i n the p e r i o d w h e n he begins w o r k i n g w i t h the c o n -

termine an alternative production o f subjectivity.

cept, the second half o f the 1970s, i n Discipline and Punish (1975) and the first volume o f The History of Sexuality (1976). In these books Foucault s notion o f power is always double. H e devotes most o f his attention to disciplinary regimes, architectures o f power, and the applications o f power through distributed and capillary networks, a power that does not so m u c h repress as produce subjects. T h r o u g h o u t these books, however, sometimes i n what seem like asides or marginal notes, Foucault also constantly theorizes an other to power (or even an other power), for w h i c h he seems u n able to find an adequate name. Resistance is the term he most often uses, but it does not really capture what he has i n m i n d , since resistance, as it is generally understood, is too dependent o n and subordinate to the power it opposes. O n e might suggest to Foucault the Marxist n o t i o n o f "counterpower," but that term implies a second power that is homologous to the one it opposes. In our view, the

T h e major streams o f Foucault interpretation, however, do not adequately grasp the dual nature o f biopolitics. O n e stream, w h i c h is presented first by Francois E w a l d and later by R o b e r t o Esposito, analyzes the terrain o f biopolitics primarily from the standpoint o f the normative management o f populations. This amounts to an actuarial administration o f life that generally requires v i e w i n g i n d i v i d uals from a statistical perspective, classifying them into large n o r m a tive sets, w h i c h become more coherent the more the microsystems that compose them are de-subjectivized and made homogeneous. A l t h o u g h this interpretation has the merit o f philological fidelity (albeit w i t h a rather narrow perspective o n Foucault's opus), it leaves us w i t h merely a "liberal" image o f Foucault and biopolitics insofar as it poses against this threatening, all-encompassing power over life no alternative power or effective resistance but only a vague sense o f critique and moral indignation.

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other to power that runs through these books is best defined as an alternative production o f subjectivity, w h i c h not only resists power but also seeks autonomy from it.

A second major stream, w h i c h centers o n the interpretation o f G i o r g i o A g a m b e n (and emerges to some extent from the w o r k o f Jacques D e r r i d a and Jean-Luc N a n c y ) , accepts that biopolitics is an

This understanding o f the doubleness o f power helps us approach Foucault s attempts to develop the concept o f biopower.

ambiguous and conflictive terrain but sees resistance acting only at its most extreme limit, o n the margins o f a totalitarian f o r m o f

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power, o n the b r i n k o f impossibility. Here such authors could easily be interpreting the famous lines from Holderlin's p o e m "Patmos": " W o aber Gefahr ist, wachst / Das Rettende auch" (Where there is danger, / T h e rescue grows as well). This stream o f interpretation thus does to a certain extent distinguish biopolitics from biopower but leaves biopolitics powerless and w i t h o u t subjectivity.These authors seek i n Foucault a definition o f biopolitics that strips it o f every possibility o f autonomous, creative action, but really they fall back o n Heidegger i n these points o f the analysis to negate any constructive capacity o f biopolitical resistance. Agamben transposes biopolitics i n a theological-political key, claiming that the only possibility o f rupture w i t h biopower resides i n "inoperative" activity (inoperosita), a blank refusal that recalls Heidegger's n o t i o n o f Gelassenheit, completely incapable o f constructing an alternative.

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Finally, we can construct something like a third stream o f i n terpretation o f biopolitics, even i f it is generally not posed i n reference to Foucault and his terminology, that includes authors w h o understand life w i t h reference to naturalistic and/or transcendental invariables o f existence. F r o m this perspective there is a certain autonomy conceded to biopolitical subjectivity, for example, i n the invariable logical-linguistic structures proposed by N o a m C h o m s k y or the ontological duration o f preindividual and interindividual l i n guistic and productive relations i n authors such as Gilbert S i m o n don, Bernard Stiegler, and Peter Sloterdijk. B u t this subjectivity, though posed as resistance to the existing power structures, lacks a dynamic character because it is closed w i t h i n its invariable, naturalistic framework. T h e biopolitical resistance o f these invariables can never create alternative forms o f life.

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N o n e o f these interpretations captures what for us is most i m portant i n Foucault's notion o f biopolitics. O u r reading not only identifies biopolitics w i t h the localized productive powers o f life— that is, the production o f affects and languages through social c o o p eration and the interaction o f bodies and desires, the invention o f new forms o f the relation to the self and others, and so forth—but also affirms biopolitics as the creation o f new subjectivities that are

1: B I O P O L I T I C S

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presented at once as resistance and de-subjectification. If we remain too closely tied to a philological analysis o f Foucault s texts, we might miss this central point: his analyses o f biopower are aimed not merely at an empirical description o f h o w power works for and through subjects but also at the potential for the production o f alternative subjectivities, thus designating a distinction between qualitatively different forms o f power. This point is implicit i n Foucault's claim that freedom and resistance are necessary preconditions for the exercise o f power. " W h e n one defines the exercise o f power as a mode o f action u p o n the actions o f others, w h e n one characterizes these actions by the government o f men by other m e n — i n the broadest sense o f the term—one includes an important element: freedom. Power is exercised only over free subjects, and only insofar as they are free.... A t the very heart o f the power relationship, and constantly provoking it, are the recalcitrance o f the w i l l and the i n transigence o f freedom."

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Biopolitics appears i n this light as an

event or, really, as a tightly woven fabric o f events o f freedom. Biopolitics, i n contrast to biopower, has the character o f an event first o f all i n the sense that the "intransigence o f freedom" disrupts the normative system.The biopolitical event comes from the outside insofar as it ruptures the continuity o f history and the existing order, but it should be understood not only negatively, as r u p ture, but also as innovation, w h i c h emerges, so to speak, from the inside. Foucault grasps the creative character o f the event i n his earlier w o r k o n linguistics: la parole intervenes i n and disrupts la langue as an event that also extends beyond it as a moment o f linguistic i n vention.

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For the biopolitical context, though, we need to under-

stand the event o n not only the linguistic and epistemological but also the anthropological and ontological terrain, as an act o f freed o m . In this context the event marked by the innovative disruption o f la parole beyond la langue translates to an intervention i n the field o f subjectivity, w i t h its accumulation o f norms and modes o f life, by a force o f subjectification, a new production o f subjectivity. This i r ruption o f the biopolitical event is the source o f innovation and also the criterion o f truth. A materialist teleology, that is, a concep-

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tion o f history that emerges from below guided by the desires o f

events and break from the dominant political subjectivities. W i t h o u t

those w h o make it and their search for freedom, connects here, par-

the internal logic o f making events, one can only affirm them from

adoxically, w i t h a Nietzschean idea o f eternal return. T h e singular-

the outside as a matter o f faith, repeating the paradox c o m m o n l y

ity o f the event, driven by the w i l l to power, demonstrates the truth

attributed to Tertullian, credo quia absurdum, "I believe because it is

o f the eternal; the event, and the subjectivity that animates it, c o n -

absurd."

structs and gives meaning to history, displacing any notion o f history as a linear progression defined by determinate causes. Grasping this relation between the event and truth allows us to cast aside the accusation o f relativism that is too often lodged against Foucault's biopolitics. A n d recognizing biopolitics as an event allows us both to understand life as a fabric woven by constitutive actions and to comprehend time i n terms o f strategy. Foucault's n o t i o n o f the event is at this point easily distin-

74

T h e biopolitical event that poses the production o f life as an act o f resistance, innovation, and freedom leads us back to the figure o f the multitude as political strategy. Consider, to take an example from a very different domain, h o w Luciano Bolis, an Italian antifascist partisan, poses i n his m e m o i r the relation between grains o f sand and the resistance o f the multitude (in terms reminiscent o f Walt Whitman's democratic leaves o f grass). Bolis is fully aware that his sacrifice is only a grain o f sand i n the desert among the suffer-

guishable from the one proposed by A l a i n B a d i o u . B a d i o u has done

ings o f the multitude engaged i n struggle. "I believe, though," he

a great service by posing the event as the central question o f c o n -

explains, "that it is the duty o f the survivors to write the story o f

temporary philosophy, proposing it as the locus o f truth. T h e event,

those'grains o f sand'because even those w h o , because o f particular

w i t h its irreducible multiplicity, that is, its "equivocal" nature, sub-

circumstances or different sensibilities, were not part o f that ' m u l t i -

tracts, according to B a d i o u , the examination o f truths from the

tude' understand that our Liberation and the set o f values o n w h i c h

mere form o f judgment. T h e difference between B a d i o u and F o u -

it stands was paid for i n the f o r m o f blood, terror, and expectations,

cault i n this respect is most clearly revealed by l o o k i n g at where,

and all that stands behind the w o r d 'partisan,' w h i c h is still today

temporally, each author focuses attention w i t h respect to the event.

misunderstood, scorned, and rejected w i t h vacuous complacency."

In B a d i o u an event—such as Christ's crucifixion and resurrection,

Biopolitics is a partisan relationship between subjectivity and his-

the French R e v o l u t i o n , or the Chinese Cultural R e v o l u t i o n , to cite

tory that is crafted by a multitudinous strategy, formed by events

his most frequent examples—acquires value and meaning primarily

and resistances, and articulated by a discourse that links political de-

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after it takes place. H e thus concentrates o n the intervention that

cision m a k i n g to the construction o f bodies i n struggle. Gilles

retrospectively gives meaning to the event and the fidelity and ge-

Deleuze casts the biopolitical production o f life, i n a similarly parti-

neric procedures that continually refer to it. Foucault, i n contrast,

san way, as "believing i n the w o r l d " w h e n he laments that we have

emphasizes the production and productivity o f the event, w h i c h re-

lost the w o r l d or it has been taken from us. " I f y o u believe i n the

quires a forward- rather than backward-looking gaze. T h e event is,

world y o u precipitate events, however inconspicuous, that elude

so to speak, inside existence and the strategies that traverse it. W h a t

control, you engender new space-times, however small their surface

Badiou's approach to the event fails to grasp, i n other words, is the link between freedom and power that Foucault emphasizes from w i t h i n the event. A retrospective approach to the event i n fact does not give us access to the rationality o f insurrectional activity, w h i c h must strive w i t h i n the historical processes to create revolutionary

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has to be assessed at the level o f our every move." Events o f resistance have the power not only to escape control but also to create a new w o r l d . As one final example o f the biopolitical power o f bodies, from

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still another domain, consider a passage from Meister Eckhart's ser-

tivization that, shattering ruling identities and norms, reveals the link between power and freedom, and thereby inaugurates an alter-

m o n "Jesus Entered":

native production o f subjectivity. N o w pay attention and look! If a human were to remain a

T h e biopolitical event thus breaks w i t h all forms o f metaphys-

virgin forever, he w o u l d never bear fruit. If he is to become

ical substantialism or conceptualism. B e i n g is made i n the event. It

fruitful, he must necessarily be a wife. " W i f e , " here, is the n o -

is interesting to note the strong resonance o f this n o t i o n o f the b i o -

blest name that can be given to the m i n d , and it is indeed

political event w i t h A m e r i c a n Pragmatism. " I f nature seems highly

more noble than "virgin."That man should receive G o d i n

uniform to us," writes Charles Peirce,"it is only because our p o w -

himself is good, and by this reception he is a virgin. B u t that

ers are adapted to our desires."

G o d should become fruitful i n h i m is better; for the fruitful-

performative analysis o f the biopolitical event and demonstrate that

ness o f a gift is the only gratitude for the gift. T h e spirit is wife

the movement o f biopolitical powers functions equally i n the o p -

w h e n i n gratitude it gives birth i n return and bears Jesus back

posite direction: our desires, i n other words, are also adapted to na-

into God's fatherly heart.

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Eckhart is trying to focus our attention o n the productivity o f the biopolitical event, but what baggage comes w i t h it! To read a passage like this, one has to pass it through decades o f feminist theory, like so many baths o f photographic solvents: starting w i t h Simone de Beauvoir's analysis o f h o w W o m a n is a patriarchal construct that subordinates w o m e n , i n large part by tethering them to biological reproductive capacities; then feminist religious scholars w h o reveal the particularly Christian modes o f patriarchy and the persistence o f the v i r g i n / w h o r e dichotomy; and finally feminist political theorists w h o demonstrate h o w figures o f w o m e n function i n the canon o f European political philosophy as markers o f chaos and dangerous fecundity that must be excluded from the public realm. As these masculinist and heterosexist layers are stripped away, the image from Eckhart's passage that rises to the surface is a decidedly queer one! Productivity bursts forth as man becomes female, and here E c k hart's mystical visions recall the deliriums o f President Schreber, w h o , as Freud reports, believes he is b e c o m i n g w o m a n i n order to be impregnated by G o d and bear a new race o f humanity. Interestingly, productivity i n Eckhart coincides w i t h the moment o f gender crossing. ( C o u l d Eckhart recognize the same productivity i n female masculinity that he finds i n male femininity?) T h e biopolitical event, i n fact, is always a queer event, a subversive process o f subjec-

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Pragmatists propose, i n effect, a

ture. W e w i l l return to this point i n De Homine 1 at the end o f Part 2 (and readers should keep i n m i n d that these concluding discussions can also be read separately as one continuous argument).

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PART 2

MODERNITY (AND THE LANDSCAPES OF A L T E R M O D E R N I T Y )

We take off into the cosmos, ready for anything... . A n d yet, if we examine it more closely, our enthusiasm turns out to be all sham. We don't want to conquer the cosmos, we simply want to extend the boundaries of Earth to the frontiers of the cosmos... .We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. We don't know what to do with other worlds. —Stanislaw Lem, Solaris

2.1

ANTIMODERNITY AS RESISTANCE

As the Indian experience shows, the formal termination of colonial rule, taken by itself, does little to end the government of colonialist knowledge. —Ranajit Guha, A Rule of Property for Bengal

Power and Resistance within Modernity M o d e r n i t y is always two. Before we cast it i n terms o f reason, E n lightenment, the break w i t h tradition, secularism, and so forth, m o dernity must be understood as a power relation: domination and 1

resistance, sovereignty and struggles for liberation. T h i s v i e w runs counter to the standard narrative that modernity emerged from E u rope to confront i n the colonies the premodern, whether that be conceived as barbaric, religious, or primitive. "There is no modernity without coloniality," claims Walter M i g n o l o , "because colonial2

ity is constitutive o f modernity." It is constitutive insofar as it marks the hierarchy at modernity's heart. M o d e r n i t y , then, resides not solely i n Europe or i n the colonies but i n the power relation that 3

straddles the two. A n d therefore forces o f antimodernity, such as resistances to colonial domination, are not outside modernity but rather entirely internal to it, that is, w i t h i n the power relation. T h e fact that antimodernity is w i t h i n modernity is at least part o f what historians have i n m i n d w h e n they insist that European expansion i n the Americas, Asia, and Africa be conceived not as so many conquests but rather as colonial encounters. T h e n o t i o n o f c o n quest does have the advantage o f emphasizing the violence and b r u -

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tality o f European expansion, but it tends to cast the colonized as

unchanged, then, but neither does the Spanish. Instead, along w i t h

passive. Moreover, it implies that either the previously existing c i v i l i -

urban structures and administrative practices, music, language, and

zation was w i p e d out and replaced by that o f the colonizer, or that it

other cultural forms are progressively mixed, flowing through i n n u -

was preserved intact as an outside to the colonial world. T h i s tradi-

merable paths across the Atlantic i n both directions, transforming

tional v i e w portrays colonial Indian society, for example, as Ranajit

both sides.

6

G u h a writes, "either as a replication o f the liberal-bourgeois culture

W e l l before the formation o f the U n i t e d States, to give an-

o f nineteenth-century B r i t a i n or as the mere survival o f an anteced-

other, more directly political example, the Iroquois developed a fed-

4

ent pre-capitalist culture." M o d e r n i t y lies between these two, i n a

eralist system to manage the relations among six nations—Mohawks,

manner o f speaking—that is, i n the hierarchy that links the d o m i -

Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas,Tuscaroras, and Senecas—with checks

nant and the subordinated—and both sides are changed i n the rela-

and balances, separation between military and civil authorities, and

tion. T h e n o t i o n o f encounter highlights the two-ness o f the power

other features later included i n the U . S . Constitution. Iroquois fed-

relation and the processes o f mixture and transformation that result

eralism was widely discussed and admired i n the

from the struggle o f domination and resistance.

U n i t e d States a m o n g figures such as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas

eighteenth-century

W o r k i n g from the standpoint o f colonial encounters, histori-

Jefferson. T h e material aid o f Native Americans to European set-

ans document two important facts: precolonial civilizations are i n

tlers—how to plant crops, survive harsh winters, and so forth—has

many cases very advanced, rich, complex, and sophisticated; and the

been incorporated into national mythology, but U.S. political forms

contributions o f the colonized to so-called m o d e r n civilization are

are usually presented as being o f purely European o r i g i n . T h e point

substantial and largely unacknowledged. T h i s perspective effectively

o f such examples is simply to demonstrate the mixture and mutual

breaks d o w n the c o m m o n dichotomies between the traditional and

transformation that characterize the encounters o f modernity.

7

the modern, the savage and the civilized. M o r e important for our

T h e problem w i t h these examples, however, is that they do not

argument, the encounters o f modernity reveal constant processes o f

emphasize the violence and unequal power relation o f modernity.

mutual transformation.

T h e dominant forces o f modernity encounter not mere differences

L o n g before the Spanish arrive i n central M e x i c o , for example,

but resistances. W h a t colonial historiography primarily accomplished

the N a h u a (that is, the inhabitants o f the Aztec realm w h o speak

and what needs to be countered, as Ranajit G u h a explains, "is a c o n -

Nahuatl) constructed highly developed cities, called altepetl, roughly

j u r i n g trick to make resistance disappear from the political history

the size o f Mediterranean city-states. A n altepetl is organized accord-

o f India under British rule." There is something psychotic about

ing to a cellular or modular logic i n w h i c h the various parts o f the

the idea that modernity is a purely European invention, since it c o n -

metropolis correspond to an orderly cyclical rotation o f labor duties

stantly has to deny the role i n the construction and functioning o f

and payments to the sovereign. After Cuauhtemoc surrenders to

modernity o f the rest o f the world, especially those parts o f it subor-

Cortes i n 1521, the altepetl is not simply replaced by European ur-

dinated to European domination. R a t h e r than a k i n d o f psychic re-

ban forms through the l o n g process o f Hispanization, but neither

pression, we might better think o f this denial as an instance o f foreclo-

8

does it survive intact. A l l the early Spanish settlements and adminis-

sure i n the psychoanalytic sense. Whereas the repressed element or

trative forms—the encomienda, the rural parishes, Indian m u n i c i p a l i -

idea, psychoanalysts explain, is buried deep inside, the foreclosed is

ties, and the administrative jurisdictions—are built o n existing alte-

expelled outside, so that the ego can act as i f the idea never occurred

5

petl and adapted to their f o r m . N a h u a civilization does not survive

to it at all. Therefore, whereas w h e n the repressed returns to the

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neurotic subject it rises up from the inside, the foreclosed is experi-

O n e final consequence o f defining modernity as a power rela-

enced by the psychotic as a threat from the outside. T h e foreclosed

tion is to undermine any n o t i o n o f modernity as an unfinished proj-

element i n this case is not only the history o f contributions to m o d -

ect. I f modernity were thought to be a force purely against barba-

ern culture and society by non-European peoples and civilizations,

rism and irrationality, then striving to complete modernity could be

making it seem that Europe is the source o f all m o d e r n innovation,

seen as a necessarily progressive process, a n o t i o n shared by Jiirgen

but also and more important the innumerable resistances w i t h i n and

Habermas and the other social democratic theorists we discussed

against modernity, w h i c h constitute the primary element o f dan-

earlier. W h e n we understand modernity as a power relation, h o w -

ger for its dominant self-conception. Despite all the furious energy

ever, completing modernity is merely continuing the same, repro-

expended to cast out the "antimodern" other, resistance remains within.

13

ducing domination. M o r e modernity or a more complete moder-

9

nity is not an answer to our problems. O n the contrary! For the first

To insist that forces o f antimodernity are w i t h i n modernity, o n

indications o f an alternative, we should instead investigate the forces

the c o m m o n terrain o f encounter, is not to say, o f course, that the

o f antimodernity, that is, resistances internal to m o d e r n domination.

m o d e r n w o r l d is homogeneous. Geographers rightly complain that, despite constant talk about space, contemporary theoretical discus-

Slave Property in the Modern Republic

sions o f postcoloniality and globalization generally present spaces

T h e history o f modernity and the history o f republicanism are w o -

that are anemic, devoid o f real differences.

10

T h e center-periphery

ven together to the point where at times they become indistinguish-

model is one framework that does capture well i n spatial terms the

able. Several different conceptions o f republic, as we saw earlier,

two-ness o f modernity's power relation, since the dominant center

compete i n the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and some

and subordinated peripheries exist only i n relation to each other,

o f these indeed refer to something very similar to the rule o f the

and the periphery is systematically "underdeveloped" to fit the needs

multitude, but only one conception—the republic o f property—

o f the center's development.

11

Such geographies o f modernity go

emerges as dominant. This republic matches so well w i t h modernity

awry, however, w h e n they conceive resistance as external to d o m i -

because property relations are one f o r m — a privileged f o r m — o f the

nation. A l l too often Europe or "the West" is cast as homogeneous

power relation that constitutes it. A particularly revealing terrain o n

and unified, as the pole o f domination i n this relationship, rendering

w h i c h to investigate this intimate relation among republic, property,

invisible the l o n g history o f European liberation struggles and class

and modernity is, perhaps paradoxically, the history o f m o d e r n slav-

12

struggles. A n d correspondingly many analyses neglect the forms o f

ery. Slavery is a scandal for the republic, even though, throughout

domination and control located outside Europe, conceiving them

the eighteenth century and well into the nineteenth, black slavery

merely as echoes o f European domination. This error cannot be cor-

and the slave trade are prominent, even central features o f republican

rected simply by multiplying the centers and peripheries—finding

governments throughout Europe and the Americas. In the U n i t e d

centers and peripheries w i t h i n Europe, for instance, as well as w i t h i n

States slave relations and slave production are explicit cornerstones

each subordinated country. To understand modernity, we have to

o f the republic and its economy. In France and England, although

stop assuming that domination and resistance are external to each

there is no comparable number o f slaves w i t h i n national boundaries,

other, casting antimodernity to the outside, and recognize that resis-

slavery and the slave trade are integral elements o f the national

tances mark differences that are w i t h i n . T h e resulting geographies

economies, political debates, and colonial administrations. O n e does

are more complex than simply the city versus the country or E u -

not have to l o o k far below the surface to see h o w firmly slavery is

rope versus its outside or the global N o r t h versus the global South.

rooted i n the republic. T h e question to ask, then, is why, w h e n slav-

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ery is so inimical to standard notions o f republicanism and moder-

the course o f this history. I f we limit our focus to the countries o f

nity, does slavery function for so l o n g w i t h i n modern republics, not

western Europe, as do many o f the histories, the development o f

as a peripheral remnant o f the past but as a central sustaining ped-

capitalist production can be made to appear relatively separate from

estal?

slave production, or, at the limit, the slave trade and slave production

73

Slavery is a scandal for the republic, first o f all, because it v i o -

are seen as providing a major external source o f the wealth that

lates the republic's core ideological principles: equality and freedom.

makes possible the emergence o f industrial capital i n Europe. F u r -

O t h e r sectors o f the population, such as w o m e n and those without

thermore, as many historians have noted, the slave plantation system

property, are deprived o f political rights and equality by republican

experiments w i t h and perfects the production scheme, division o f

constitutions, but the inequality and unfreedom o f slaves pose the

labor, and disciplinary regimes that the industrial factory w i l l even-

most extreme ideological contradiction. A l t h o u g h many eighteenth-

tually implement. F r o m this perspective, though, slavery and cap-

and nineteenth-century republican texts pose slavery as the primary

italism seem to form a temporal sequence, as i f capital and moder-

foil against w h i c h republican freedom and equality are defined, they

nity were inimical to slavery and slowly but surely put an end to it.

generally invoke ancient slavery and ignore the slavery o f their o w n

O n c e we extend our view, however, and recognize that the

times, the black slavery o f the Americas, w h i c h supports their o w n

context essential for the birth and growth o f capital resides i n the

societies. T h i s ideological blindness is part o f an operation that at-

w i d e circuits o f the passage o f humans, wealth, and commodities

tempts to make slaves disappear or, w h e n their existence cannot be

extending well beyond Europe, then we can see that slavery is c o m -

denied, cast them outside as remnants o f the premodern w o r l d and

pletely integrated into capitalist production d u r i n g at least the eigh-

thus foreign to the republic and modernity.

teenth century and m u c h o f the nineteenth. " T h e slavery o f the

14

T h e second way i n w h i c h slavery is a scandal for the republic is

Blacks i n Surinam, i n Brazil, i n the southern regions o f N o r t h

that it violates the capitalist ideology o f free labor. Capitalist i d e o l -

A m e r i c a . . . is as m u c h the pivot u p o n w h i c h our present-day i n -

ogy too uses slavery as the primary negative backdrop: freedom is

dustrialism turns as are machinery, credit, etc.," M a r x writes. " W i t h -

defined by the fact that the wage laborer owns his or her labor-

out slavery there w o u l d be no cotton, without cotton there w o u l d

power and is thus free to exchange it for a wage. A s owners o f their

be no m o d e r n industry. It is slavery w h i c h has given value to the

labor-power, workers, unlike slaves, can be absorbed ideologically

colonies, it is the colonies w h i c h have created w o r l d trade, and w o r l d

w i t h i n the republic o f property. Moreover, since chattel slavery c o n -

trade is the necessary condition o f large-scale machine industry."

founds the essential division between labor and property, slaves c o n -

Slaves and proletarians play complementary roles i n the w o r l d w i d e

stitute the point o f m a x i m u m ideological contradiction w i t h i n the

capitalist division o f labor, but the slaves o f Jamaica, Recife, and A l a -

republic o f property, the point at w h i c h either freedom or property

bama are really no less internal to the capitalist economies o f E n -

can be preserved, but not both. Here again, republican and capitalist

gland and France than the workers i n B i r m i n g h a m , Boston, and

ideological operations seek to make slaves disappear, or cast them as

Paris. Rather than assuming that capitalist relations necessarily cor-

mere remnants o f premodern economic relations, w h i c h capital w i l l

rode and destroy slavery, then, we have to recognize that throughout

eventually banish from history.

15

M a k i n g slaves disappear is not so simple, though, w h e n the question is not only ideological but also material and e c o n o m i c . T h e relation between slavery and wage labor is difficult to disentangle i n

16

the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the two support each other through a massive segregation schema, w i t h one generally located on the east side o f the Atlantic and the other o n the west.

17

N o n e o f this, however, grasps the racial hierarchy that is the es-

74

MODERNITY

( A N D THE L A N D S C A P E S

OF A LT E R M O D E R N I T Y )

sence o f m o d e r n slavery. Just as slavery is viewed as an aberration i n the republic o f property, so too is racism conceived, from a similarly ideological perspective, as an external element and a distortion o f modernity, w h i c h , once again, leads to the incompleteness hypothesis, as i f modernity, perfecting itself, w i l l eventually banish racism. R e c o g n i z i n g the internal relation o f black slavery i n the republic o f property, though, helps us see racism i n modernity as not o n l y an ideology but also a system o f material, institutional practices: a structure o f power that extends well beyond the institution o f slavery. T h e persistence o f racial hierarchies i n modernity, then, not only i n slavery but also i n the myriad other forms they take, is not a sign that modernity is "unfinished" but instead indicates the intimate relationship between race and modernity.

18

Earlier we said that w i t h -

out coloniality there is no modernity, and here we can see that race plays a similarly constitutive role. T h e three together function as a complex—modernity, coloniality, racism—with each serving as a necessary support for the others.

ANTIMODERNITY

AS

RESISTANCE

erty, and legislating against racial division (as does the 1805 Haitian Constitution, Article 14 o f w h i c h declares all Haitians black regardless o f skin color) undermines institutionalized racial hierarchy. Perhaps it should not be surprising that the Haitian R e v o l u t i o n c o n stitutes for the vast majority o f European and N o r t h A m e r i c a n republicans o f its time (and our own) an unthinkable event. It has to be silenced or cast outside because it reveals the profound contradiction between the ideology and substance o f republicanism and modernity.

19

O n e advantage o f recognizing the intimate relation between slavery and the m o d e r n republic—and more generally the doubleness o f modernity—is that it highlights the power o f slaves and their resistance. W h e n the slave is conceived as an abstract category, it is often posed as a figure o f absolute subjugation, a subject that has been entirely stripped o f freedom. Slaves thus present a useful limit case for Foucault's claim, cited earlier, that power is exercised only over free subjects. If slaves were indeed under absolute domination,

Slavery might thus serve as the emblem o f the psychosis o f the republic o f property, w h i c h preserves its ideological coherence through disavowal or foreclosure, either refusing to recognize the existence o f the traumatic reality o f slavery or casting it outside. This is undoubtedly part o f the reason w h y the Haitian R e v o l u t i o n has been so neglected i n m o d e r n history. T h e Haitian R e v o l u t i o n , after all, as we said earlier, is m u c h more faithful to republican ideology than the English, U.S., or French revolutions, i n at least one central respect: i f all men are equal and free, then certainly none can be slaves. A n d yet H a i t i seldom appears i n historical accounts o f the Age o f R e v o l u t i o n . T h e course o f the Haitian R e v o l u t i o n is filled w i t h contradictory forces, tragic turns, and disastrous outcomes, but it remains, despite all this, the first m o d e r n revolution against slavery, and thus one might call it the first properly m o d e r n revolution. Saying that, however, w o u l d take the republic and modernity according to o n l y their ideological self-definitions, not their material and insti-

there w o u l d be n o power exercised over them, according to F o u cault. It sounds contradictory, o f course, to claim that slaves are free. Foucault's point is that all subjects have access to a margin o f freedom, no matter h o w narrow that may be, w h i c h grounds their capacity to resist. To say that power is exercised only over "free subjects," then, really means that power is exercised only over subjects that resist, subjects that even p r i o r to the application o f power exercise their freedom. Slaves are most free, from this perspective, not from sundown to sunup, w h e n out o f reach o f the master's whip, but w h e n they resist the exercise o f power over t h e m .

20

B a r u c h Spinoza

makes a similar claim and anchors it to an ontological foundation: " N o b o d y can so completely transfer to another all his right, and consequently his power, as to cease to be a human being, nor w i l l there ever be a sovereign power that can do all it pleases."

21

Slave

resistance pushes to the l i m i t the relation between poverty and power exercised as freedom.

tutional substance, and whereas the Haitian R e v o l u t i o n extends the former, it betrays the latter. Freeing slaves violates the rule o f prop-

In historical terms this reflection illuminates the decisive role played by slave revolts, rebellions, and exoduses. Slavery is over-

75

76

MODERNITY

(AND THE LANDSCAPES

OF

ANTIMODERNITY

ALTERMODERNITY)

AS

RESISTANCE

turned not by the g o o d conscience o f republican values, as i f it were

sistance and antagonism that capital cannot tolerate. In fact these

just a premodern remainder; n o r by the progressive forces o f capital,

forms o f servitude are eventually destroyed, i n part, by the flight o f

as i f it were a precapitalist f o r m that took time for capital to e l i m i -

peasants toward the metropolises o f western Europe. T h r o u g h e x o -

nate entirely. Instead slavery is destroyed by the resistances o f slaves

dus, the antagonism o f the servant w i t h respect to the lord is trans-

themselves, w h o make it untenable as a f o r m o f government and

formed into the "abstract," objective antagonism o f the w o r k i n g 25

unprofitable as a f o r m o f p r o d u c t i o n . W. E . B . D u Bois provides an

class i n the face o f the capitalist class. T h e point once again is that

extreme example o f this hypothesis by arguing that slaves are p r o -

even i n circumstances o f servitude, "free subjects" have the power to

tagonists o f their o w n emancipation i n the U n i t e d States and deter-

resist, and that resistance, a force o f antimodernity, is key to under-

mine the outcome o f the C i v i l War. In order to sabotage the e c o n -

standing the movements o f m o d e r n history.

22

o m y o f the plantation system and stop the flow o f food and other

O n e thing this reflection o n slave resistance makes clear is that,

provisions to the Confederate Army, he explains, slaves set i n m o t i o n

although slaves may undergo what Orlando Patterson calls a "social

an exodus, "a general strike that involved directly i n the end perhaps

death," they remain alive i n their resistance. Humans cannot be re-

a half m i l l i o n people," w h i c h contributes to u n d e r m i n i n g the C o n -

duced to "bare life," i f by that term we understand those stripped o f

federate fighters.

23

D u Bois proposes this general strike as an e m -

any margin o f freedom and power to resist.

26

Humans are "naked"

blem to condense the l o n g history o f slave resistance and, more i m -

only i n the Machiavellian sense we discussed earlier: full o f rage and

portant, to demonstrate h o w black slaves are free subjects w h o play a

power and hope. A n d this brings us back to the definition o f m o -

determining role not just i n their o w n emancipation but i n the

dernity itself by highlighting the fact that its double nature is marked

course o f humanity as a whole. "It was the N e g r o himself," D u Bois

by not only hierarchy but also antagonism. Slave resistance is a force

claims, " w h o forced the consideration o f this incongruity [between

o f antimodernity not because it goes against the ideological values

democracy and slavery], w h o made emancipation inevitable and

o f freedom and equality—on the contrary, as D u Bois makes clear,

made the modern w o r l d at least consider i f not w h o l l y accept the

slave rebellions are a m o n g the highest instances o f those values i n

The

modernity—but because it challenges the hierarchical relationship

resistances and revolts o f slaves thus elucidate the contradiction at

at the core o f modernity's power relation. Antimodernity, conceived

the heart o f the republic o f property and modernity as a whole.

i n this way, is internal to and inseparable from modernity itself.

idea o f a democracy i n c l u d i n g men o f all races and colors."

24

Similar phenomena can be found i n the second wave o f servitude and slavery i n eastern Europe that stretches from

the

The Coloniality of Biopower

restoration o f feudal relations, following the

A n t i m o d e r n i t y is held under control i n the power relation o f m o -

wars o f religion, to the birth o f the nation-state. B o t h M a r x and

dernity not only through external forms o f subjugation—from the

M a x Weber focus o n this history, not only because it breaks w i t h the

slave master's lash and the conquistador's sword to capitalist society's

deterministic theory o f stages o f development o f the mode o f pro-

police and prison—but also and more important through internal

duction—workers i n eastern Europe, after a phase o f relative liberal-

mechanisms o f subjectification. T h e techniques and instruments o f

ization o f their movements, are reduced again to servitude within the

the triumvirate modernity-coloniality-racism permeate and invest

processes o f the formation o f the capitalist mode o f p r o d u c t i o n —

subordinated populations. This is not to imply, o f course, that m o -

but also because it shows how, already i n the preindustrial period,

dernity consists o f total and absolute control, but rather to refocus

the mobility and freedom o f labor-power constitutes a power o f re-

our attention once again o n the resistances that are b o r n w i t h i n m o -

seventeenth-century

77

MODERNITY

(AND THE LANDSCAPES

OF A LT E R M 0 D E R N I T Y )

ANTIMODERNITY

AS

RESISTANCE

dernity. T h e pervasiveness o f m o d e r n power, i n other words, corre-

relation to European conquest and colonization. It is a c o m m o n -

sponds to the internal provenance o f antimodernity.

place by n o w that throughout the Spanish conquest and coloniza-

Some o f the most influential w o r k i n postcolonial studies e m -

tion o f the Americas, the friars and priests o f the Catholic C h u r c h

phasizes the effectiveness o f modes o f representation and ideological

function as ideological and moral complements to the soldiers and

constructions to demonstrate the pervasive or even all-encompassing

generals o f the Spanish crown. T h e church not only pursues the task

nature o f colonial power. E d w a r d Said's study o f Orientalism, for

o f converting the heathens to Christianity but also devises elaborate

example, demonstrates h o w representations o f colonized and d o m i -

ideological structures about the nature and capacities o f the native

nated populations—in novels, histories, administrative documents,

populations, questioning their capacity for reason, their ability to

and myriad other texts—not only legitimate the colonial hierarchy

become Christian, and even their humanity. W h a t is perhaps most

i n the minds o f the colonizers but also shape the consciousness

remarkable about these racist and colonialist ideological constructs

o f the c o l o n i z e d .

27

Gayatri Spivak's famous and provocative claim

i n the Catholic C h u r c h is their durability: even Pope Benedict X V I

that the subaltern cannot speak similarly focuses o n the ideological

o n a visit to Brazil i n 2007 could repeat them. " C h r i s t is the Savior

power o f representations. In the conflict over the practice o f sati, or

for w h o m they were silently longing," he claims, referring to the

w i d o w burning, between British colonial ideology and traditional

populations o f the Americas. " T h e y received the H o l y Spirit w h o

patriarchal ideology, widows i n colonial India, Spivak argues, occupy

came to make their cultures fruitful, purifying them and developing

an abject position, doubly silenced: confronted o n the one side by

the numerous seeds that the incarnate W o r d had planted i n them,

the discourse o f "white m e n saving b r o w n w o m e n from b r o w n

thereby guiding them along the paths o f the Gospel. In effect, the

m e n " and o n the other by the traditional affirmation that "the

proclamation o f Jesus and o f his Gospel d i d not at any point involve

w o m e n want to die." Such ideological constructs completely satu-

an alienation o f the p r e - C o l u m b i a n cultures, nor was it the i m p o s i -

rate the colonial scene, completely eclipsing, i n Spivak's example,

tion o f a foreign culture." T h e ideological construct, as the pope's

any position from w h i c h the female subaltern can speak.

28

29

Such

claims make clear, is and must be internal to the subjugated, such

analyses o f ideological and representational constructions are so

that it is experienced as something that was already present, waiting

powerful i n part because they demonstrate h o w coloniality is

to be actualized, rather than arriving as an imposition from the out-

achieved and maintained not just through violence and force, w h i c h ,

side.

however generalized, always remain isolable and limited, but through

It is certainly very important to critique these kinds o f repre-

at least tacit consent to the colonial modes o f consciousness and

sentations and ideological constructs, as do many colonial and post-

forms o f knowledge that spread without boundaries throughout so-

colonial scholars, but there is a limitation to such projects. Ideology

ciety.

critique always assumes that i n the final analysis, even though it R e l i g i o u s institutions w i e l d some o f the most powerful instru-

is pervasive, ideology is somehow external to, or at least separable

ments o f m o d e r n colonial ideological control. A l l o f the major reli-

from, the subjugated subjects (or their interests). N o t i o n s o f ideol-

gions have a hand i n this—Islam, H i n d u i s m , and Confucianism

ogy and representation, i n other words, do not go far enough to

i n different ways, and today Christian evangelical and Pentecos-

grasp the depth o f the modernity-coloniality-racism complex. G e n -

tal churches, w h i c h are expanding enormously i n Africa and Latin

erally w h e n racism or "race t h i n k i n g " is considered an ideology, for

A m e r i c a , play a predominant role—but the Catholic C h u r c h has to

example, it is posed as an aberration or failure o f modernity and

be accorded a special place, given its l o n g history o f and intimate

thus, even though widespread, relatively separate from m o d e r n soci-

80

MODERNITY

(AND THE LANDSCAPES

ANTIMODERNITY

O F A LT E R M 0 D E R N I T Y )

AS

RESISTANCE

ety as a whole. R a c i s m , like coloniality, however, is not only internal

together race thinking, coloniality, and administrative structures,

to but also constitutive o f modernity. It is "institutional," as Stokely

producing i n a paradigmatic way the hierarchies and power relations

C a r m i c h a e l and Charles H a m i l t o n argue, i n the sense that racism is

that define modernity. T h e Inquisition may be an extreme example,

not just an individual question o f bias or prejudice but goes well

but it poses i n very clear terms h o w subjects are produced through

beyond the level o f ideology, that racism is embodied and expressed

the confession o f truths, the observance o f correct behavior, and

throughout the administrative, economic, and social arrangements

myriad other practices and procedures. T h e powers o f m o d e r n i t y -

o f power.

30

" S u c h a conception," writes B a r n o r Hesse, "moves the

coloniality-racism have never been merely superstructural p h e n o m -

emphasis away from the apparently autonomous ideological u n i -

ena but are rather material apparatuses that r u n throughout the c o l -

verse o f codified ideas o f discrete physiognomies and metaphors o f

lective existence o f dominated populations and invest their bodies,

autochthonous b l o o d to 'regimes o f practices.'"

31

Hesse suggests, i n

producing internally the forms o f life.

32

other words, that racism is better understood as not ideology but

If coloniality is a f o r m o f biopower, w h i c h functions internally,

governmentality. This is an important shift: the power relation that

producing forms o f life, does this mean that resistances have no place

defines the modernity-coloniality-racism complex is primarily a

to stand and w i l l necessarily be defeated? Nathan Wachtel, posing

matter not o f k n o w i n g but o f doing; and thus our critique should

this question i n m u c h more specific historical terms, asks whether

focus o n not the ideological and epistemological but the political

the anticolonial revolts i n sixteenth-century Peru were all really

and ontological. R e c o g n i z i n g modernity's racism and coloniality as

vanquished. " W e l l , yes," he responds, " i f one thinks o f the fortunes o f

biopower helps accomplish the shift o f perspective by emphasizing

war and the colonial situation. B u t we k n o w that native revolts, ac-

that power regulates not just forms o f consciousness but forms o f

cording to the context i n w h i c h they developed, could take differ-

life, w h i c h entirely invest the subordinated subjects, and by focusing

ent forms." T h e Araucanians i n C h i l e adopted certain European i n -

attention o n the fact that this power is productive—not only a force

struments o f war, whereas the Peruvian Indians relied more o n

o f prohibition and repression external to subjectivities but also and

traditional methods, and there were widespread small-scale passive

more important one that internally generates them.

forms o f resistance. Wachtel concludes, however, that we should re-

To return to the Catholic C h u r c h , then, we might consider as

main open to a reversal o f the results we expect to find. Sometimes

a prototype o f its exercise o f biopower the notorious Spanish I n q u i -

what looks like a defeat turns out to be a victory and vice versa—

sition, w h i c h by the seventeenth century is firmly established i n

and indeed measuring victory and defeat i n this way may not be the

Peru and elsewhere i n the Americas as a primary pillar o f the c o l o -

most useful yardstick. This returns us to our more general theo-

nial regime. T h e Inquisition is o f course an ideological structure,

retical question: Does the fact o f biopower's all-encompassing reach

w h i c h develops and enforces extremely refined definitions o f what

and capillary exercise, thoroughly investing subjects, mean that there

it means to be a Spaniard and a Christian, discovering and exposing

is no place for resistance? This question echoes the many objections

infidels, heretics, and enemies o f the church and the c r o w n , but it is

raised against Foucault's studies o f power w h i c h presume all that

also a highly developed bureaucracy w h i c h invents the systems o f

is internal to power is functional to it. To understand this point,

protocols, procedures, regulations, and record keeping that w i l l later

though, we need the k i n d o f reversal o f perspective that Watchel i n -

constitute m o d e r n state bureaucracies. T h e L i m a Inquisition, rather

dicates. W e should not think o f power as primary and resistance a

than being a remnant o f premodern irrationality, is as good a place

reaction to it; instead, paradoxical as it may sound, resistance is prior

as any to identify the birthplace o f modernity insofar as it brings

to power. Here we can appreciate the full importance o f Foucault's

33

81

82

MODERNITY

(AND THE L A N D S C A P E S

OF

ALTERMODERNITY)

claim that power is exercised only over free subjects. T h e i r

freedom

is p r i o r to the exercise o f power, and their resistance is simply the

2.2

effort to further, expand, and strengthen that freedom. A n d i n this context the dream o f an outside, an external standpoint or support for resistance, is both futile and disempowering.

A M B I V A L E N C E S OF M O D E R N I T Y

O u r conceptual project might thus be configured as a chiasmus. O n e movement shifts the study o f the modernity-colonialityracism complex from the external position o f ideology to the internal position o f biopower. A n d the second travels i n the opposite direction, opening up from the inside o f antimodern resistances to the biopolitical struggles that are capable o f rupture and the c o n -

Alegria imagined a map of the world suspended in darkness until suddenly a tiny flame blazed up, followed by others, to form a burning necklace of revolution across the two Americas.

struction o f an alternative.

—Leslie Marmon Silko, Almanac of the Dead

Marxism and Modernity W i t h regard to modernity the Marxist tradition is ambivalent, at times even contradictory. It contains a strong current that celebrates modernity as progress and denigrates all forces o f antimodernity as superstition and backwardness, but it also includes an antimodernity line, w h i c h is revealed most clearly i n the theoretical and political positions closely tied to class struggle. Resistances to capital by workers, peasants, and all others w h o come under capitalist control constitute a central instance o f antimodernity w i t h i n modernity. K a r l Marx's w o r k provides a solid basis for the v i e w that i d e n tifies modernity w i t h progress. In the sections o f the Grundrisse dedicated to the analysis o f "forms w h i c h precede capitalist production," for example, he insists o n the deterministic connections that link the Asiatic and ancient (slave) modes o f production to the formation o f the capitalist mode. This teleological reading o f economic history poses divisions among economic forms and practices, w h i c h were at times present i n the same historical period, and leads everything u n erringly, i n Marx's time, to the centrality o f the capitalist mode o f production, using the same crude evolutionary logic as w h e n he maintains, i n a somewhat different context, that "human anatomy

MODERNITY

( A N D THE L A N D S C A P E S

OF

ALTERMODERNITY)

AMBIVALENCES

OF

MODERNITY

contains the key to the anatomy o f the ape." M a r x , along w i t h E n -

w i t h i n itself the entire world. A n d this certainly has come to pass,

gels, tends i n many o f his works to view those outside Europe as

but not i n such a simple or linear fashion. It is true that the w o r l d -

"people without history," separate from the development o f capital

systems perspective does not present an absolutely linear progression

and locked i n an immutable present w i t h o u t the capacity for his-

i n its analysis o f global expansion: the spatial progression (which is

34

torical i n n o v a t i o n . This accounts for Marx's underestimation i n

linear i n the sense that the capitalist integration processes are pre-

this period, the 1850s, o f anticolonial resistances, peasant struggles,

sented as irreversible) is accompanied by a temporal ascesis that de-

and i n general the movements o f all those workers not directly en-

scribes the cyclical contradictions o f capitalist expansion. W i t h i n

gaged i n capitalist production. This perspective also leads M a r x to

these cycles and their rhythms (from primitive accumulation to i n -

view colonization (British rule i n India, for instance) as necessary

dustrial centralization up to financial accumulation and then back

for progress since it introduces to the colony capitalist relations o f

again, after the crisis that financial accumulation creates) the hege-

production.

35

W e should add, i n this regard, that the major n i n e -

m o n i c centers o f development

shift geographically—previously

teenth- and early-twentieth-century European critiques o f this ele-

from the coasts o f the Mediterranean to those o f the Atlantic and

ment o f Marx's w o r k raised by historians and social scientists does

today to the Pacific region—and consequently define the spatial

not challenge the teleological, evolutionary aspect o f the analysis.

hierarchies and/or zones o f exclusion. E v e n w h e n these theories

M a x Weber, for example, enlarges the gamut o f criteria for evaluat-

take into account cyclical variations, however, the systematic nature

i n g development to include religious, political, cultural, and other

o f capitalist development and expansion is maintained. W h a t the

phenomena but does not weaken the deterministic logic o f prog-

schema cannot account for adequately, even w h e n it refers to "anti-

ress.

systemic" movements, are the forces o f antimodernity: it cannot recT h e m o d e r n i z i n g and progressivist line o f Marx's thought is

ognize class struggle as fundamental i n the determination o f histori-

reproduced i n a w i d e variety o f Marxist discourses. T h e social d e m -

cal, social, and economic development; it cannot understand capital

ocratic notion o f "incomplete" modernity, w h i c h we mentioned

as a relation that pulls together (and cuts apart) the powers o f labor

earlier, is based o n similar assumptions, although the relation o f those

and the rule o f capital; and finally, it cannot adequately take into ac-

thinkers to M a r x is tenuous at best. T h e l o n g tradition o f scientific

count the resistances o f subjects other than those directly involved

socialism, along w i t h the socialist policies o f industrial development,

i n capitalist production. T h e less sophisticated versions o f w o r l d -

also derives from this aspect o f Marx's thought. A n d the denigration

systems theory rely o n a conception o f development through suc-

o f figures o f labor and rebellion outside the industrial w o r k i n g class

cessive stages, i n w h i c h each stage determines a higher degree o f

as precapitalist or primitive has a significant presence i n the Marxist

progress o f social and economic relations. B u t even i n the hands o f

tradition.

37

World-systems theories present an ambiguous but nonetheless important case o f the inheritance o f this line o f Marx's thought. A l -

its most sophisticated practitioners, world-systems theory, w i t h o u t access to the dark forces o f antimodernity, reproduces the link between M a r x i s m and modernity.

38

ready i n Ferdinand Braudel's work, from w h i c h world-systems theo-

It w o u l d be a mistake, however, to identify M a r x i s m as a w h o l e

ries take inspiration, and even earlier i n the morphological theories

w i t h a progressivist notion o f modernity. W h e n we l o o k at the theo-

o f capitalist development, the w o r l d market is seen to be constituted

ries i n the Marxist tradition closest to class struggle and revolution-

through a relatively linear process o f expansion o f the capitalist ca-

ary action, i n fact, those dedicated to overthrowing the power o f

pacity to export goods. Gradually, the theory goes, capital absorbs

capitalist modernity and breaking w i t h its ideology, we get an en-

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tirely different picture. T h e anti-imperialist theories and political

the ideological barriers that have divided them. L e n i n rails against

projects that emerge i n the early twentieth century provide one i m -

the "labor aristocracy" i n European countries that, w i t h its chau-

portant example o f antimodernity i n M a r x i s m and revolutionary

vinism and reformism, effectively supports imperialism and posits

communism. In R o s a Luxemburg's w o r k the terrain o f the realiza-

the potential o f a c o m m o n anti-imperialist struggle that brings the

tion and valorization o f the capitalist corporation depends o n the

"thousand m i l l i o n people (in the colonies and semi-colonies)" to-

expanding limits o f the capitalist market and, primarily, o n the c o l o -

gether w i t h the "wage slaves o f capitalism i n the lands o f ' c i v i l i z a -

nial boundaries. O n these limits—and o n capital's capacity to ex-

tion.'"

pand through a continual process o f primitive accumulation—is ac-

dernity that animates the communist movement breaks completely

complished, w i t h

w i t h the determinism and teleology o f progressivist discourses.

the

consolidation

o f collective profit,

the

40

T h e power o f this c o m m o n struggle against capitalist m o -

progressive subsumption o f the globe w i t h i n capitalist command.

M a o Z e d o n g continues this line o f revolutionary communist

B u t this development creates, i n Luxemburg's perspective, enormous

theory and emphasizes i n it the power o f antimodernity. M a o rec-

contradictions, and her notions o f contradiction and crises highlight

ognizes that the economic and social development o f C h i n a cannot

the subjective forces that arise against capitalist modernity:

be accomplished only by following the models o f modernity. R e forming the structures o f government and transforming the living

T h e more ruthlessly capital sets about the destruction o f n o n capitalist strata at home and i n the outside w o r l d , the more it lowers the standard o f living for the workers as a whole, the greater also is the change i n the day-to-day history o f capital. It becomes a string o f political and social disasters and c o n v u l sions, and under these conditions, punctuated by periodical economic catastrophes or crises, accumulation can go o n no longer. B u t even before this natural economic impasse o f capital's o w n creating is properly reached it becomes necessary for the international w o r k i n g class to revolt against the rule o f capital.

conditions o f workers to liberate them from capitalist rule requires an alternative path. Mao's elevation o f the political role o f the peasantry, o f course, is one extremely important departure from o r t h o dox positions, as is more generally his powerful critique o f Stalinist economic thought.

41

E v e n i n Mao's most extreme modernization

projects, Wang H u i suggests, there is a strong element o f antimodernity. This "antimodern theory o f modernization," he explains, brings together characteristics o f Chinese thought from the late Q i n g o n wards w i t h the antimodernity o f the revolutionary communist tradition.

42

39

O n c e we have recognized this antimodern stream i n revoluO n these boundaries o f development capitalist crises are constantly

tionary communist t h o u g h t — w h i c h , we must admit, even i n the

generated by the forces o f antimodernity, that is, proletarian revolts.

authors we cite, is always ambivalent, m i x e d w i t h notions o f moder-

In L e n i n the subjective face o f capitalist crisis is even more

nity and progress—we should take another l o o k at Marx's w o r k ,

dramatic. W h i l e the great capitalist powers are battling one another

because it does not undividedly support the modernity line as we

over conflicting imperialist projects i n the First W o r l d War, the

suggested earlier. In the last years o f his life, the second half o f the

struggles against the war and against the capitalist logic that drives it

1870s, after having w o r k e d for decades o n Capital and throwing

provide a c o m m o n ground for anticapitalist and anticolonial strug-

himself headlong into the project to create a communist Interna-

gles. Lenin's "popular outline," Imperialism, i n addition to offering

tional, M a r x becomes interested i n pre- or noncapitalist forms o f

analyses o f finance capital, banks, and the like, also proposes that the

property and starts reading some o f the founders o f m o d e r n anthro-

interimperialist war has generated not only misery and death for the

pology and sociology, such as Lewis M o r g a n , M a k s i m Kovalevsky,

workers o f the w o r l d but also the opportunity to break through

J o h n Phear, H e n r y M a i n e , J o h n L u b b o c k , and G e o r g L u d w i g M a u -

87

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rer. H e develops a hypothesis that bourgeois private property is only

the countries enslaved by the capitalist system." Does this affirma-

one form o f property among many others that exist i n parallel, and

tion o f the forces o f antimodernity and what Etienne Balibar calls

that the rules o f capitalist property are acquired only through a b r u -

his "anti-evolutionist" hypothesis reveal a contradiction i n Marx?

tal and complex disciplinary training. H e thus completely overturns

If so, it seems to us a healthy contradiction, one that enriches his

the r i g i d theory o f "precapitalist forms" that he developed i n the

thought.

44

45

1850s: he draws into question the claim that economic laws act i n -

O n e important element that M a r x seems to intuit i n this ex-

dependently o f historical and social circumstances and extends his

change but cannot articulate is that the revolutionary forms o f anti-

perspective somewhat beyond the Eurocentric limits o f his earlier

modernity are planted firmly o n the common.Jose Carlos Mariategui

views, subordinating the history o f Europe to the standpoint o f the

is i n a privileged position to recognize this aspect o f antimodern

entire globe, w h i c h contains w i t h i n it radical differences.

resistance both w i t h i n and outside Europe. After traveling to Europe

Marx's break w i t h his earlier assumptions o f m o d e r n "prog-

i n the 1920s and studying socialist and communist movements there,

ress" seems to be consolidated w h e n he receives a request i n the late

he returns to his native Peru and discovers that A n d e a n indigenous

1870s to adjudicate between two groups o f Russian revolutionaries:

communities, the ayllus, rest o n a parallel basis.The indigenous c o m -

one side, citing Marx's o w n w o r k , insists that capitalism has to be

munities defend and preserve c o m m o n access to the land, c o m m o n

developed i n Russia before the struggle for c o m m u n i s m can begin;

forms o f labor, and c o m m u n a l social organization—something like,

and the other side sees i n the mir, the Russian peasant commune, an

i n Mariategui's m i n d , the prerevolutionary Russian peasant c o m -

already existing basis for c o m m u n i s m . M a r x finds himself i n an awk-

munities that interested M a r x , the mir. " T h e Indian," he writes, " i n

ward position here because, whereas his major writings support the

spite o f one hundred years o f republican legislation, has not become

former position, his current t h i n k i n g agrees w i t h the latter. M a r x

an individualist" but instead resists i n communities, o n the basis o f

tries to reconcile his views, claiming, for instance, i n the draft o f a

the c o m m o n .

letter to Vera Zasulich, that i n order to consider the question, "we

despotic elements o f traditional Inca society, but he also finds i n it a

must descend from pure theory to Russian reality." T h e historical

solid rooting i n the c o m m o n that serves as a basis for resistance.

necessity o f the destruction o f c o m m u n a l property i n western E u -

T h r o u g h his contact w i t h European c o m m u n i s m he comes to u n -

rope that M a r x describes i n Capital is not, he explains i n another

derstand the importance and potential o f the indigenous popula-

letter o f this period, a universal history that immediately applies to

tions and social forms o f "Inca c o m m u n i s m " — n o t , o f course, as a

Russia or anywhere else. It is a mistake to "metamorphose m y his-

remainder preserved intact from p r e - C o l u m b i a n times or as a de-

torical sketch o f the genesis o f capitalism i n Western Europe into a

rivative o f European political movements, but as a dynamic expres-

historical-philosophical theory o f general development, imposed by

sion o f resistance w i t h i n m o d e r n society. Antimodernity, w i t h i n E u -

fate o n all peoples, whatever the historical circumstances i n w h i c h

rope and outside, should be understood first i n the social expression

they are placed."

43

In Russia, i n fact, the task o f the revolution is to

4 6

Mariategui certainly recognizes the theocratic and

o f the c o m m o n .

halt the "progressive" developments o f capital that threaten the R u s sian commune. " I f revolution comes at the opportune moment," M a r x writes, " i f it concentrates all its forces so as to allow the rural c o m m u n e full scope, the latter w i l l soon develop as an element o f regeneration i n Russian society and an element o f superiority over

Socialist Development Whereas the tradition o f Marxist theory has an ambivalent relation to modernity, the practice o f socialist states is tied to it more u n equivocally. T h e three great socialist revolutions—in Russia, C h i n a ,

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and Cuba—although the revolutionary struggles that lead to them

resolve the contradiction by deferring it: economic progress is nec-

are traversed by powerful forces o f antimodernity, all come to pur-

essary n o w to allow the subaltern classes to mature to the point

sue resolutely m o d e r n i z i n g projects. T h e dominant capitalist c o u n -

where they can effectively challenge capitalist rule. B u t note that

tries, as numerous

whenever L e n i n tries to solve a contradiction by deferring it into

authors have argued, promote

and

impose

throughout the twentieth century ideologies and economic policies

the future—most

o f development that, although cast as a benefit to all, reproduce the

state—he is merely covering over a real problem. T h e maturation

notably i n his theory o f the w i t h e r i n g o f the

global hierarchies o f modernity-coloniality.The programs o f the so-

process or transition never comes to an end, and the contradiction

cialist states, however, are equally dedicated to this same notion o f

remains intact. L e n i n i n this instance lacks not the spirit o f the revo-

development, perversely repeating the figure and structures o f power

lutionary struggle but a sufficient analysis o f the mystifying function

in the capitalist countries they oppose. T h e critique o f imperialism,

o f capitalist ideology and its notion o f progress.

48

In similar fashion,

w h i c h remains a central ideological pillar for the postrevolutionary

the developmentalist ideologies and economic policies o f the social-

socialist states, is forced to go hand i n hand w i t h the p r o m o t i o n o f

ist states do not betray the revolutionary forces and theories that led

developmentalist political economy.

to them but rather flatten their ambivalence by highlighting the face

W e l l before the Bolshevik victory, as we said earlier, strong the-

o f m o d e r n progress and eliminating the elements o f antimodernity.

oretical veins o f revolutionary thought envision the goal o f socialism

It is no coincidence that i n the last decades o f the twentieth

as not so m u c h liberation but higher development, w h i c h is thought

century, w h e n the "great hope" o f really existing socialism falls into

to repeat or even improve on the modernization o f the dominant

disenchantment, the three great socialist experiments are all envel-

countries. T h e construction o f a national people and a socialist state

oped i n a c o m m o n crisis. In the case o f the Soviet U n i o n , what was

are both functional to developmentalist ideology, w h i c h eclipses any

its m o d e l o f development i f not a mirage o f liberation translated

autonomous development o f alternative needs and indigenous tra-

into the language o f capitalist development? It envisioned an exit

ditions. A t times national economic development is posed as a pur-

from economic dependency through stages o f development, through

gatory that has to be traversed i n order to catch up w i t h the cap-

the awkward absorption and transfiguration o f capitalist modernity

italist countries, but more often it is seen as paradise itself.To critique

into the rhetoric o f socialism. M a r x i s m was simplified into an evo-

development, o f course, does not i m p l y rejecting prosperity (on the

lutionary theory o f progress from w h i c h all elements o f antimoder-

contrary!), just as the critique o f modernity does not mean opposing

nity are excluded as backward, underdeveloped. T h e Soviet crisis

rationality or enlightenment. It requires rather, as we said earlier, that

involved all aspects o f social development, along w i t h the d e m o -

we take a different standpoint and recognize h o w the continuation

cratic status o f the political structures, the ruling mechanisms o f the

o f modernity and development programs only reproduces the hier-

bureaucratic elite, and the geopolitical situation o f Soviet quasi-

archies that define t h e m .

47

colonial expansion.

T h e ambivalence o f the modernity and developmentalism o f

In C h i n a the crisis led not to collapse but to an evolution o f

the economic programs o f the socialist states can already be recog-

the system that refined the strongly centralized political manage-

nized i n Lenin's 1898 study The Development of Capitalism in Russia.

ment o f development along the lines o f the capitalist organization o f

T h e modern m o d e l o f economic development he affirms directly

labor. T h i s can be directed through socialist, bureaucratic, and cen-

conflicts i n this b o o k w i t h his appreciation o f the "premodern"—or,

tralized means or i n a more socially decentralized way, giving space

really, antimodern—antagonism o f the subaltern classes. H e tries to

and support to market forces i n the framework o f a unified global

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market that offers profits and competitive advantage from wage i n -

rather i n the mad rush o f Left and R i g h t elected political forces to-

equalities and p o o r labor conditions. T h e Chinese road to neoliber-

ward parliamentary and populist "centrism," to create what Etienne

alism is different from that o f the capitalist countries—with limited

Balibar calls "extremism o f the center."

50

privatization, continuing state control, the creation o f new class d i -

T h e "mistaken standpoint" o f the three great socialist e x p e r i -

visions w i t h new hierarchies between urban and rural areas, and so

ences, to take up ironically an o l d term o f Soviet bureaucrats, is due

forth—but n o less effective. In retrospect, the current neoliberal re-

not so m u c h to the fact that the progressivist norms o f capitalist

gime i n C h i n a helps us identify more clearly h o w powerful the de-

development were internalized i n the consciousness o f the ruling

velopmentalist ideology was all along w i t h i n the socialist regime.

classes o f "really existing socialism," but rather to the fact that, para-

C u b a , finally, has managed so far to h o l d at bay the ultimate

doxically, these norms were too weakly internalized. A l t h o u g h these

consequences o f the crisis but o n l y by freezing itself i n time, b e c o m -

experiments i n socialism failed, capitalist development i n Russia and

ing a k i n d o f preserve o f socialist ideology that has lost its original

C h i n a d i d not. After relatively b r i e f crises those countries returned

components. T h e enormous pressure o f the crisis, though, continues

to capitalism m u c h richer and more powerful than they were w h e n

to have profound effects. A n d C u b a constantly has to ward off the

they supposedly broke w i t h capitalist development. " R e a l l y existing

two threatening alternatives that seem to prefigure its future: the

socialism" proved to be a powerful machine o f primitive accumula-

catastrophic end o f the Soviet experience or the neoliberal evolu-

tion and economic development. A m o n g other innovations, i n c o n -

tion o f the Chinese.

ditions o f underdevelopment it invented instruments (like those o f

This same socialist ideology also traveled for several decades

Keynesianism, for instance) that capitalist states adopted o n l y i n

through the so-called underdeveloped or developing countries, from

phases o f cyclical crisis; and it anticipated and normalized the tools

India and East Asia to Africa and Latin A m e r i c a . Here too there was

o f governance to rule over the exception that (as we w i l l see i n Part

a strong continuity between the capitalist theories o f development

4) continue to be used i n the current global order. C o n s i d e r i n g the

T h e project o f modernity

exhaustion o f global capitalist development today, the crises o f "re-

and modernization became key to the control and repression o f the

ally existing socialism" take o n an acute contemporary relevance. De

forces o f antimodernity that emerged i n the revolutionary struggles.

te fabula narratur: the story is really about y o u .

and the socialist theories o f dependency.

49

T h e notions o f "national development" and the "state o f the entire

It w o u l d be w r o n g to forget or minimize, however, h o w m u c h

people," w h i c h constantly held out an illusory promise for the f u -

the victorious socialist revolutions i n Russia, C h i n a , and C u b a aided

ture but merely served to legitimate the existing global hierarchies,

and inspired anticapitalist and anti-imperialist liberation movements

was one o f the most damaging regurgitations o f socialist ideology. In

around the w o r l d . W e should be careful that our critique o f them

the name o f the "unity o f the entire people," i n fact, were organized

does not simply reinforce the vulgar attempts o f the dominant ide-

political operations that pretended to overcome class conflict (while

ology to cancel them from memory. E a c h o f these revolutions i n i t i -

merely suppressing it) and thus confused the political meanings o f

ated cycles o f struggles that spread throughout the w o r l d i n a k i n d

R i g h t and Left, along w i t h fascist and communist. T h i s reactionary

o f viral contamination, communicating their hopes and dreams to

project o f modernity (behind the mask o f socialism) emerges most

other movements. It w o u l d be useful, i n fact, at this point i n history,

strongly i n moments o f economic crisis: it was part o f the horrible

to be able to measure realistically the extent to w h i c h the definitive

experience o f the Soviet 1930s, and i n certain respects it is repeated

crisis o f the socialist states hindered or actually aided the course o f

again today, not i n the name o f the "unity o f the entire people" but

liberation movements. If we say, i n other words, that the " b r i e f twen-

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tieth century," w h i c h began i n 1917, came to an end between B e i -

tivities at the base o f the productive and political processes have the

j i n g and B e r l i n i n 1989, that does not mean i n any way that the

capacity to construct a consciousness o f renewal and transformation.

hope and movement for c o m m u n i s m ended then but only that an-

This consciousness no longer descends from the intellectual sec-

other century has begun. W e w i l l explore some o f the ways that the

tors that are organic to what was once called socialist science but

forces o f antimodernity today act w i t h i n and against the processes o f

rather emerges from the w o r k i n g classes and multitudes that auton-

capitalist globalization and discover an escape route from the cage o f

omously and creatively propose antimodern and anticapitalist hopes

developmentalist ideology i n w h i c h the socialist states were trapped.

and dreams.

In any case, one fact that emerges clearly from this history is that liberation struggles can no longer be cast i n terms o f m o d e r n -

Caliban Breaks Free of the Dialectic

ization and stages o f development. T h e power o f antimodernity,

T h r o u g h o u t modernity, often alongside the most radical projects o f

w h i c h was unrealized i n the socialist revolutions and the struggles

rationalism and enlightenment, monsters continually spring up. In

for national independence, comes to the fore again, intact, i n our

Europe, from Rabelais to Diderot and from Shakespeare to M a r y

times. C h e Guevara seems to intuit this fact d u r i n g the final years o f

Shelley, monsters present figures o f sublime disproportion and ter-

his life w h e n he tries to break away from the structural determinism

rifying excess, as i f the confines o f m o d e r n rationality were too nar-

and the historical linearity o f socialist doctrine, w h i c h , he recog-

row to contain their extraordinary creative powers. Outside Europe,

nizes, merely reproduces the basic features o f capitalist modernity.

too, forces o f antimodernity are cast as monsters i n order to rein i n

"Pursuing the chimera o f realizing socialism w i t h the help o f the

their power and legitimate domination over them. Stories o f human

blunt weapons left to us by capitalism," he writes, leads to a dead

sacrifice among Amerindians serve as evidence for sixteenth-century

end. " T o construct c o m m u n i s m it is necessary to make, simultane-

Spaniards o f their cruelty, violence, and madness, just as the n o t i o n

ous w i t h the new material foundation, a new humanity [el hombre

o f the cannibal functions for African colonizers i n a later period.

nuevo]." C h e certainly knows firsthand the constraints o f socialist

T h e witch-hunts, w i t c h burning, and w i t c h trials that spread widely

developmentalism. H e serves as president o f the national bank and

throughout Europe and the Americas i n the sixteenth and seven-

minister o f industries i n the years after the revolution. B u t i n 1965

teenth centuries are further examples o f the forces o f antimodernity

he mysteriously disappears from public v i e w and leaves to j o i n revo-

cast out as irrationality and superstition, betraying reason and reli-

lutionary struggles first i n the C o n g o and then i n B o l i v i a , where he

gion. W i t c h - h u n t s often spring up, i n fact, i n regions that have re-

is killed. Some see this decision to leave C u b a and his government

cently been the site o f intense peasant rebellion, often led by w o m e n ,

posts as a sign o f a romantic's restlessness for adventure or an u n w i l l -

resisting coloniality, capitalist rule, and patriarchal d o m i n a t i o n . B u t

ingness to roll up his sleeves and face the hard w o r k o f building a

modernity has difficulty dealing w i t h its monsters and tries to dis-

national economy. W e interpret it instead as a refusal o f the bureau-

miss them as illusions, figments o f an overheated imagination. "Per-

cratic and economic straitjacket o f the socialist state, a refusal to obey

seus wore a magic cap so that the monsters he hunted d o w n might

the dictates o f development ideology. T h e new humanity he seeks to

not see h i m , " M a r x writes. " W e draw the magic cap d o w n over our

build c o m m u n i s m w i l l never be found there. H i s flight to the jungle

eyes and ears so as to deny that there are any monsters." T h e m o n -

is really a desperate attempt to rediscover the forces o f antimoder-

sters are real, though, and we should open our eyes and ears to u n -

nity he k n e w i n the liberation struggle. Today it is even more clear

derstand what they have to tell us about modernity.

51

than i n Che's time that only movements from below, only subjec-

52

53

M a x H o r k h e i m e r a n d T h e o d o r A d o r n o try to grasp the m o n -

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sters o f antimodernity—irrationalism, myth, domination, and barba-

A d o r n o can see no way out, leaving humanity d o o m e d to the eter-

rism—by b r i n g i n g them into dialectical relation w i t h enlighten-

nal play o f opposites. Part o f the problem, then, is the failure to rec-

ment. " W e have no doubt," they write, "that freedom i n society is

ognize differences among figures o f antimodernity, because the most

inseparable from enlightenment thinking. W e believe we have per-

powerful o f them, and the ones that w i l l interest us most, do not

ceived w i t h equal clarity, however, that the very concept o f that

stand i n a specular, negative relation to modernity but rather adopt a

thinking, no less than the concrete historical forms, the institutions

diagonal stance, not simply opposing all that is m o d e r n and rational

o f society w i t h w h i c h it is intertwined, already contains the g e r m o f

but inventing new rationalities and new forms o f liberation. W e need

the regression [its reversal] w h i c h is taking place everywhere to-

to get out o f the vicious cycle that H o r k h e i m e r and Adorno's dia-

54

day." T h e y see modernity caught inextricably i n an intimate rela-

lectic sets up by recognizing h o w the positive, productive m o n -

tionship w i t h its opposite, leading inevitably to its self-destruction.

sters o f antimodernity, the monsters o f liberation, always exceed the

H o r k h e i m e r and A d o r n o , w r i t i n g from exile i n the U n i t e d States i n

domination o f modernity and point toward an alternative.

the early 1940s, are struggling to understand the N a z i rise i n G e r -

O n e way to break free from this dialectic is to l o o k at the rela-

many and the mixture o f rationality and barbarism i n the regime.

tionship from the standpoint o f modernity's monsters. T h e savage,

T h e Nazis are not anomalous i n their view, however, but a symptom

deformed Caliban i n Shakespeare's Tempest, for example, is a power-

o f the nature o f modernity itself. Proletarians too, they maintain, are

ful symbol o f the colonized native as a terrible, threatening monster.

subject to this same dialectic, such that their projects o f freedom and

(The name Caliban itself could be an approximate anagram for can-

rational social organization are inevitably functional to the creation

nibal at the same time that it suggests the Caribs, the native popula-

o f a total, administered society. H o r k h e i m e r and A d o r n o see no m o -

tion o f Caribbean islands exterminated during the colonial period.)

ment o f subsumption or resolution o f this dialectic but only a c o n -

Prospero the magician recounts that he tried to befriend and edu-

stant frustration o f modernity's ideals and even a progressive degra-

cate the monster, but once it threatened his daughter, M i r a n d a , he

dation into their opposite, so that instead o f finally realizing a truly

had no choice but to restrain the brute by i m p r i s o n i n g h i m w i t h i n a

human condition, we are sinking into a new k i n d o f barbarism.

tree. T h e monstrousness and savagery o f the native, following the

H o r k h e i m e r and A d o r n o s argument is extraordinarily i m p o r -

classic script, legitimates the rule o f the European i n the name o f

tant for its decisive departure from the teleological m o d e r n i z i n g line

modernity. Caliban, however, cannot simply be killed or cast out.

o f Marxist thought, but i n our view, by constructing the relation

" W e cannot miss h i m , " Prospero explains to M i r a n d a . " H e does

between modernity and antimodernity as a dialectic, they make two

make our fire / fetch i n our w o o d , and serves i n office / That profit

mistakes. First, the formulation tends to homogenize the forces o f

us." T h e monster's labor is needed, and thus he must be kept inside

antimodernity. Some antimodernities, like the Nazis, do indeed c o n -

the island society.

55

stitute horrible fiends that enslave the population, but others chal-

T h e figure o f Caliban has also been redeployed as a symbol o f

lenge the structures o f hierarchy and sovereignty w i t h figures o f u n -

resistance i n twentieth-century anticolonial struggles i n the C a r i b -

containable freedom. Second, by closing this relationship i n a

bean. T h e monstrous image created by the colonizers is revalued

dialectic, H o r k h e i m e r and A d o r n o limit antimodernities to standing

from the other side to tell the story o f the suffering o f the colonized

i n opposition and even contradiction to modernity. R a t h e r than be-

and their liberation struggles against the colonizers. "Prospero i n -

i n g a principle o f movement, then, the dialectic brings the relation-

vaded the islands," writes R o b e r t o Fernandez Retamar, " k i l l e d our

ship to a standstill. T h i s accounts for the fact that H o r k h e i m e r and

ancestors, enslaved Caliban, and taught h i m his language to make

MODERNITY

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ALTERWlODtRNSTO

OF

MODERNITY

himself understood. W h a t else can Cahban do but use that same

m y dream remained before my eyes as vividly as i f the things had

language—today he has no other—to curse h i m , to wish that the

been true—especially [the image] o f a certain black, scabby B r a z i l -

'red plague' w o u l d fall o n h i m . I k n o w no other metaphor more

ian w h o m I had never seen before." T h e first thing to remark about

expressive o f our cultural situation, o f our reality. . . . [W]hat is our

this letter is its racist construction o f the black, scabby Brazilian as a

history, what is o u r culture, i f not the history and culture o f C a l i -

sort o f Caliban, w h i c h most likely derives from Spinoza's second-

56

58

ban?" T h e culture o f Caliban is the culture o f resistance that turns

hand knowledge o f the experiences o f D u t c h merchants and entre-

the weapons o f colonial domination back against it. T h e victory o f

preneurs, especially D u t c h Jews, w h o established businesses i n Brazil

the C u b a n R e v o l u t i o n , then, for Retamar, is the victory o f Caliban

i n the seventeenth century. Spinoza, o f course, is by no means alone

over Prospero. A i m e Cesaire similarly rewrites Shakespeare's play so

a m o n g European philosophers i n employing such racist images.

that n o w Caliban, w h o has for so l o n g been lorded over by Prospero,

M a n y o f the most prominent authors i n the c a n o n — H e g e l and

finally wins his freedom, not only breaking the chains o f his physical

Kant first among them—not only invoke non-Europeans i n general

imprisonment but also freeing himself ideologically from the m o n -

and the darker races specifically as figures o f unreason but also

strous image—underdeveloped, incompetent, and inferior—that he

mount arguments to substantiate their lower mental capacities.

had internalized from the colonizers. "Caliban's reason" thus be-

we stop our reading o f the letter at that point, however, we miss

comes a figure for A f r o - C a r i b b e a n thought i n its distinct and au-

what is most interesting i n Spinoza's monster, because he goes o n to

tonomous development from the European c a n o n .

57

59

If

explain h o w it configures for h i m the power o f the imagination.

This anticolonial Caliban offers a way out o f the dialectic i n

T h e imagination for Spinoza does not create illusion but is a real

w h i c h H o r k h e i m e r and A d o r n o leave us trapped. F r o m the perspec-

material force. It is an open field o f possibility o n w h i c h we recog-

tive o f the European colonizers the monster is contained i n the dia-

nize what is c o m m o n between one body and another, one idea and

lectical struggle between reason and madness, progress and barba-

another, and the resulting c o m m o n notions are the building blocks

rism, modernity and antimodernity. F r o m the perspective o f the

o f reason and tools for the constant project o f increasing our powers

colonized, though, i n their struggle for liberation, Caliban, w h o is

to think and to act. B u t the imagination for Spinoza is always exces-

endowed w i t h as m u c h or more reason and civilization than the

sive, going beyond the bounds o f existing knowledge and thought,

colonizers, is monstrous only to the extent that his desire for free-

presenting the possibility for transformation and liberation. H i s B r a -

d o m exceeds the bounds o f the colonial relationship o f biopower,

zilian monster, then, i n addition to being a sign o f his colonial m e n -

b l o w i n g apart the chains o f the dialectic.

tality, is a figure that expresses the excessive, savage powers o f the

To recognize this savage power o f monsters, let us go back to

imagination. W h e n we reduce all figures o f antimodernity to a tame

another m o m e n t i n European philosophy that, i n addition to ex-

dialectical play o f opposite identities, we miss the liberatory possi-

pressing the typical racism and fear o f otherness, highlights the m o n -

bilities o f their monstrous imaginings.

60

ster's power o f transformation. Spinoza receives a letter from his

It is true, o f course, that there have l o n g existed and continue

friend Pieter Balling w h i c h relates that after the recent death o f his

to exist today forces o f antimodernity that are not liberatory at all.

son he continues disturbingly at times to hear his son's voice. S p i -

H o r k h e i m e r and A d o r n o are right to see a reactionary antimoder-

noza responds w i t h a puzzling example o f his o w n hallucinations:

nity i n the N a z i project, and we can recognize it too i n the various

" O n e m o r n i n g as the sky was already g r o w i n g light, I woke from a

m o d e r n projects o f ethnic cleansing, the white supremacist fantasies

very deep dream to find that the images w h i c h had come to me i n

o f the K u K l u x K l a n , and the deliriums o f w o r l d domination o f U . S .

100

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neoconservatives. T h e antimodern element o f all these projects is their effort to break the relationship at the heart o f modernity and

2.3

free the dominator from dealing w i t h the subordinated. T h e theories o f sovereignty from Juan D o n o s o Cortes to C a r l Schmitt are antimodern insofar as they too seek to break the relationship o f m o -

ALTERMODERNITY

dernity and put an end to the struggle at its core by liberating the sovereign. T h e so-called autonomy o f the political proposed by these theories is really the autonomy o f rulers from the ruled, freedom from the challenges and resistance o f the subjugated. T h i s dream is an illusion, o f course, because rulers can never survive w i t h o u t the subordinated, just as Prospero cannot do w i t h o u t his Caliban and, ultimately, as the capitalist can never be free o f those pesky workers.

Mesrin: Where are you from? Azor: The world. Mesrin: D o you mean my world? Azor: O h , I don't know about that, there are so many worlds! —Marivaux, La dispute

T h e fact that it is an illusion, though, does nothing to stop it c o n tinuing today to create untold tragedies.These monsters are the real

A world in which many worlds are possible. —Zapatista slogan

stuff o f nightmares. This gives us two positive tasks for an analysis o f the forces o f antimodernity. T h e first is to pose a clear distinction between reactionary antimodern notions o f power that seek to break the relationship by freeing the sovereign and liberatory antimodernities that

How Not to Get Stuck in Antimodernity

challenge and subvert hierarchies by affirming the resistance and ex-

U p to this point we have explored antimodernity as a f o r m o f resis-

panding the freedom o f the subordinated. T h e second task, then, is

tance internal to modernity i n at least three senses. First, it is not an

to recognize h o w this resistance and freedom always exceed the re-

effort to preserve the premodern or u n m o d e r n from the expanding

lationship o f domination and thus cannot be recuperated i n any dia-

forces o f modernity but rather a struggle for freedom w i t h i n the

lectic w i t h m o d e r n power. These monsters possess the key to release

power relation o f modernity. Second, antimodernity is not geo-

new creative powers that move beyond the opposition between m o -

graphically external to but rather coextensive w i t h modernity. E u -

dernity and antimodernity.

ropean territory cannot be identified w i t h modernity and the c o l o nial w o r l d w i t h antimodernity. A n d just as the subordinated parts o f the w o r l d are equally m o d e r n , so too antimodernity runs throughout the history o f the dominant w o r l d , i n slave rebellions, peasant revolts, proletarian resistances, and all liberation movements. Finally, antimodernity is not temporally external to modernity i n the sense that it does not simply come after the exertion o f m o d e r n power, as a reaction. In fact antimodernity is p r i o r i n the sense that the power relation o f modernity can be exercised only over free subjects w h o express that freedom through resistance to hierarchy and d o m i n a tion. M o d e r n i t y has to react to contain those forces o f liberation.

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ALTERMODERNITY

A t this point, however, especially after having recognized the

while preserving its primary characteristics. For others it might sug-

savage, excessive, monstrous character o f liberation struggles, we r u n

gest alternative forms o f modernity, especially as they are defined

into the limits o f the concept and practices o f antimodernity. In ef-

geographically and culturally, that is, a Chinese modernity, a E u r o -

fectjust as modernity can never extricate itself from the relationship

pean modernity, an Iranian modernity, and so forth. W e intend for

w i t h antimodernity, so too antimodernity is finally b o u n d up w i t h

the term "altermodernity" instead to indicate a decisive break w i t h

modernity. This is also a general limitation o f the concept and prac-

modernity and the power relation that defines it since altermoder-

tices o f resistance: they risk getting stuck i n an oppositional stance.

nity i n our conception emerges from the traditions o f antimoder-

We need to be able to move from resistance to alternative and rec-

nity—but it also departs from antimodernity since it extends beyond

ognize h o w liberation movements can achieve autonomy and break

opposition and resistance.

free o f the power relation o f modernity.

Frantz Fanon's proposition o f the stages o f evolution o f "the

A terminological cue from the globalization protest m o v e -

colonized intellectual" provides an initial guide for h o w to move

ments shows us a way out o f this dilemma. W h e n large demonstra-

from modernity and antimodernity to altermodernity. In Fanon's

tions began to appear regularly at the meetings o f leaders o f the

first stage the colonized intellectual assimilates as m u c h as possible

global system across N o r t h A m e r i c a and Europe i n the late 1990s

to European culture and thought, believing that everything m o d e r n

and the first years o f the new m i l l e n n i u m , the media were quick to

and good and right originates i n Europe, thus devaluing the colonial

label them "antiglobalization." Participants i n these movements were

past and its present culture. Such an assimilated intellectual becomes

uncomfortable w i t h the term because, although they challenge the

more m o d e r n and more European than the Europeans, save for the

current f o r m o f globalization, the vast majority o f them do not o p -

dark skin color. A few courageous colonized intellectuals, however,

pose globalization as such. In fact their proposals focus o n alterna-

achieve a second stage and rebel against the Eurocentrism o f thought

tive but equally global relationships o f trade, cultural exchange, and

and the coloniality o f power. " I n order to secure his salvation," Fanon

political process—and the movements themselves constructed global

explains, " i n order to escape the supremacy o f white culture the c o l -

networks.The name they proposed for themselves, then, rather than

onized intellectual feels the need to return to his u n k n o w n roots

"antiglobalization," was "alterglobalization" (or altermondialiste, as is

and lose himself, come what may, among his barbaric people."

c o m m o n i n France). T h e terminological shift suggests a diagonal

easy to recognize too a w h o l e series o f parallel forms that antimod-

line that escapes the confining play o f opposites—globalization and

ern intellectuals take i n the dominant countries, seeking to escape

61

It is

antiglobalization—and shifts the emphasis from resistance to alter-

and challenge the institutionalized hierarchies o f modernity along

native.

lines o f race, gender, class, or sexuality and affirm the tradition and

A similar terminological move allows us to displace the terrain

identity o f the subordinated as foundation and compass. Fanon rec-

o f discussions about modernity and antimodernity. Altermodernity

ognizes the nobility o f this antimodern intellectual position but also

has a diagonal relationship w i t h modernity. It marks conflict w i t h

warns o f its pitfalls, i n m u c h the same way that he cautions against

modernity's hierarchies as m u c h as does antimodernity but orients

the dangers o f national consciousness, negritude, and pan-Africanism.

the forces o f resistance more clearly toward an autonomous terrain.

T h e risk is that affirming identity and tradition, whether dedicated

We should note right away, though, that the term altermodernity

to past suffering or past glories, creates a static position, even i n its

can create misunderstandings. F o r some the term might imply a re-

opposition to modernity's domination. T h e intellectual has to avoid

formist process o f adapting modernity to the new global condition

getting stuck i n antimodernity and pass through it to a third stage.

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104

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MtW&'PEWN'rrT)

"Seeking to stick to tradition or reviving neglected traditions is not

over the last five hundred years. N e i t h e r does he mean by it a p r o -

only g o i n g against history, but against one's people," Fanon c o n t i n -

cess i n line w i t h the " m o d e r n i z i n g " policies o f liberal oligarchies

ues. " W h e n a people support an armed or even political struggle

throughout Latin A m e r i c a to Hispanicize and assimilate the indige-

against a merciless colonialism, tradition changes meaning." A n d

nous populations, m a k i n g "the Indian" disappear through intermar-

neither does identity remain fixed, but rather it must be transformed

riage, migration, and education, such that indigenous civilizations

into a revolutionary b e c o m i n g . T h e ultimate result o f the revolu-

w o u l d be relegated to museums.The project to abolish the Indian is

tionary process for F a n o n must be the creation o f a n e w humanity,

instead the destruction o f an identity created by the colonizers and

w h i c h moves beyond the static opposition between modernity and

is thus solidly based i n antimodernity. T h e crucial point for us,

antimodernity and emerges as a dynamic, creative process. T h e pas-

though, comes at the next m o m e n t o f the argument. O n e option,

sage from antimodernity to altermodernity is defined not by o p p o -

once the colonial identity is abolished, is to restore the "authentic"

sition but by rupture and transformation.

identities—the Q u i c h e , the M a y a , the Q u e c h u a , the Aymara, and so

62

O n e particularly c o m p l e x field for investigating the border be-

forth—as they existed before the encounter w i t h European civiliza-

tween antimodernity and altermodernity is the movements and dis-

tion, w i t h their traditional modes o f social organization and author-

courses o f indigeneity that have developed i n recent decades, p r i -

ity. S u c h a n o t i o n remains squarely w i t h i n the tradition o f antimo-

marily i n the Americas and the Pacific. This is, o f course, a classic

dernity and the second stage o f Fanon's sequence. B o n f i l Batalla's

terrain o f antimodernity: ever since the European invasions the af-

discourse i n this and his other works generally remains closed i n the

firmation o f indigenous traditions and identities has served as a

identity formations o f antimodernity, but he does nonetheless sug-

powerful weapon o f defense. Paradoxically, too, claims to indigenous

gest an opening toward another option. " E t h n i c identity is not an

rights i n some societies, particularly those i n w h i c h rights are based

abstract, ahistorical entelechy," he writes; " i t is not a dimension that

on historic treaties such as i n Australia, N e w Zealand, and Canada,

is foreign to social b e c o m i n g nor an eternal and immutable p r i n c i -

are linked to the preservation o f m e m o r y and tradition, and thus ef-

ple."

fectively punish deviation from identity. A c c o r d i n g to the ideology

m o v i n g out o f the antimodernity o f indigenism i n the direction o f

o f liberal multiculturalism c o m m o n to settler societies, indigenous

an indigenous altermodernity.

subjects are called o n o r even obliged to perform an authentic i d e n 63

64

T h i s n o t i o n o f social b e c o m i n g suggests the possibility o f

T h e novelist Leslie M a r m o n Silko is one o f the most interest-

tity. A n d yet many contemporary indigenous movements and dis-

i n g theorists o f altermodernity. H e r novels demonstrate h o w the

courses manage to escape antimodernity and open toward altermo-

theft o f land, the rule o f private property, the militarism, and other

dernity.

aspects o f m o d e r n domination continue to r u i n the lives o f so many

T h e ambiguities between anti- and altermodern positions are

Native Americans. M o s t distinctive about Silko's novels, however,

evident, for example, i n an anthology o f the writings by Latin A m e r -

are the processes o f mixture, movement, and transformation that

ican indigenous theorists brought together by G u i l l e r m o B o n f i l

disrupt any antimodern formations o f identity and tradition. T h e y

Batalla i n the early 1980s. T h e project o f indianidad (Indian-ness)

are filled w i t h mestizas/mestizos, Black Indians, "half-breeds," I n d i -

that is c o m m o n to all the authors, he explains i n his introduction, is

ans excluded from their tribes, and other hybrid figures, constantly

really aimed at the annihilation o f "the Indian." B y annihilation he

m o v i n g across borders through the desert. H e r protagonists never

does not mean, o f course, the physical destruction o f Indians, w h i c h

forget the past, the w i s d o m o f the elders, and the sacred books o f

has indeed been a byproduct w h e n not a direct object o f modernity

their ancestors, but i n order to keep tradition alive and heed the an-

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cient prophecies, they constantly have to make the w o r l d anew

the passage from antimodernity to altermodernity, just as tradition

and i n the process transform themselves. Native A m e r i c a n practices,

and identity are transformed, so too resistance takes o n a new mean-

knowledges, and ceremonies constantly need to be transformed to

ing, dedicated n o w to the constitution o f alternatives. T h e freedom

maintain their power. R e v o l u t i o n is thus, i n Silko's world, the only

that forms the base o f resistance, as we explained earlier, comes to

way not simply to rebel against the destroyers and guarantee our

the fore and constitutes an event to announce a new political proj-

survival but paradoxically to preserve our most precious inheritance

ect. This conception o f altermodernity gives us a preliminary way to

from the past.

65

pose the distinction between socialism and c o m m u n i s m : whereas

T h e Zapatista campaigns for indigenous rights i n M e x i c o pro-

socialism ambivalently straddles modernity and antimodernity, c o m -

vide a clear political example o f this altermodernity. T h e Zapatistas

munism must break w i t h both o f these by presenting a direct rela-

do not pursue either o f the conventional strategies that link rights to

tion to the c o m m o n to develop the paths o f altermodernity.

identity: they neither demand the legal recognition o f indigenous identities equal to other identities (in line w i t h a positive law tradi-

The Multitude in Cochabamba

tion) nor do they claim the sovereignty o f traditional indigenous

A l t e r m o d e r n i t y is a matter o f not only culture and civilization but

power structures and authorities w i t h respect to the state (according

also equally labor and production. T h r o u g h o u t the m o d e r n period,

to natural law). F o r most Zapatistas, i n fact, the process o f b e c o m i n g

however, these fields o f struggle have often been thought to be sepa-

politicized already involves b o t h a conflict w i t h the M e x i c a n state

rate from and even antagonistic to each other. T h e stereotype i n

and a refusal o f the traditional authority structures o f indigenous

many parts o f the world, w h i c h is not entirely false, is that labor

communities. A u t o n o m y and self-determination are thus the p r i n -

struggles are led by industrial w o r k i n g classes engaged i n m o d e r n -

ciples that guided the Zapatista strategy i n negotiating the constitu-

izing projects, whereas civilizational struggles are populated by peo-

tional reforms i n the 1996 San Andres Accords o n Indigenous R i g h t s

ple o f color and indigenous groups w i t h antimodern agendas. F r o m

and Culture w i t h the government o f Ernesto Zedillo. W h e n the

the perspective o f civilizational struggles, then, the goals and policies

government failed to honor the agreement, however, the Zapatistas

o f labor movements can be as detrimental as those o f the ruling

began a series o f projects to put its principles into action by institut-

classes, repeating their racist practices and p r o m o t i n g their E u r o c e n -

i n g autonomous regional administrative seats (caracoles) and " g o o d

tric cultural visions; and from the perspective o f labor movements,

government councils" (juntas de buen gobierno). E v e n though the

civilizational struggles are frequently seen as backward, premodern,

members o f Zapatista communities are predominantly indigenous,

even primitive. M a n y other subjectivities have also been drawn into

then, and even though they struggle consistently and powerfully

this conflict. Peasant movements at times have been closer to the

against racism, their politics does not rest o n a fixed identity. T h e y

one or the other side o f this divide, and gender struggles have some-

demand the right not "to be w h o we are" but rather "to become

times found alliance w i t h one or both o f these sides but often have

what we want." Such principles o f movement and self-transformation

been subordinated by both. S u c h ideological and practical conflicts

allow the Zapatistas to avoid getting stuck i n antimodernity and

have strained and even broken apart alliances w i t h i n communist, na-

move o n to the terrain o f altermodernity.

66

tional liberation, and anti-imperialist movements. T h e passage from

Altermodernity thus involves not only insertion i n the l o n g

antimodernity to altermodernity, however, brings w i t h it a signifi-

history o f antimodern struggles but also rupture w i t h any fixed dia-

cant shift whereby these fields o f struggle are, at least potentially,

lectic between m o d e r n sovereignty and antimodern resistance. In

newly aligned, not i n the sense that they are unified or that one

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ALTERMODERNITY)

holds hegemony over others, but i n that they autonomously march

the 1970s as a socieded abigarrada, w h i c h i n English could be ren-

forward o n parallel paths.

dered awkwardly as a many-colored, variegated, or even motley so-

T h e social movements i n B o l i v i a that paved the way for the

ciety.

67

Zavaleta views this social diversity i n a negative light, as a

election o f E v o Morales to the presidency i n 2005 are a powerful

marker o f Bolivia's "premodern" character, as i f modernity were de-

example o f this parallelism o f altermodernity, w h i c h highlights p o -

fined by homogeneous classes, identities, and social institutions. B y

litical forms that express the autonomy and the connection o f d i -

our conception, however, B o l i v i a is not only just as m o d e r n as

verse sets o f demands and social subjectivities. T w o peaks o f this

France or India or Canada but also just as open to altermodernity.

cycle o f struggles were the 2000 fight over the control o f water re-

T h e diversity Zavaleta recognizes is, i n the context o f altermoder-

sources i n Cochabamba and the surrounding valley; and the 2003

nity, a potential key to social transformation. T h e question here is

battle over the right to control natural gas resources i n E l A l t o and

h o w the social multiplicities i n question interact and, specifically,

the highlands. In their general outlines these are classic examples o f

h o w they cooperate i n c o m m o n struggle. To understand this d y -

the resistance to neoliberalism that has arisen throughout the w o r l d

namic we have to l o o k more closely at the nature o f this sociedad ab-

i n recent years. In the case o f Cochabamba, a mid-sized city i n the

igarrada and recognize the relations among the various social singu-

interior o f Bolivia, the W o r l d B a n k advised the national government

larities that compose the social movements.

to eliminate subsidies required for public water service by selling the

T h e w i d e diversity o f racial groups engaged i n the struggles is

water system to foreign investors w h o w o u l d establish a "proper sys-

obvious: i n addition to those o f European descent there are officially

tem o f charging." After the government followed the advice and

thirty-six different indigenous ethnicities or peoples i n B o l i v i a , the

sold the water supply system, the foreign consortium immediately

most numerous o f w h i c h are Aymara and Q u e c h u a , along w i t h v a r i -

raised local water rates 35 percent, at w h i c h time the protests began.

ous populations o f mixed-race heritage.This is one axis along w h i c h

T h e war over gas i n 2003 follows the same script. These are not iso-

the movements are plural or many-colored. T h e forms and sectors

lated incidents, moreover, but merely the most visible points o f a

o f labor are equally diverse, but this axis cannot be understood w i t h -

continuous high level o f mobilization throughout the country from

out some knowledge o f B o l i v i a n economic history. After the revo-

at least 2000 to 2005.What is most remarkable about these struggles

lution o f 1952 worker and peasant movements organized i n power-

is h o w they manage to coordinate a w i d e variety o f economic and

ful unions, and the B o l i v i a n miners along w i t h a relatively small

social demands i n horizontal networks, demonstrating perhaps more

industrial labor force played a central role i n national politics. T h e

clearly than any other experience the shift from antimodernity to

hegemony o f the o l d w o r k i n g class came to an end by the late 1980s,

altermodernity.

however, o w i n g to political and military repression and, more i m -

To appreciate the complexity o f this situation we have to rec-

portant, economic restructuring that transformed the B o l i v i a n labor

ognize h o w B o l i v i a n society and the movements present m u l t i p l i c i -

force. Some o f the largest mines were closed, and many o f the peas-

ties at every turn. First o f all, what is at stake i n these struggles is not

ants w h o had been recruited as mine workers a generation earlier

merely an economic problem (of land, labor, and natural resources),

had to migrate again i n search o f w o r k . As workers were increasingly

and neither is it only a racial, cultural, or civilizational problem. It is

forced to move from one place and one occupation to another, and

all o f these at once. Second, i n each o f these domains there is a m u l -

as an ever larger p o r t i o n o f the labor force had to w o r k w i t h o u t

tiplicity o f subjectivities engaged i n struggle. T h e sociologist R e n e

fixed contracts, the w o r k i n g class became more complex i n c o m p o -

Zavaleta captures this multiplicity w h e n he characterizes B o l i v i a i n

sition and, like other w o r k i n g classes throughout the w o r l d , had

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to become more flexible and mobile. T h e resulting multiplicity o f

means o f articulation o f the social, not as a hierarchical fusion but

workers and w o r k i n g conditions makes it no longer possible to or-

rather as provisional horizontal networks." T h e multitude-form is

69

ganize the class vertically i n centralized structures. M i n e r s can no

not a magic key that opens all doors, but it does pose adequately a

longer represent hegemonically the interests o f the entire B o l i v i a n

real political problem and posit as the m o d e l for addressing it an

w o r k i n g class, just as i n other countries autoworkers or steelworkers

open set o f social singularities that are autonomous and equal, capa-

can no longer play such a role. A l l relations o f hegemony and repre-

ble together, by articulating their actions o n parallel paths i n a h o r i -

sentation w i t h i n the w o r k i n g class are thus thrown into question. It

zontal network, o f transforming society.

70

is not even possible for the traditional unions to represent adequately

M u l t i t u d e is thus a concept o f applied parallelism, able to grasp

the complex multiplicity o f class subjects and experiences. This shift,

the specificity o f altermodern struggles, w h i c h are characterized by

however, signals no farewell to the w o r k i n g class or even a decline o f

relations o f autonomy, equality, and interdependence

worker struggle but rather an increasing multiplicity o f the pro-

multiplicities o f singularities. In the B o l i v i a n struggles, as i n so many

letariat and a new physiognomy o f struggles. T h e B o l i v i a n social

others like them throughout the w o r l d , there is no single figure o f

movements are "many-colored," then, along at least two intersecting

labor, such as the miners, that can guide or claim to represent all the

axes: the racial, ethnic, and cultural axis; and the axis o f the various

workers. Instead miners, industrial workers, peasants, unemployed

sectors o f labor engaged i n c o m m o n struggle.

68

among vast

people, students, domestic workers, and numerous other sectors o f

A group o f contemporary B o l i v i a n scholars following Zavaleta

labor participate equally i n the struggle. Similarly the B o l i v i a n strug-

use the term "multitude-form," i n contrast to the o l d class-form, to

gles are not led by non-indigenous groups or really by indigenous

name the internally differentiated struggles o f altermodernity. T h e

groups either. A multiplicity o f social singularities defined more or

multitude-form is what characterizes struggles i n a sociedad abigar-

less by their culture or ethnicity or labor position coordinate their

rada. Whereas Zavaleta saw the multitude as passive or merely spon-

struggles together i n the multitude. T h e guiding principle here is the

taneous because o f its multiplicity, i n contrast to the active unity o f

same one we saw earlier i n the context o f the Zapatistas: aimed at

the class, these contemporary scholars understand it as the protago-

not the recognition, preservation, or affirmation o f identities but the

nist o f a coherent political project. M u l t i t u d e is a f o r m o f political

power o f self-determination o f the multitude. In altermodernity the

organization that, o n the one hand, emphasizes the multiplicity o f

obstacles and the divisions o f antimodernity—particularly those be-

the social singularities i n struggle and, o n the other, seeks to c o o r d i -

tween civilizational and labor struggles—have been displaced by a

nate their c o m m o n actions and maintain their equality i n horizontal

new physiognomy o f struggles that poses multiplicity as a primary

organizational structures.The " C o o r d i n a t i o n for the Defense o f W a -

element o f the political project.

ter," for instance, w h i c h organizes the struggles i n Cochabamba i n

T h e struggles o f the B o l i v i a n multitude also demonstrate an-

2000 , is one such horizontal structure. W h a t the recent B o l i v i a n ex-

other essential feature o f altermodernity: its basis i n the c o m m o n . In

periences make clear, i n fact, is h o w the multitude-form manages to

the first place, the central demands o f these struggles are explicitly

construct political organization not only among the diverse c o m p o -

aimed at ensuring that resources, such as water and gas, w i l l not be

nents o f the w o r k i n g class, and not only among the multiplicity i n

privatized. T h e multitude o f altermodernity, i n this sense, runs c o u n -

the racial and ethnic domain, but also between these axes. " T h i s

ter to the republic o f property. Second, and more important, the

fragmentation o f the movements," Alvaro Garcia Linera explains,

struggles o f the multitude are based i n c o m m o n organizational

"expresses the structurally segmented ethnic, cultural, political, class,

structures, where the c o m m o n is seen as not a natural resource but

and regional reality o f society itself, w h i c h obliges us to reinvent the

a social product, and this c o m m o n is an inexhaustible source o f

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innovation and creativity. In the city o f E l A l t o , for instance, the

gles and move beyond them. T h e task o f altermodernity, w h i c h is

Committees for the Defense o f N a t i o n a l Gas, w h i c h animated the

illustrated by some social movements experimenting w i t h the m u l -

struggles i n 2003, functioned on the basis o f already existing local

titude form, is not only to resist and challenge the hierarchical rela-

practices and structures o f self-rule. E l A l t o is a sprawling suburb o f

tionships established by modernity and the identities o f antimo-

L a Paz, w h i c h is inhabited primarily by Aymara populations that

dernity but also to create alternative social relations based o n the

migrated to the capital from the rural highlands over the last twenty

c o m m o n . A l t e r m o d e r n i t y thus shares some attributes w i t h but is

years. O n the one hand, then, the struggles grew out o f and were

fundamentally different from the discourses o f hypermodernity and

conditioned by the organizational patterns and the practices o f self-

postmodernity.

government o f rural Aymara communities, w h i c h are based o n the

W e could say, i n a playful k i n d o f nationalist shorthand, that

c o m m o n : c o m m o n access to resources and property, c o m m o n re-

Germans are primarily responsible for the concept o f hypermoder-

sponsibilities for c o m m u n i t y affairs, and so forth. O n the other hand,

nity, U . S . intellectuals for postmodernity, and the French for alter-

the neighborhood councils i n E l A l t o , organized i n a citywide fed-

modernity—although our preference for the position o f altermo-

eration, f o r m another basis o f self-government. T h e neighborhood

dernity is not due to any sort o f Francophilia. A l l o f these concepts

councils supply a w i d e range o f services not provided by the gov-

pose some k i n d o f historical rupture i n or w i t h modernity, but the

ernment, from education to health care and other social services,

nature o f that break and the possibilities it opens are different i n i m -

making decisions about shared resources and citizen responsibilities.

portant ways. B y "hypermodernity" we mean to group together all

W h e n the mass mobilization broke out i n 2003, then, it was not, as

those concepts, such as second modernity and reflexive modernity

some assumed, a spontaneous rebellion but a mature organizational

articulated by authors such as U l r i c h B e c k and Jiirgen Habermas,

structure that grew directly out o f already existing networks and

that propose i n the contemporary w o r l d no break w i t h the p r i n c i -

7

well-established practices o f self-government. '

ples o f modernity but rather a transformation o f some o f m o d e r n i -

This vision o f a multitude composed o f a set o f singularities

ty's major institutions.These perspectives do recognize well many o f

and based o n practices o f self-determination and the c o m m o n is still

the structural changes o f the nation-state, the deployments and reg-

missing one essential element o f altermodernity: its constant meta-

ulations o f labor and capitalist production, the biopolitical organiza-

morphosis, its mixture and movement. Every singularity is a social

tion o f society, the nuclear family, and so forth, but none o f this i m -

becoming. W h a t the multitude presents, then, is not only a sociedad

plies for them a break w i t h modernity, and indeed they do not see

abigarrada engaged i n c o m m o n struggle but also a society constantly

that as a desirable outcome. Rather they envision m o d e r n i z i n g m o -

i n the process o f metamorphosis. Resistance and the collaboration

dernity and perfecting it by applying its principles i n a reflexive way

w i t h others, after all, is always a transformative experience. R a t h e r

to its o w n institutions. T h i s hypermodernity, however, i n our view,

than a static mosaic o f many-colored parts, this society is more like a

simply continues the hierarchies that are central to modernity, put-

kaleidoscope i n w h i c h the colors are constantly shifting to f o r m

ting its faith i n reform, not resistance, and thus does not challenge

new and more beautiful patterns, even m e l d i n g together to make

capitalist rule, even w h e n recognizing the new forms o f the "real

new colors.

subsumption" o f society w i t h i n capital.

72

Postmodernity marks a m u c h more substantial rupture than

Rupture and Constitution

hypermodernity, posing the end o f the core elements o f modernity,

In this chapter we have traveled some o f the landscapes o f altermo-

w h i c h is cause for celebration for some authors and for others l a -

dernity, emphasizing h o w they both grow out o f antimodern strug-

ment. In our previous w o r k we too have employed the concept o f

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postmodernity to emphasize the importance o f the historical break

l o n g ago washed away any residue o f those illusions. A n d i n contrast

that presents new conditions and new possibilities i n a w i d e variety

to most propositions o f postmodernity, altermodernity provides a

o f social fields: o n the economic terrain, for example, w i t h the reor-

strong n o t i o n o f n e w values, new knowledges, and new practices; i n

ganization o f relations o f production i n the emergence o f the hege-

short, altermodernity constitutes a dispositif for the production o f

m o n y o f immaterial production; and o n the political terrain w i t h

subjectivity.

the decline o f structures o f national sovereignty and the emergence

To construct a definition o f altermodernity o n its o w n terms

o f global mechanisms o f control. T h e term "postmodernity," h o w -

n o w and not simply i n contrast to other concepts, we propose three

ever, is conceptually ambiguous since it is primarily a negative des-

general lines o f investigation, each o f w h i c h designates histories o f

ignation, focusing o n what has ended. In fact many authors w h o af-

struggle that come together i n altermodernity. T h e first is a line o f

f i r m the concept o f postmodernity can be linked to the traditions o f 73

"negative thought" a n d / o r philosophies o f Krisis.

T h e y focus o n

the destructive destiny o f Enlightenment and the powerlessness o f reason i n the face o f the new figures o f power; but despite their strong protest and denunciation o f the incapacity o f reason to react to the crisis, they have no recognition o f the capacities o f existing subjectivities to resist this power and strive for liberation. T h e p h i losophers o f Krisis thus correctly grasp, perhaps i n some cases w i t h out k n o w i n g it, the definitive decline o f the dominant line o f E n lightenment thought and its Eurocentrism, but they can only offer weak thought and aestheticism w h i l e presiding over the tomb o f Enlightenment critique—and, naturally, around the tomb they start 74

talking o f theology. T h e various theories o f postmodernity, w h i c h are extraordinarily diverse, generally allude to the

contemporary

volatility o f social norms and conventions, but the term itself does not capture a strong notion o f resistance or articulate what constitutes " b e y o n d " modernity.

European Enlightenment or, better, an alternative line w i t h i n E u r o pean Enlightenment. W e gave an example o f this earlier by tracing the connections among Machiavelli, Spinoza, and M a r x . Ever since the beginnings o f bourgeois society and m o d e r n European p h i losophy, this line has designated the search for absolute democracy against sovereign absolutism however it is organized, even i n republican guise.

75

M a n y o f the central figures i n the canon o f European

philosophy, such as Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Nietzsche, o c cupy ambiguous positions w i t h respect to this line; but the need to critique them and European thought as a w h o l e should never make us forget that the tradition and its major philosophers also contain extraordinarily powerful conceptions o f liberation.The desire to free humanity from the weight o f poverty and exploitation, superstition, and domination may at times be submerged and made unrecognizable by the dominant transcendental formation that legitimates and consolidates the power relations o f modernity, but it c o n t i n ues nonetheless i n European thought as an alternative, subterranean

Altermodernity, i n contrast, marks a more profound rupture

line.

w i t h modernity than either hyper- or postmodernity. In fact it is

Workers' movements throughout the w o r l d constitute a sec-

two removes from modernity since it is first grounded i n the strug-

o n d line that, i n often dramatic and sometimes tragic fashion, has

gles o f antimodernity and their resistance to the hierarchies at the

run along the borders among modernity, antimodernity, and alter-

core o f modernity; and second it breaks w i t h antimodernity, refus-

modernity. Here too, i n both Marxist theory and socialist practice,

ing the dialectical opposition and m o v i n g from resistance to the

the alternative line has often been submerged and made unrecog-

proposition o f alternatives. There is no faith here that the core p r i n -

nizable. In the dominant theories o f the workers' movements the

ciples o f modernity can be reformed and perfected as there is for the

ideology o f the linearity o f progress and capitalist development has

proponents o f hypermodernity.The struggles o f antimodernity have

often been coupled w i t h the c o n v i c t i o n that European thought and

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society are the source o f innovation and thus prefigure the future

to define the organization o f labor actually permeates the entire so-

course o f the rest o f the world. T h e socialist states and "really exist-

ciety. W i t h i n the experiences o f really existing socialism, i n other

i n g socialism" always h i d i n their closets the certainty that the p r o -

words, the passage to the rule o f biopower took its complete form,

ductive relations o f capitalist modernity have to be maintained and

and thus the forces o f biopolitics emerge here too, configuring the

that progress has to proceed through "stages o f development." A n

lines o f altermodernity.

unrelenting critique o f this, however, should not blind us to the al-

A third line links together the forces o f antimodernity that re-

ternative line that exists throughout the tradition. W e have to keep

sist coloniality, imperialism, and the innumerable permutations o f

i n m i n d the moments o f powerful ambivalence that, as we saw ear-

racialized rule. W e described earlier the danger that such movements

lier, characterize the central thinkers i n the tradition: i n the early

get stuck i n a reactive, oppositional position and never get out o f the

and late M a r x , i n his attempts to recognize c o m m u n i s m i n the c r i -

dialectic w i t h modernity. B u t an even graver danger is that success-

tique o f private property and i n his critiques o f the Eurocentric,

ful revolts end up reproducing the hierarchical power relations o f

progressivist nature o f his o w n theories; i n the reappearing tendency

modernity. H o w many victorious national liberation struggles have

i n Lenin's thought to reopen the terrain o f anti-imperialist struggle

led to the construction o f postcolonial states that merely perpetuate

and pull communist action away from the structural block o f cap-

capitalist relations o f property and c o m m a n d o n the basis o f a small

italist development; and i n the contradiction i n M a o between the

group o f elites, conforming to the position o f the nation at the bot-

drive to further a radical anticapitalist revolution w i t h the construc-

t o m o f the global hierarchy and accepting the fact that large por-

tion o f a new civilization based o n the c o m m o n and the bureau-

tions o f their population are condemned to misery! A n d yet w i t h i n

cratic construction o f a market economy and authoritarian state, a

the traditions o f antimodernity there always lives the possible emer-

tension that runs from the guerrilla war against the Japanese and the

gence o f altermodern forces and forms, especially, as we have seen,

L o n g M a r c h to the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural R e v o l u -

whenever the c o m m o n appears as the basis and goal o f struggles—

tion. (Perhaps, i n fact, the best approach to understanding the 1989

not only the c o m m o n as a given element such as land or natural re-

Tiananmen revolt is to read the demands o f the Beijing students and

sources but also and more important the c o m m o n as a result such as

workers as an attempt to renew the radical hope o f this democratic

networks o f social relations or forms o f life.

line against the sirens and violence o f the new structures o f capitalist discipline and management that the party hierarchy was i n the process o f imposing.) Despite the defeats and catastrophes o f this tradition, though, i n the reality o f revolutionary experience i n the l i b eration struggles against exploitation and hierarchy, and i n all the moments o f antimodern resistance there has also been present an alternative path that poses the possibility o f breaking definitively w i t h the relation o f c o m m a n d that modernity invented. Years from n o w we may be able to l o o k back and see that the result o f really existing socialism and its collapse was to demonstrate h o w the social relationship between exploitation and domination that seemed only

N o n e o f these three lines, however, is alone sufficient to c o n struct an adequate definition o f altermodernity. O u r hypothesis is that the forces o f antimodernity i n each o f these three domains, continually defeated and contained i n the past, can be reproposed today as altermodernity w h e n they link w i t h the lines o f resistance in the other domains. T h e capitalist totality is not, as it seemed to many, the point o f arrival or end o f history where all antagonisms can be absorbed, but rather the limit o n w h i c h resistances proliferate throughout the sphere o f production and all the realms o f social life. T h e three lines have to be woven together i n such a way as to recognize the metamorphosis, the anthropological transformation

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that altermodernity requires. As Frantz Fanon and C h e Guevara affirmed, i n different contexts, i n order to defeat modernity and go beyond antimodernity, a new humanity must be created. This passage from a n d - to altermodernity illuminates some aspects o f the contemporary role o f the intellectual. First, although

DE HOMINE

1: BIOPOLITICAL

REASON

c r i t i q u e — o f normative structures, social hierarchies, exploitation, and so forth—remains necessary, it is not a sufficient basis for intellectual activity. T h e intellectual must be able also to create new theoretical and social arrangements, translating the practices and desires

Imagine people who could only think aloud. (As there are people

o f the struggles into norms and institutions, proposing new modes

who can only read aloud.)

o f social organization. T h e critical vocation, i n other words, must be

—Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, no. 331*

pushed forward to move continually from rupture w i t h the past toward charting a new future. Second, there is no place for vanguards here or even intellectuals organic to the forces o f progress i n the

In his History of Madness, Foucault not only details h o w

Gramscian sense. T h e intellectual is and can only be a militant, en-

madness is invented through a series o f enclosures and exclusions o f

gaged as a singularity among others, embarked o n the project o f c o -

mentalities and populations, and not only, by revealing this history,

research aimed at m a k i n g the multitude. T h e intellectual is thus not

seeks to undermine the sovereign rule o f reason, but also points to-

"out i n front" to determine the movements o f history or " o n the

ward another truth that lies beyond madness. "Is it possible," F o u -

sidelines" to critique them but rather completely "inside."The func-

cault speculates, "that the production o f the truth o f madness is

tion o f the intellectual today, though i n many ways radically differ-

manifest i n forms that are not those o f relations o f k n o w l e d g e ? "

ent, shares some aspects w i t h the one developed i n the context o f

T h e perspective o f altermodernity lies i n that other rationality,

the patristics i n the first centuries o f Christianity. That was i n many

w h i c h extends beyond the reason/madness couple. B u t what is the

respects a revolutionary movement w i t h i n an E m p i r e that organized

truth beyond madness? O r more simply, h o w is this other possible

the p o o r against power and required not only a radical break w i t h

and where can it be found?

traditional knowledge and customs but also an invention o f new

76

O n e logical response to these questions is to l o o k for a truth

systems o f thought and practicejust as today we must find a way out

and a rationality outside. As soon as one cites Foucault's study o f

o f capitalist modernity to invent a new culture and new modes o f

madness, i n fact, one should extend it beyond the European limits

life. Let's call this, then, only half facetiously, a new patristic, i n w h i c h

o f his thought to analyze the effects o f colonial reason o n and the

the intellectual is charged w i t h the task not only to denounce error

attribution o f madness to the c o l o n i z e d .

and unmask illusions, and not only to incarnate the mechanisms o f

erful critiques o f epistemology i n the latter half o f the twentieth

new practices o f knowledge, but also, together w i t h others i n a pro-

century do establish standpoints outside or elsewhere, grounded i n

cess o f co-research, to produce a new truth.

identity and the position o f the subordinated. "Caliban's reason"

77

Some o f the most p o w -

and decolonial epistemologies are examples that confront E u r o c e n trism; and feminist epistemologies have challenged the force o f gender domination i n the production o f thought and k n o w l e d g e .

78

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HOMINE

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REASON

O n e o f the great contributions o f these frameworks has been to

following Spinoza's conception o f " c o m m o n notions," o n the pro-

unmask the false universality and objectivity o f traditional episte-

duction and productivity o f the c o m m o n through collective social

mologies, demonstrating that those systems o f knowledge are e m -

practices. L i k e the universal, the c o m m o n lays claim to truth, but

bedded w i t h i n the hierarchies and power relations that characterize

rather than descending from above, this truth is constructed from

modernity.

below.

T h e external standpoint and the foundation i n identity that

80

This leads directly to our second guiding intuition: that epis-

give such epistemological critiques their power can also, as many o f

temology has to be grounded o n the terrain o f struggle—struggle

the practitioners are keenly aware, prove to be a limitation. D o n n a

that not only drives the critique o f the present reality o f d o m i n a -

Haraway, for example, warns that any search for a standpoint out-

tion but also animates the constitution o f another reality. Saying

side, based i n identity, is tinged w i t h the dream o f returning to a

that truth is constructed from below means that it is forged through

79

Garden o f E d e n , a site o f absolute purity. A n o t h e r way o f posing

resistance and practices o f the c o m m o n . O u r conception o f the

this danger, to use the slogan we derived from Fanon earlier, is that

biopolitical and its development, then, is not just analogous to the

such projects risk getting stuck i n antimodernity. In epistemology

political passage from antimodernity to altermodernity, as we sug-

as i n politics, we need to focus o n the forces o f critique and resis-

gested earlier. It is i n some sense the same process o f struggle seen

tance that are inside modernity and from this internal position dis-

n o w through a different attribute—a biopolitical struggle that pro-

cover the means to create an alternative. T h e passage from anti- to

duces at once a new reality and a new truth.

altermodernity, i n the epistemological context, must lead to a b i o political conception o f rationality. Two intuitions serve us as initial guides for e x p l o r i n g the ter-

Discovering a basis for knowledge i n the c o m m o n involves, first o f all, a critique o f the pretense o f objectivity o f the scientific tradition, but one that, o f course, does not search for an outside to

rain o f biopolitical reason. First, the experience of the common provides

that tradition. This critique instead arises from the inside, through

a framework for breaking the epistemological impasse created by

what Foucault calls "the insurrection o f knowledges . . . against the

the opposition o f the universal and the particular. O n c e we have

centralizing power-effects that are b o u n d up w i t h the institutional-

critiqued the false universals that characterize dominant m o d e r n

ization and workings o f any scientific discourse organized i n a soci-

rationality, any new attempt to promote universal truths is rightly

ety such as ours." T h e critique o f the objectivity o f science, w h i c h

viewed w i t h suspicion, because the critique has unmasked not only

is allied w i t h the politics o f truth that has supported and developed

those specific claims to universality but also the transcendent or

colonial, capitalist, masculinist, and imperial practices o f d o m i n a -

transcendental basis o n w h i c h universal truths are proclaimed. It is

tion, has n o w become conventional and widely accepted, at least

not sufficient, though, i n reaction to this, simply to limit ourselves

w i t h i n progressive scholarly circles. W h a t interests us specifically,

to particular knowledges w i t h no claim to truth. T h e c o m m o n cuts

though, and is revealed especially from the internal, insurrectionary

diagonally across the opposition between the universal and the par-

perspective, is that a c o m m o n subject is formed here that has n o t h -

ticular. N o r m a l usage o f the terms " c o m m o n sense" and " c o m m o n

ing to do w i t h the transcendental.

knowledge" captures some o f what we have i n m i n d insofar as they

81

T h e emergence o f the c o m m o n , i n fact, is what has attracted

extend beyond the limitations o f the particular and grasp a certain

so many authors to the epistemological and political possibilities

social generality, but these terms generally v i e w the c o m m o n as

opened by L u d w i g Wittgenstein's notions o f language games and

something passive, already given i n society. W e concentrate instead,

forms o f life. " S o y o u are saying that human agreement decides

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HOMINE

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REASON

what is true and what is false?"Wittgenstein asks himself rhetori-

tity" or natural totality, so too every use o f the n o t i o n o f the c o m -

cally. A n d he responds: "It is what human beings say that is true and

m o n must begin w i t h its critique. T h e c o m m o n is thus i n the

false; and they agree i n the language they use.That is not agreement

paradoxical position as being a ground or presupposition that is also

86

i n opinions but i n f o r m o f life [Lebensform] . " W e should highlight

the result o f the process. O u r analysis, then, from this point o n i n

two aspects ofWittgenstein's operation. First, by grounding truth i n

our research, should be aimed at not "being c o m m o n " but " m a k i n g

language and language games, he removes truth from any fixity i n

the c o m m o n . "

82

the transcendental and locates it o n the fluid, changeable terrain o f

Some contemporary anthropologists, pursuing a path parallel

practice, shifting the terms o f discussion from k n o w i n g to doing.

to ours, arrive at a similar conclusion about the role o f the c o m -

Second, after destabilizing truth he restores to it a consistency. L i n -

m o n i n an alternative, biopolitical rationality, w h i c h goes beyond

guistic practice is constituent o f a truth that is organized i n forms

the division between nature and culture, between Naturwissen-

o f life: "to imagine a language means to imagine a f o r m o f life."

83

schaften and Geisteswissenschaften. EduardoViveiros de Castro, for ex-

Wittgenstein's concepts manage to evade o n one side individual,

ample, uses the u n m o d e r n ontology o f Amerindians o f the B r a z i l -

haphazard experience and, o n the other, transcendental identities

ian A m a z o n as a standpoint to critique the tradition o f m o d e r n

and truths, revealing instead, between or beyond them, the c o m -

epistemology. H e provocatively poses the A m e r i n d i a n perspective as

m o n . Language and language games, after all, are organizations and

an inversion o f a series o f conventional m o d e r n philosophical posi-

expressions o f the c o m m o n , as is the n o t i o n o f a f o r m o f l i f e . W i t -

tions to explain the consequences o f the fact that Amerindians c o n -

tgensteinian biopolitics moves from knowledge through collective

ceive animals and other nonhumans as "persons," as kinds o f h u -

practice to life, all o n the terrain o f the c o m m o n .

84

N u m e r o u s other instances i n the philosophical tradition o f

mans, such that human interactions w i t h what w o u l d normally be called "nature" take a f o r m something like "social relations." As a

the critique o f epistemology are similarly linked to the c o m m o n .

result, whereas m o d e r n philosophy (from K a n t to Heisenberg) pos-

Earlier, for example, we explored briefly that path i n p h e n o m e n o l -

its that the point o f view creates the object, here the point o f view

ogy that leads from M e r l e a u - P o n t y to Levinas and D e r r i d a , i n

creates the subject; and whereas m o d e r n philosophy conceives o f

w h i c h the critique o f knowledge is c o m b i n e d w i t h an analytics o f

one nature and many cultures, here there is one culture (all are i n

Mitsein (being-with), w h i c h is, o f course, another powerful concep-

some sense human) but many natures (occupying different worlds).

tion o f the c o m m o n . T h e question, however, is not simply reference

Viveiros de Castro thus discovers, i n contrast to the "multicultural-

to the c o m m o n but where the c o m m o n is posed—whether the

i s m " o f m o d e r n philosophy, an A m e r i n d i a n "multinaturalism":

c o m m o n is, o n the one hand, naturalized or i n some other way hy-

" O n e culture, multiple natures—one epistemology, multiple o n t o l -

postatized or, on the other, grounded i n collective practice. C o n -

ogies. Perspectivism implies multinaturalism, for a perspective is not

sider, for example, the k i n d o f hypostasis that is familiar to func-

a representation. A perspective is not a representation because rep-

tionalist anthropology and sociology. Philippe Descola characterizes

resentations are a property o f the m i n d or spirit, whereas the point

such functionalism as a perspective i n w h i c h all o f the constitutive

o f v i e w is located i n the body," and "what I call 'body' is not a syn-

elements o f a natural set agree—based o n a definite place—serving

o n y m for distinctive substance or fixed shape; body is i n this sense 87

to perpetuate a stable totality. Just as Claude Levi-Strauss asserts

an assemblage o f affects or ways o f being that constitute a habitus."

that "every use o f the concept o f identity must begin w i t h the c r i -

M u l t i p l e ontologies do not imply fixed divisions between beings.

tique o f this notion," that is, the critique o f every "substantial i d e n -

Rather Viveiros de Castro describes, i n his study o f Arawete cos-

85

123

MODERNITY

(AND THE LANDSCAPES

O F A.LTER.W. QQE.P, N,i.T V \

DE

HOMINE

1: B I O P O L I T I C A L

REASON

mology, a universe where B e c o m i n g is p r i o r to B e i n g and where

i n opposition, the c o m m o n and singularity are not just compatible

the relation to alterity is not just a means o f establishing identity

but mutually constitutive.

but a constant process: becoming-jaguar, b e c o m i n g other.

88

Our

W e are n o w i n the position to offer provisionally three char-

aim here—andViveiros de Castro's too—is not to advocate an u n -

acteristics that a biopolitical reason w o u l d have to fulfill: it w o u l d

m o d e r n A m e r i n d i a n ontology but rather to use that perspective to

have to put rationality at the service o f life; technique at the service

critique m o d e r n epistemology and push it toward an altermodern

o f ecological needs, where by ecological we mean not simply the

rationality. As we saw i n the route we took through Wittgenstein,

preservation o f nature but the development and reproduction o f

here too what is required is a shift o f emphasis from k n o w i n g to

"social" relations, as Viveiros de Castro says, between humans and

doing, generating a multiplicity o f beings constantly open to alter-

nonhumans; and the accumulation o f wealth at the service o f the

ity that are revealed through the perspective o f the body, w h i c h is

c o m m o n . That makes it clear (to move n o w through the same three

an assemblage o f affects or ways o f being, w h i c h is to say, forms o f life—all o f w h i c h rests o n a process o f m a k i n g the c o m m o n . B r u n o Latour arrives by different means at a similar affirma-

items i n inverse order) that economic valorization is no longer possible except o n the basis o f the social appropriation o f c o m m o n goods; that the reproduction o f the lifeworld and its physical envi-

tion that the c o m m o n must be constructed, but he is satisfied at

ronment is no longer possible except w h e n technologies are d i -

that point simply to conclude: we must organize the tatonnement,

rectly controlled by the project o f the c o m m o n ; and that rationality

that is, the groping trial and error o f experience. W e agree w i t h L a -

can no longer function except as an instrument o f the c o m m o n

tour that, between nature and culture, we always experience the

freedom o f the multitude, as a mechanism for the institution o f the

w o r l d i n fragments, but we insist o n a m u c h stronger power, not to

common.

recompose some lost totalities but to translate them into the fabric o f a c o m m o n experience and through practice to constitute from them a new f o r m o f life.

A l l o f this remains lifeless and inert, however, unless b i o p o l i t i cal reason is grounded o n the terrain o f collective practice, where

89

W h e n we place so m u c h weight o n the c o m m o n , as we do

the state o f b e i n g - i n - c o m m o n is transformed into a process o f making the c o m m o n . T h e collective practice o f biopolitical reason

here, some are likely to object that this amounts to an assumption

has to take the f o r m o f strategic investigation, a f o r m o f militancy.

o f sameness or identity that denies or negates difference. W e should

This is necessary, first o f all, because, as we argued i n De Corpore 1,

emphasize, on the contrary, that w h e n the c o m m o n appears i n the

i n the biopolitical context truth is b o r n and dies as an event o f be-

thought ofWittgenstein orViveiros de Castro, it brings w i t h it an

ing, produced by a c o m m o n experience. Spinoza jokes at one point

affirmation o f singularities. Wittgenstein's conceptions o f language

that i n order to speak the truth o f the sestertius or the imperial

games and forms o f life present the c o m m o n only insofar as they

(two different coins) that I have i n my hand and grasp their value, I

engage alterity: the c o m m o n is composed o f interactions among

have to refer to the c o m m o n voice that gives them monetary value.

singularities, such as singularities o f linguistic expression. T h e same

T r u t h can only be proclaimed out l o u d . In De Homine 1, however,

is true for the A m e r i n d i a n multiple ontologies and the processes o f

we see that truth must be not only proclaimed but also acted,

b e c o m i n g thatViveiros de Castro describes. Differences i n perspec-

w h i c h Spinoza identifies w i t h the formula experientia sive praxis, the

tive mark differences over not only opinions or principles but also

principle o f a truth formed by the activism o f subjects w h o want to

what w o r l d we inhabit—or really they indicate that we inhabit dif-

live a c o m m o n life. N o transcendent or transcendental force can

ferent worlds. A n d yet every w o r l d is defined by becomings, c o n -

stand between subjects and truth, citizens and their p o w e r . " W i t h

stantly engaged w i t h alterity. Whereas identity and difference stand

regard to political theory," Spinoza writes, "the difference between

126

DE

MQDE.R.N.I.T.Y l,«.M.fl T,M,(L i . M W ^ W f i " W - W l T I W f l H I C B W I T I T T T )

HOMINE

1: B I O P O L I T I C A L

REASON

Hobbes and m y s e l f . . . consists i n this, that I always preserve the

rent relations offeree aimed at subverting the dominant powers

natural right i n its entirety, and I h o l d that the sovereign power i n a

and reorienting forces i n a determinate direction. T h e strategic p r o -

State has right over a subject only i n proportion to the excess o f its

duction o f knowledge i n this sense implies immediately an alterna-

power over that o f a subject. This is always the case i n a state o f na-

tive production o f subjectivity. T h e dynamic o f the dispositif not

ture." Said out l o u d , the truth is produced i n action made i n c o m -

only extends from a knowledge process to the prescription o f sub-

m o n , without intermediaries.

jectivity but also is always open to the constitution o f the c o m m o n ,

90

T h e k i n d o f strategic investigation we have i n m i n d resembles,

internal, one might say, to history and life, and engages i n the pro-

o n the one hand, the traditional Marxist "factory investigation" that

cess o f revolutionizing them. Biopolitical reason is thus defined by

inquired into the conditions and relations o f workers w i t h a c o m -

a k i n d o f ontological resonance between the dispositifs and the

bination o f sociological detachment and political goals, but re-

common.

mained fundamentally external to the situation, i n the hands o f the party intellectual elite.

91

It also resembles, o n the other, the k i n d o f

A l l we have just said via Foucault, however, has also been reached via a series o f different routes through the discussions i n -

interactive production o f knowledge c o m m o n to the "teach-ins" o f

ternal to the movements o f the multitude i n the last few decades.

the 1960s, w h i c h was indeed conceived as a k i n d o f ethical practice

O n e o f these routes took off from the crisis o f the industrial w o r k -

entirely invested i n the c o m m o n fabric o f the social situation, but

ers' movements and their scientific knowledges i n the 1960s. Intel-

one w h i c h was not effectively m o b i l i z e d as political action.

92

Closer

lectuals w i t h i n and outside the factories struggled to appropriate

to the strategic investigation we have i n m i n d is a third conception,

the process o f knowledge production from the party hierarchy, de-

w h i c h incorporates elements o f these two but goes beyond them:

veloping a method o f "co-research" to construct together w i t h

Foucault's use o f the n o t i o n o f dispositifs, that is, the material, social,

workers alternative knowledges from below that are completely i n -

affective, and cognitive mechanisms active i n the production o f sub-

ternal to the situation and intervene i n the current power rela-

jectivity. Foucault defines the dispositifas a network o f heteroge-

tions. A n o t h e r route has been forged by professors and students

neous elements oriented by a strategic purpose:

w h o take their w o r k outside the universities both to put their ex-

94

pertise at the service o f social movements and to enrich their reB y dispositif I understand a sort o f formation, let's say, whose

search by learning from the movements and participating i n the

primary function, at a given historical moment, is to respond

production o f knowledge developed there. Such militant research is

to a demand [urgence].The dispositif thus has an eminently stra-

conceived not as c o m m u n i t y service—as a sacrifice o f scholarly

tegic function [which means that] it involves a certain m a n i p -

value to meet a moral obligation—but as superior i n scholarly

ulation o f relations o f force, a rational and concerted interven-

terms because it opens a greater power o f knowledge p r o d u c t i o n .

95

tion i n those relations o f force, either to develop them i n

A third route, w h i c h has developed primarily among the globaliza-

some direction or to block them or to stabilize and utilize

tion movements i n recent years, adopts the methods o f " c o -

them. T h e dispositif is thus always inscribed i n a power relation

research" developed experimentally i n the factories and applies

[unjeu de pouvoir], but always also tied to one or several limits

them to the entire terrain o f biopolitical production. In social cen-

o f knowledge, w h i c h derive from it and, at the same time,

ters and n o m a d universities, o n W e b sites and i n movement j o u r -

condition i t .

93

Foucault's notion o f strategic knowledge allows us to conceive the collective production o f the c o m m o n as an intervention i n the cur-

nals, extraordinarily advanced forms o f militant knowledge production have developed that are completely embedded i n the circuits o f social practice.

96

B y all these routes, strategic investigation is al-

127

128

MODERNITY

( A N D THE L A N D S C A P E S

OF

ALTERMODERNITY)

ways the production o f knowledge through dispositifs. It is active engagement w i t h the production o f subjectivity i n order to trans-

PART 3

form reality, w h i c h ultimately involves the production o f new truths. " R e v o l u t i o n a r y dreams erupt out o f political engagement," writes R o b i n Kelley; "collective social movements are incubators o f new knowledge."

97

Strategic investigation is really something y o u

cannot talk about without doing it.

CAPITAL (AND THE S T R U G G L E S OVER C O M M O N

WEALTH)

We keep l o o k i n g for confirmations and verifications o f our practice i n reality, h o p i n g they w i l l be revolutionary, E n z o M e l a n d r i says, but really there is no shortage o f confirmations. W h a t are lacking are revolutions. W e have to stop focusing o n the haystack and find the needle. This w i l l succeed or fail w i t h the fluctuating fortunes o f revolution.

98

Therefore we require, and we resolve to take both C o m m o n land, and C o m m o n woods to be a livelihood for us, and look upon you as equal with us, not above us, knowing very well that England, the land of our Nativity, is to be a common Treasury of livelihood to all, without respect to persons. —Gerrard Winstanley et al., " A Declaration from the Poor Oppressed People of England"

3.1

METAMORPHOSES

OF THE

C O M P O S I T I O N OF C A P I T A L

The effect of writing in a foreign language on our mind is like the effect of repeated perspectives in a camera obscura, in which the camera obscura is able to render with precision distinct images that correspond to real objects and perspectives in such a way that the effect depends on the camera obscura rather than on the real object. —Giacomo Leopardi, Zibaldone

The Technical Composition of Biopolitical Labor E c o n o m i c production is going through a period o f transition i n w h i c h increasingly the results o f capitalist production are social relations and forms o f life. Capitalist production, i n other words, is bec o m i n g biopolitical. Before we start inventing new tools for this new situation, we should return to Marx's method for grasping the current state o f economic life: to investigate the composition o f capital, w h i c h involves distinguishing the proportion and role o f laborpower and constant capital i n the contemporary production p r o cesses. A n d , specifically, we need to investigate first the "technical composition" o f capital or, really, the technical composition o f labor to ascertain w h o produces, what they produce, and h o w they produce i n today's global economy. D e t e r m i n i n g the general outlines o f the technical composition o f labor w i l l give us a basis for not only recognizing the contemporary forms o f capitalist exploitation and control but also gauging the means at our disposal for a project o f liberation from capital.

134

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OVER

COMMON

WEALTH)

ME

TAMORPHOSES

OF T H E C O M P O S I T I O N

OF

CAPITAL

sion o f labor. O n the contrary! Affective labor is required o f w o m e n

strained to specific routes, often entailing extreme dangers. A t the

disproportionately o n and off the job. In fact any w o m a n w h o is not

same time, labor markets are also qualitatively transformed. O n the

w i l l i n g to do affective labor o n call—smile appropriately, tend to

one hand, the gender o f labor migration is shifting such that w o m e n

hurt feelings, knit social relationships, and generally perform care

are constituting an increasing portion o f the flows, both to take jobs

and nurturing—is viewed as a k i n d o f monster. Despite their mas-

traditionally designated for w o m e n — s u c h as domestic w o r k , sex

sive entry into the wage labor force, furthermore, w o m e n are still

w o r k , elder care, and nursing—and also to occupy l o w - s k i l l , labor-

primarily responsible i n countries throughout the w o r l d for unpaid

intensive positions i n manufacturing sectors, such as electronics, tex-

domestic and reproductive labor, such as housework and child care,

tiles, footwear, and toys, where y o u n g female workers are n o w pre-

as well as bearing a greater burden o f informal-sector jobs i n both

dominant. T h i s shift goes hand i n hand w i t h the "feminization" o f

rural and urban areas. Women's double workday is a powerful o b -

work, often c o m b i n e d w i t h the racial stereotype o f the "nimble f i n -

stacle to greater education and access to better and better-paid work.

gers" o f w o m e n i n the global South. "Ideas o f flexibility, temporal-

T h e transformations o f labor along the lines o f some qualities tradi-

ity, invisibility, and domesticity i n the naturalization o f categories o f

tionally associated w i t h women's w o r k and the increasing entry o f

work," writes Chandra Mohanty, "are crucial i n the construction o f

w o m e n into the wage labor force have i n most cases resulted i n

T h i r d - W o r l d w o m e n as an appropriate cheap labor force." O n the

worsening conditions for w o m e n (as well as men). T h e misleading

other hand, labor migration is (and has always been) characterized

aspects o f the term "feminization" are one reason we find it more

by racial division and conflict. Migrations sometimes highlight the

useful, as l o n g as we keep i n m i n d the gendered nature o f these p r o -

global racial divisions o f labor by crossing their boundaries, and at

cesses, to understand these shifts as labor becoming biopolitical, w h i c h

other times, especially i n the dominant countries, racial hierarchies

emphasizes the increasingly blurred boundaries between labor and

become flashpoints for conflict. M i g r a t i o n , however, even w h e n it

life, and between production and reproduction.

5

T h e third major trend o f the technical composition o f labor is the result o f new patterns o f migration and processes o f social and

6

creates conditions o f extraordinary hardship and suffering, always holds the potential to subvert and transform racial division, i n both economic and social terms, through exodus and confrontation.

racial mixture. A l l levels o f capitalist enterprises i n the dominant

These three major trends pose significant challenges to tradi-

countries, from huge corporations to small businesses, from agri-

tional concepts and methods o f political economy i n large part be-

business to manufacturing, from domestic labor to construction,

cause biopolitical production shifts the economic center o f gravity

need constant flows o f both legal and illegal migrants to supplement

from the production o f material commodities to that o f social rela-

the local labor force—and this continually generates ideological

tions, confusing, as we said, the division between production and

conflicts w i t h i n the capitalist classes, as we w i l l see later, constrained

reproduction. Intangible values and intangible assets, as economists

as they are by their pocketbooks to favor migrant flows but opposed

call them, pose a problem because the methods o f economic analysis

to them i n their moral, nationalist, and often racist consciousnesses.

generally rely o n quantitative measures and calculate the value o f

There are also enormous south-to-south international flows o f l a -

objects that can be counted, such as cars, computers, and tons o f

bor and massive migrations w i t h i n single countries, often i n very

wheat. T h e critique o f political economy, too, i n c l u d i n g the Marxist

specific sectors o f production. These migrations transform labor

tradition, has generally focused o n measurement and quantitative

markets i n quantitative terms, m a k i n g them properly global, even

methods to understand surplus value and exploitation. Biopolitical

though, o f course, movements o f labor are not free but highly c o n -

products, however, tend to exceed all quantitative measurement and

135

136

CAPITAL

(AND THE STRUGGLES

OVER

COMMON

METAMORPHOSES

WEALTH)

OF T H E C O M P O S I T I O N

OF

137

CAPITAL

take common forms, w h i c h are easily shared and difficult to corral as

these i n more detail next, but we should keep an eye out from the

private property. If we return to M a r x i n this new light, we find that

beginning, following Foucault's intuition, for h o w biopolitical pro-

the progression o f definitions o f capital i n his w o r k actually gives us

duction, particularly i n the ways it exceeds the bounds o f capitalist

an important clue for analyzing this biopolitical context. A l t h o u g h

relations and constantly refers to the c o m m o n , grants labor increas-

wealth i n capitalist society first appears as an immense collective o f

ing autonomy and provides the tools or weapons that c o u l d be

commodities, M a r x reveals that capital is really a process o f the cre-

wielded i n a project o f liberation.

ation o f surplus value via the production o f commodities. B u t M a r x develops this insight one step further to discover that i n its essence

Biopolitical Exploitation

capital is a social relation or, really, the constant reproduction o f a so-

B y revealing the general outlines o f the technical composition o f

cial relation via the creation o f surplus value via the production o f

l a b o r — w h o produces, what they produce, and h o w — w e have ad-

commodities. R e c o g n i z i n g capital as a social relation gives us a first

dressed the first half o f Marx's method for investigating the c o m p o -

key to analyzing biopolitical production.

sition o f capital w i t h respect to the emerging f o r m o f biopolitical

M i c h e l Foucault appreciates all the strangeness and richness

production. N o w we turn to the "organic c o m p o s i t i o n " o f capital,

o f the line o f Marx's t h i n k i n g w h i c h leads to the conclusion that

w h i c h consists o f the relation between variable capital and constant

" l ' h o m m e produit 1'homme." H e cautions that we should not u n -

capital or, to put it i n terms that suggest the "organic" metaphor for

derstand Marx's phrase as an expression o f humanism. " F o r me, what

M a r x , between living labor and dead labor (in the f o r m o f machines,

must be produced is not man as nature designed it, or as its essence

money, raw materials, and commodities). Investigating

prescribes; we must produce something that does not yet exist and

rary capital's organic composition w i l l have to address the n e w c o n -

we cannot k n o w what it w i l l be." H e also warns not to understand

ditions o f the production o f surplus value i n the biopolitical context

this merely as a continuation o f economic production as conven-

as well as the new forms o f exploitation. T h e organic composition,

tionally conceived: "I do not agree w i t h those w h o w o u l d under-

in other words, refers not only to the "objective" conditions o f cap-

stand this production o f man by man as being accomplished like the

italist production but also and more significantly to the "subjective"

production o f value, the production o f wealth, or o f an object o f

conditions contained i n the antagonistic relationship between cap-

economic use; it is, o n the contrary, destruction o f what we are and

italists and workers, w h i c h are expressed i n exploitation and revolt.

7

contempo-

the creation o f something completely other, a total innovation." W e

Capitalist accumulation today is increasingly external to the

cannot understand this production, i n other words, i n terms o f the

production process, such that exploitation takes the form o f expro-

producing subject and the produced object. Instead producer and

priation of the common. This shift can be recognized i n two primary

product are both subjects: humans produce and humans are pro-

guises. Scholars w h o critique neoliberalism often emphasize that

duced. Foucault clearly senses (without seeming to understand fully)

increasingly today capitalist accumulation is a predatory

operation

the explosiveness o f this situation: the biopolitical process is not l i m -

that functions through dispossession, by transforming into private

ited to the reproduction o f capital as a social relation but also pres-

property both public wealth and wealth held socially i n c o m m o n .

ents the potential for an autonomous process that c o u l d destroy cap-

N a o m i K l e i n uses the n o t i o n o f "disaster capitalism," for example, to

8

ital and create something entirely new. Biopolitical production and

analyze the m o d e l o f neoliberal economic policy applied i n many

the three major trends we have outlined obviously i m p l y n e w m e c h -

countries throughout the w o r l d that takes advantage o f a moment

anisms o f exploitation and capitalist control, and we w i l l explore

o f shock, whether consciously generated militarily and politically or

138

CAPITAL

(AND THE STRUGGLES

OVER

COMMON

WEALTH)

METAMORPHOSES

OF T H E C O M P O S I T I O N

OF

CAPITAL

arrived at due to environmental disaster, to facilitate the massive

economists (and the critics o f political economy) should not be sat-

privatization o f public industries, public welfare structures, public

isfied w i t h accounts o f neoliberalism that pose capitalist accumula-

9

transportation networks, and so forth. Scholars studying subordi-

tion as merely or primarily the expropriation o f existing wealth.

nated regions and especially those countries where state structures

Capital is and has to be i n its essence a productive system that gener-

are particularly weak, including many parts o f Africa, highlight cases

ates wealth through the labor-power it employs and exploits.

i n w h i c h neoliberal accumulation involves expropriation o f the

A second guise o f the expropriation o f the c o m m o n , w h i c h

c o m m o n primarily i n the form o f natural resources. Extraction pro-

centers on the exploitation o f biopolitical labor, allows us to pursue

cesses—of o i l , diamonds, gold, and other materials—thrive i n war-

m u c h better a M a r x i a n investigation o f the organic composition o f

torn regions without sovereign states and strong legal structures.

capital. T h e three major trends o f the transformation o f the techni-

Foreign capitalist firms, often employing few local workers, extract

cal composition o f labor that we outlined earlier all are engaged i n

wealth and transport it out o f the country i n ways reminiscent o f

the production o f c o m m o n forms o f wealth, such as knowledges,

10

the l o o t i n g conducted under colonial regimes i n the past. It is not

information, images, affects, and social relationships, w h i c h are sub-

surprising, then, that Marxist scholars have focused new attention i n

sequently expropriated by capital to generate surplus value. N o t e

recent years o n the concept o f primitive accumulation, since that

right away that this second guise refers primarily to a different n o -

concept allowed M a r x to understand the accumulation o f wealth

tion o f the c o m m o n than does the first. T h e first is a relatively inert,

outside the capitalist production process, through the direct expro-

traditional notion that generally involves natural resources. Early

priation o f human, social, and natural wealth—selling African slaves

m o d e r n European social theorists conceive o f the c o m m o n as the

to plantation holders, for example, or looting gold from the A m e r i -

bounty o f nature available to humanity, including the fertile land to

cas. Contemporary Marxist scholars generally deviate from M a r x ,

w o r k and the fruits o f the earth, often posing it i n religious terms

however, as we saw i n Part 2, by showing that there is no linear his-

w i t h scriptural evidence. J o h n Locke, for example, proclaims that

torical relation between such mechanisms o f primitive accumula-

" G o d , as K i n g D a v i d says, Psal. cxv. 16. has given the earth to the

tion and capitalist production processes, no progressive history o f

children o f men; given it to m a n k i n d i n c o m m o n . "

development i n w h i c h the former gives way to the latter, but rather

n o t i o n o f the c o m m o n is dynamic, involving both the product o f

a constant back-and-forth movement i n w h i c h primitive accumula-

labor and the means o f future production. This c o m m o n is not o n l y

tion continually reappears and coexists w i t h capitalist production.

the earth we share but also the languages we create, the social prac-

A n d insofar as today's neoliberal economy increasingly favors ac-

tices we establish, the modes o f sociality that define our relation-

cumulation through expropriation o f the c o m m o n , the

concept

ships, and so forth. T h i s f o r m o f the c o m m o n does not lend itself to

o f primitive accumulation becomes an even more central analyti-

a logic o f scarcity as does the first. " H e w h o receives an idea from

cal t o o l .

11

This first guise o f the expropriation o f the c o m m o n , w h i c h

12

T h e second

me,"Thomas Jefferson famously remarks, "receives instruction h i m self without lessening mine; as he w h o lights his taper at mine, 13

focuses o n neoliberal policies i n terms o f dispossession and expro-

receives light without darkening me."

priation, however, does not provide us sufficient means to analyze

second f o r m o f the common—-the artificial c o m m o n or, really, the

the organic composition o f capital. A l t h o u g h it articulates fully the

c o m m o n that blurs the division between nature and culture—is the

state policies and fortunes o f dead labor, it says little about the other

key to understanding the new forms o f exploitation o f biopolitical

element necessary for an investigation o f the organic composition o f

labor.

capital: the productivity o f living labor. To put it differently, political

T h e expropriation o f this

W h e n analyzing biopolitical production we find ourselves be-

139

CAPITAL

(AND THE STRUGGLES

OVER

COMMON

WEALTH)

IETAMORPHOSES

OF T H E C O M P O S I T I O N

OF

CAPITAL

ing pulled back from exploitation to alienation, reversing the trajec-

exploitation involves the expropriation o f the c o m m o n , i n this way,

tory o f Marx's thought—without, however, returning us to the h u -

at the level o f social production and social practice.

manism o f his youth. Biopolitical production does present i n newly

Capital thus captures and expropriates value through b i o p o l i t i -

prominent ways the characteristics o f alienation. W i t h regard to c o g -

cal exploitation that is produced, i n some sense, externally to it. It is

nitive and affective labor, for example, capital alienates from the

no coincidence that as biopolitical production is b e c o m i n g hege-

worker not just the product o f labor but the laboring process itself,

monic, economists more frequently use the n o t i o n o f "externalities"

such that workers do not feel their o w n their capacities for thinking,

to understand the increase and decrease o f value. A well-educated

B u t this pull to the

population, they say, for example, is a positive externality for a cor-

category o f alienation is also due to the fact that some characteristics

poration operating i n a specific country, just as a poorly educated

closely tied to exploitation, particularly those designating capital's

one is a negative externality: the productivity o f the corporation is

productive role, have faded. Capital—although it may constrict b i o -

raised or lowered due to factors completely external to i t . W e w i l l

political labor, expropriate its products, even i n some cases provide

return i n greater detail later to the question o f externalities, but we

loving, and caring w h e n they are o n the j o b .

14

16

necessary instruments o f production—does not organize productive

can hypothesize here that economists are recognizing the increasing

cooperation. W i t h reference to large-scale industry, M a r x recognizes

importance o f factors external to capital because i n fact, to reverse

that the essential role o f the capitalist i n the production process,

the conventional economic formulation, capital is increasingly ex-

w h i c h is clearly linked to the mechanisms o f exploitation, is to pro-

ternal to the productive process and the generation o f wealth. In

vide cooperation, that is, b r i n g workers together i n the factory, give

other words, biopolitical labor is increasingly autonomous. Capital is

them the tools to w o r k together, furnish a plan to cooperate, and

predatory, as the analysts o f neoliberalism say, insofar as it seeks to

enforce their cooperation. T h e capitalist ensures cooperation, M a r x

capture and expropriate autonomously produced c o m m o n wealth.

imagines, like the general on the battlefield or the conductor o f the orchestra.

15

To pose this same point i n different economic terminology

In biopolitical production, however, capital does not de-

and from a slightly different perspective, the exploitation o f labor-

termine the cooperative arrangement, or at least not to the same

power and the accumulation o f surplus value should be understood

extent. Cognitive labor and affective labor generally produce c o o p -

i n terms o f not profit but capitalist rent. Whereas profit is generated

eration autonomously from capitalist command, even i n some o f the

primarily through internal engagement i n the production process,

most constrained and exploited circumstances, such as call centers

rent is generally conceived as an external mode o f extraction. In the

17

or food services. Intellectual, communicative, and affective means

1930s J o h n M a y n a r d Keynes predicted and w e l c o m e d the prospect

o f cooperation are generally created i n the productive encounters

o f the "euthanasia o f the rentier" and thus the disappearance o f the

themselves and cannot be directed from the outside. In fact, rather

"functionless investor" as a primary figure o f capital. H e understood

than providing cooperation, we c o u l d even say that capital expropri-

"the rentier aspect o f capitalism as a transitional phase w h i c h w i l l

ates cooperation as a central element o f exploiting biopolitical labor-

disappear w h e n it has done its w o r k . " T h e future o f capital belonged

power. T h i s expropriation takes place not so m u c h from the i n d i -

to the capitalist investor actively engaged i n organizing and oversee-

vidual worker (because cooperation already implies a collectivity)

ing production.

but more clearly from the field o f social labor, operating on the level

political production, the extraction o f value from the c o m m o n is

o f information flows, communication networks, social codes, l i n -

increasingly accomplished without the capitalist intervening i n its

guistic innovations, and practices o f affects and passions. Biopolitical

production. This renewed primacy o f rent provides us an essential

18

Instead, i n the contemporary networks o f b i o -

CAPITAL

( A N D THE STRUGGLES

OVER

COMMON

METAMORPHOSES

WEALTH)

OF T H E C O M P O S I T I O N

OF

CAPITAL

insight into w h y finance capital, along w i t h the vast stratum that

lead to collapse. Instead, as the most astute analysts o f capital have

Keynes denigrates as functionless investors, occupies today a central

l o n g told us, capital works by breaking d o w n or, rather, through cre-

position i n the management o f capitalist accumulation, capturing

ative destruction achieved by crises. In contemporary neoliberal

and expropriating the value created at a level far abstracted from the

economic regimes, i n fact, crisis and disaster have become ever more

labor process.

important as levers to privatize public goods and put i n place new

O n e final remark o n Marx's concepts: we have found useful at

mechanisms for capitalist accumulation.

several points i n our w o r k Marx's notion o f the real subsumption o f

are the same.

20

19

B u t not all capitalist crises

Whereas objective economic crises can be functional

labor w i t h i n capital, by w h i c h he means a moment w h e n capital no

to capitalist accumulation, crises that are subjective and political (or,

longer simply absorbs w i t h i n its disciplinary apparatus and produc-

really, equally economic and political) pose a real threat to capital.

tion processes preexisting labor activities created outside capital (this

Such a crisis is emerging today i n the context o f biopolitical p r o -

is merely a formal subsumption), but actually creates new, properly

duction, i n w h i c h the powers o f the n e w technical composition o f

capitalist forms o f labor, integrating labor fully, so to speak, into the

labor-power cannot be contained by the capitalist modes o f control;

capitalist body. In the biopolitical context capital might be said to

in fact the exercise o f capitalist control is increasingly b e c o m i n g a

subsume not just labor but society as a w h o l e or, really, social life i t -

fetter to the productivity o f biopolitical labor.

self, since life is both what is put to w o r k i n biopolitical production

Before sketching the outlines o f the current crisis, we should

and what is produced. This relationship between capital and produc-

recall the basic terms o f a similar crisis o f capitalist control that

tive social life, however, is no longer organic i n the sense that M a r x

emerged i n the 1970s after the labor struggles and social struggles o f

understood that term because capital is increasingly external and has

the 1960s had undermined the bases o f the welfare state m o d e l i n

an ever less functional role i n the productive process. R a t h e r than

the dominant countries. T h e crisis o f the state and capitalist produc-

an organ functioning w i t h i n the capitalist body, biopolitical labor-

tion at that time was caused not only by workers' struggles that c o n -

power is b e c o m i n g more and more autonomous, w i t h capital simply

stantly demanded higher wages, a greater redistribution o f wealth,

hovering over it parasitically w i t h its disciplinary regimes, appara-

and improvements o f the quality o f life o f the w o r k i n g classes, but

tuses o f capture, mechanisms o f expropriation, financial networks,

also by a generalized insubordination o f workers together w i t h a

and the like. T h e rupture o f the organic relationship and the g r o w -

series o f other social movements, more or less coordinated, m a k i n g

ing autonomy o f labor are at the heart o f the new forms o f crisis

ever-increasing social and political demands. Samuel H u n t i n g -

o f capitalist production and control, to w h i c h we n o w turn our

ton had at least some i n k l i n g o f the danger w h e n he lamented

attention.

that "blacks, Indians, Chicanos, white ethnic groups, students, and w o m e n " m a k i n g demands o n the state were creating not only a fis-

Crises of Biopolitical Production and Control

cal and economic crisis but also and more important a crisis o f c o n -

Capital is i n crisis. So what? W e read about crises i n the newspaper

trol.

every day: stock market crises, credit crises, mortgage crises—all

other crises and to the resulting transformations o f capital and the

kinds o f crises. Some people w i l l lose money and others w i l l get

state. T h e welfare state itself served for several decades as an effective

rich.There once was a time w h e n people believed that the objective

response to crises generated primarily by workers' struggles i n the

disequilibria o f the capitalist economy, its cycles, and its endemic

early twentieth century, but i n the 1970s its mechanisms c o u l d no

crises o f production, circulation, and realization w o u l d eventually

longer control the new social and economic forces that had emerged.

21

It is important to situate such crises, however, i n relation to

CAPITAL

( A N D THE S T R U G G L E S

OVER

COMMON

WEALTH)

METAMORPHOSES

OF T H E C O M P O S I T I O N

OF

CAPITAL

In response to the crisis o f the 1970s there was a shift from the w e l -

typified by the workings o f finance, since it does not directly inter-

fare state to the neoliberal state and biopolitical forms o f production

vene i n the productive networks but spreads over, expropriating

and control.

and privatizing the c o m m o n wealth embedded i n the accumulated

We read these historical developments i n terms o f a constant,

knowledges, codes, images, affective practices, and biopolitical rela-

mutually determining relation between capitalist structures o f rule

tionships that they produce. Capital's appropriative processes thus

and the struggles for liberation. (We hesitate to call this relation dia-

stand opposed to the c o m m o n that biopolitical labor creates socially.

lectical because there is n o synthetic resolution but only a back-

In this respect the financial w o r l d , i n its relative separation, mimics

and-forth movement.) O n the one hand, workers' and social strug-

(or really mirrors and inverts) the movements o f social labor-power.

gles determine the restructuring o f capital, and o n the other, that

W h e n we recognize the c o m m o n as not object but subject o f devel-

restructuring conditions the terms o f future struggles. In each era o f

opment, however, it is clear that the multitude striving to maintain

capitalist development, i n other words, w i t h each transformation o f

and reproduce its "forms o f life" cannot be treated w i t h the tradi-

the technical composition o f labor, workers use the means at their

tional regimes o f discipline and control. As the U . S . subprime m o r t -

disposal to invent new forms o f revolt and autonomy from capital;

gage crisis and the subsequent global economic crises demonstrate,

and i n response to this, capital is forced to restructure the bases o f

w h e n the state is forced to bail out banks i n order to correct the

production, exploitation, and control, transforming once again the

excesses o f private initiative and guarantee social welfare, the c o n -

technical composition; at w h i c h point once again workers discover

flict between capital and living labor begins to take place o n the ter-

new weapons for new revolts; and so forth. O u r hypothesis, then, is

rain o f finance.

that today we are arriving at another such m o m e n t o f crisis.

H e r e we r u n into the first contradiction, because the intensive

For a first approximation o f the current biopolitical crisis we

and extensive strategies o f control both destroy the c o m m o n , the

can return to the three general trends i n the transformation o f labor

former segmenting or draining the c o m m o n bases o f production

we spoke o f earlier. Each trend indicates strategies o f the capitalist

and the latter privatizing the c o m m o n results. T h e productivity o f

control o f labor-power, but i n each case we find that the mecha-

biopolitical labor is reduced every time the c o m m o n is destroyed.

nisms o f control contradict the productivity o f biopolitical labor and

Consider, for example, the production o f scientific knowledge, a

obstruct the creation o f value, thereby exacerbating the crisis. W i t h

very specialized field but one that shares the basic characteristics o f

regard to the first trend, the development o f cognitive, affective, and

biopolitical production as a whole. For scientific knowledge to be

biopolitical forms o f labor, strategies o f capitalist c o m m a n d develop

produced, the relevant information, methods, and ideas, w h i c h result

intensively and extensively. Intensive strategies primarily divide and

from past scientific activity, must be open and accessible to a broad

segment the c o m m o n field o f productive cooperation, establishing

scientific community, and there must be highly developed mecha-

something like c o m m a n d outposts by w h i c h private a n d / o r state

nisms o f cooperation and circulation among different laboratories

agencies m o n i t o r and regulate social production processes through

and researchers through journals, conferences, and the like. W h e n

various techniques o f discipline, surveillance, and m o n i t o r i n g . O t h e r

new knowledge is produced, it too must be made c o m m o n so that

intensive strategies drain the c o m m o n that serves as the basis for

future scientific production can use it as a basis. Biopolitical produc-

biopolitical production, for example, by dismantling institutions o f

tion must i n this way establish a virtuous cycle that leads from the

public education through the privatization o f primary education

existing c o m m o n to a new c o m m o n , w h i c h i n turn serves i n the

and the defunding o f secondary education. Extensive strategies are

next moment o f expanding production. T h e segmentation and ex-

CAPITAL

(AND THE STRUGGLES

OVER

COMMON

WEALTH)

METAMORPHOSES

OF T H E C O M P O S I T I O N

OF

CAPITAL

propriation o f the c o m m o n , however, inevitably destroy this v i r t u -

operations. These m e n constitute an extreme case o f precarious l a -

ous cycle such that capital becomes increasingly a fetter o n b i o p o -

bor: a population fiottante that is infinitely flexible and mobile, per-

litical production.

petually available for any w o r k .

23

It is no longer helpful to think o f

A second strategy o f capitalist control, w h i c h corresponds to

this as an industrial reserve army or a reserve army o f any sort since

the "feminization" o f work, is the imposition o f precarity, organizing

there is no "standing army" to w h i c h it refers, that is, no guaranteed,

all forms o f labor according to the infinite modalities o f market flex-

stable labor force. O r rather, under control regimes o f precarity, the

ibility. In Europe and Japan, where i n the latter half o f the twentieth

entire labor force becomes a reserve army, w i t h workers constantly

century large portions o f the labor force experienced relatively sta-

o n call, at the disposal o f the boss. Precarity might thus be conceived

ble, guaranteed employment w i t h a strictly regulated w o r k i n g day,

as a special k i n d o f poverty, a temporal poverty, i n w h i c h workers are

the process o f labor b e c o m i n g precarious over the past few decades

deprived o f control over their time.

has been particularly visible. Workers are increasingly forced to move

Labor precarity poses the second contradiction since it inverts

among multiple jobs, both over the course o f a w o r k i n g career and

the control o f time required for biopolitical production. T h e pro-

i n the course o f a w o r k i n g day. A central aspect o f precarity, then, is

duction o f ideas, images, or affects is not easily limited to specific

that it imposes a new regime o f time, w i t h respect to both the w o r k -

times o f the day, and thus biopolitical production tends to erode the

ing day and the w o r k i n g career—or, to put it another way, precarity

conventional divisions o f the w o r k i n g day between w o r k time and

is a mechanism o f control that determines the temporality o f w o r k -

n o n w o r k time. T h e productivity o f biopolitical labor, and specifi-

ers, destroying the division between w o r k time and n o n w o r k time,

cally the creativity involved i n biopolitical production, requires the

requiring workers not to w o r k all the time but to be constantly

freedom o f the producers to organize their o w n time; but the c o n -

22

available for w o r k . T h e precarity o f labor, o f course, is not new for

trol imposed by precarity takes time away, such that w h e n y o u are

w o m e n and racial minorities i n the dominant countries or the vast

w o r k i n g i n a precarious situation none o f your time is your o w n .

majority o f workers, male and female, i n the subordinate countries,

Y o u can, o f course, think and produce affects o n demand, but only

where nonguaranteed, informal labor arrangements have l o n g been

i n a rote, mechanical way, l i m i t i n g creativity and potential produc-

the n o r m . N o w precarity is b e c o m i n g generalized at all levels o f the

tivity. T h e contradiction, then, lies between the productivity o f b i o -

labor force throughout the world, and indeed taking some new, ex-

political labor w h e n allowed to organize time autonomously and

treme forms. A n anecdotal anthropological example illustrates this

the fetters imposed o n it by precarity, w h i c h strips it o f control.

extreme precarity. In a neighborhood o n the outskirts o f M o n r o v i a ,

A third strategy o f capitalist control, w h i c h corresponds

to

Liberia, Danny Hoffman reports, a man named M o h a m m e d orga-

the increasing migrations and mixtures o f labor-power, involves the

nizes and deploys thousands o f y o u n g men at a time, many o f them

construction o f barriers, physical and social, to channel and halt

former combatants i n Liberia or Sierra Leone, for a variety o f infor-

flows o f labor. T h e reenforcing o f existing borders and the creation

mal occupations. O n e day he sends men to w o r k temporarily at an

o f new ones is often accompanied by a k i n d o f moral, even civiliza-

illegal diamond mine i n southeastern Liberia; another day he de-

tional panic. Fears o f the U n i t e d States being overrun by Mexicans

ploys m e n to w o r k o n a rubber plantation i n another part o f the

or Europe by Muslims are m i x e d w i t h and support strategies to

country; he can even send two thousand m e n to a specific site to

block labor mobility. T h e o l d tools o f racism and racial segregation

pose as ex-combatants for a disarmament program to receive funds

are sharpened as weapons o f control i n both dominant and subordi-

from a U N agency; and his m e n are constantly available for military

nated countries throughout the w o r l d . Erecting barriers takes place

148

CAPITAL

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OVER

COMMON

WEALTH)

METAMORPHOSES

OF T H E C O M P O S I T I O N

OF

CAPITAL

not only at national borders but also and perhaps more important

has experimented w i t h and pioneered both strategies, c o m b i n i n g

w i t h i n each country, across metropolitan spaces and rural landscapes,

them i n different measures.) These models are i n crisis because, de-

segmenting the population and preventing cultural and social m i x -

spite claims to the contrary, their shared goal is to create and m a i n -

ture. In addition to the walls erected against migrations at the bor-

tain social hierarchies and close social space, w h i c h impedes b i o p o -

der, we should also focus o n the effects o f illegal status o n popula-

litical production.

tions w i t h i n the country. B e i n g clandestine not only deprives people

A l l three o f these contradictions point to the fact that capital's

o f social services and the rights o f citizenship but also discourages

strategies and techniques o f exploitation and control tend to be fet-

them from circulating i n and m i x i n g freely w i t h other segments o f

ters o n the productivity o f biopolitical labor. Capital fails to generate

the society. Just as precarity creates a poverty o f time, so too geo-

a virtuous cycle o f accumulation, w h i c h w o u l d lead from the exist-

graphical and social barriers intensify a poverty o f space.

ing c o m m o n through biopolitical production to a new expanded

T h e contradiction for production posed by blocking m i g r a -

c o m m o n that serves i n turn as the basis o f a new productive process.

tions and creating divisions is obvious, at least i n one o f its aspects.

Instead, each time capital intervenes to control biopolitical labor and

W h e n governments i n the dominant countries "succeed" i n keep-

expropriate the c o m m o n , it hampers the process, forcing it to limp

ing illegal migrants out, businesses immediately decry the shortage

along, handicapped. This is not, o f course, an entirely new p h e n o m -

o f labor: w h o w i l l pick the tomatoes and apples, w h o w i l l care for

enon. Since Marx's time the critique o f political economy has fo-

the elderly and do the domestic work, w h o w i l l w o r k i n the sweat-

cused o n the contradiction between the social nature o f capitalist

shops w h e n there are no illegal workers? "It w o u l d be easier, where

production and the private nature o f capitalist accumulation; but i n

property is well secured," Bernard Mandeville remarked over two

the context o f biopolitical production the contradiction is dramati-

hundred years ago, "to live w i t h o u t money than without poor; for

cally intensified, as i f raised to a higher power.

24

w h o w o u l d do the w o r k ? " T h e contradiction regarding movement and m i x i n g is repeated even more intensely at a deeper level.To raise productivity, biopolitical production needs not only control over its movements but also constant interactions w i t h others, w i t h those who

are culturally and socially different, i n a situation o f equality.

Contemporary economists talk a lot about creativity, i n sectors such as design, branding, specialized industries, fashion, and the culture industries, but generally neglect the fact that the creativity o f b i o p o litical labor requires an open and dynamic egalitarian culture w i t h constant cultural flows and mixtures.

25

C o n t r o l through the closure

o f space and the imposition o f social hierarchies is a fetter to p r o ductivity. T h e contradiction from this perspective is really a conflict between inclusion and exclusion and is manifest at the governmental level by the crisis o f both dominant models o f integration: the republican-assimilationist strategy most often associated w i t h France and the multicultural strategy typical o f Britain. (The U n i t e d States

CLASS

STRUGGLE

FROM

CRISIS

TO

EXODUS

Should we thus declare capital doomed, finished? Has the rev-

3.2

olution already begun? O r i n more technical terms, has variable capital definitively liberated itself from the clutches o f constant capital? N o ; crisis, as we said earlier, does not mean collapse, and the

CLASS STRUGGLE FROM

CRISIS

contradictions o f capital, however severe, never i n themselves imply its demise or, moreover, create an alternative to capitalist rule. I n -

TO

EXODUS

stead the rupture w i t h i n capital and the emerging autonomy o f b i o political labor present a political opening. We can bet o n the rupture o f the relation o f capital and build politically o n the emerging autonomy o f biopolitical labor. T h e open social relation presented by

I've had enough of a sober tone, It's time to play the real devil again. —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust

capital provides an opportunity, but political organization is required to push it across the threshold. W h e n A b b e Sieyes o n the eve o f the French R e v o l u t i o n asks what is the value o f the T h i r d Estate—everything! but politically it is w o r t h nothing!—he launches a political and philosophical polemic based o n a similar threshold presented by the economic situation. T h e T h i r d Estate, w h i c h was emerging as

The Open Social Relation between Labor and Capital

the center o f social production, was no longer w i l l i n g to accept its

In the context o f biopolitical production we have found that capital

gime. W h a t we have to develop after having sketched the broad out-

should be understood not simply as a social relation but as an open

lines o f biopolitical production, exploitation, and control are the

social relation. Capital previously has held together w i t h i n itself

terms o f class struggle today: o n what resources is it based, what are

labor-power and the c o m m a n d over labor, or i n M a r x i a n language,

the primary social lines o f conflict, and what are the political forms

it has been able to construct an organic composition o f variable cap-

available for its organization?

subordination and pay taxes to the r u l i n g powers o f the ancien re-

ital (the wage labor force) and constant capital. B u t today there is a

Let us start w i t h some basics. T h e emerging autonomy o f b i o -

growing rupture w i t h i n the organic composition o f capital, a p r o -

political labor w i t h respect to capital, w h i c h pries open the social

gressive decomposition o f capital i n w h i c h variable capital (and par-

relation o f capital, rests primarily o n two facts. First is the newly

ticularly biopolitical labor-power) is separating from constant capital

central or intensified role o f the common i n economic production, as

along w i t h its political forces o f c o m m a n d and control. Biopolitical

both basis and product, w h i c h we have already explored i n part. Sec-

labor tends to generate its o w n forms o f social cooperation and p r o -

ond is the fact that the productivity o f labor-power increasingly ex-

duce value autonomously. In fact the more autonomous the social

ceeds the bounds set i n its employment by capital. Labor-power has

organization o f biopolitical production, the more productive it is.

always exceeded its relation to capital i n terms o f its potential, i n the

Capital thus has ever more difficulty creating a coherent cycle o f

sense that people have the capacity to do m u c h more and produce

production and synthesizing or subsuming labor-power i n a process

m u c h more than what they do at w o r k . In the past, however, the

o f value creation. Perhaps we should no longer even use the term

productive process, especially the industrial process, has severely re-

"variable capital" to refer to this labor-power since its productive

stricted the actualization o f the potential that exceeds

relation to constant capital is ever more tenuous.

bounds.The auto worker, for example, has extraordinary mechanical

capital's

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and technological skills and knowledges, but they are primarily site

tions o f production and mode o f social organization under w h i c h

specific: they can be actualized only i n the factory and thus i n the

we live.

relation w i t h capital, aside from some tinkering w i t h the car i n the garage at home. T h e affective and intellectual talents, the capacities to generate cooperation and organizational networks, the c o m m u nication skills, and the other competences that characterize b i o p o litical labor, i n contrast, are generally not site specific.You can think and f o r m relationships not only on the j o b but also i n the street, at home, w i t h your neighbors and friends. T h e capacities o f b i o p o l i t i cal labor-power exceed w o r k and spill over into life. W e hesitate to use the w o r d "excess" for this capacity because from the perspective o f labor-power or from the standpoint o f society as a w h o l e it is never too m u c h . It is excess only from the perspective o f capital because it does not produce economic value that can be captured by the individual capitalist—even though, as we w i l l see shortly, such production does produce economic value that can be captured by capital at a broader social level, generally as externalities. A t this point we can hazard a first hypothesis: class struggle i n

Class struggle does still, o f course, involve resisting capitalist c o m m a n d and attacking the bases o f capitalist power, w h i c h we w i l l address i n more detail later, but it also requires an exodus from the relationship w i t h capital and from capitalist relations o f production. A n d although the requirements for resistance are immediately given to workers i n the labor relation itself-—workers always have the power to say no, to stop providing their labor to capital, and their ability to subvert the production process is constantly present i n their very capacity to produce—the requirements for exodus are not so evident. Exodus is possible o n l y o n the basis o f the c o m m o n — both access to the c o m m o n and the ability to make use o f it—and capitalist society seems driven to eliminate or mask the c o m m o n by privatizing the means o f production and indeed all aspects o f social life. Before turning to questions o f political organization, then, we need to investigate more fully the existing forms o f the c o m m o n available i n society today.

the biopolitical context takes the form o f exodus. B y exodus here we mean, at least initially, a process o f subtraction from the relation-

Specters of the Common

ship w i t h capital by means o f actualizing the potential autonomy o f

Specters o f the c o m m o n appear throughout capitalist society, even i f

labor-power. Exodus is thus not a refusal o f the productivity o f b i o -

in veiled and mystified forms. Despite its ideological aversion, cap-

political labor-power but rather a refusal o f the increasingly restric-

ital cannot do without the c o m m o n , and today i n increasingly ex-

tive fetters placed o n its productive capacities by capital. It is an ex-

plicit ways. To track d o w n these specters o f the c o m m o n , we w i l l

pression o f the productive capacities that exceed the relationship

need to follow the path o f productive social cooperation and the

w i t h capital achieved by stepping through the opening i n the social

various modes o f abstraction that represent it i n capitalist society.

relation o f capital and across the threshold. As a first approximation,

Revealing some o f these really existing forms o f the c o m m o n is a

then, think o f this form o f class struggle as a k i n d o f maroonage.

first step toward establishing the bases for an exodus o f the m u l t i -

L i k e the slaves w h o collectively escape the chains o f slavery to

tude from its relation w i t h capital.

construct self-governing communities and quilombos, biopolitical

O n e vast reservoir o f c o m m o n wealth is the metropolis itself.

labor-power subtracting from its relation to capital must discover

T h e formation o f m o d e r n cities, as urban and architectural histori-

and construct new social relationships, new forms o f life that allow

ans explain, was closely linked to the development o f industrial cap-

it to actualize its productive powers. B u t unlike that o f the maroons,

ital. T h e geographical concentration o f workers, the proximity o f

this exodus does not necessarily mean going elsewhere.We can pur-

resources and other industries, communication and transportation

sue a line o f flight w h i l e staying right here, by transforming the rela-

systems, and the other characteristics o f urban life are necessary ele-

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merits for industrial production. T h r o u g h o u t the nineteenth and

high levels o f criminality, and the discotheque downstairs that makes

twentieth centuries the growth o f cities and the qualities o f urban

it impossible to sleep o n Saturday nights; and positive externalities,

space were determined by the industrial factory, its needs, rhythms,

such as proximity to playgrounds, dynamic local cultural relations,

and forms o f social organization. Today we are witnessing a shift,

intellectual circuits o f exchange, and peaceful, stimulating social i n -

however, from the industrial to the biopolitical metropolis. A n d i n the

teractions. In these externalities we encounter a specter o f the c o m -

biopolitical economy there is an increasingly intense and direct rela-

mon. T h e main preoccupation o f these economists is that externali-

tion between the production process and the c o m m o n that consti-

ties fall outside the realm o f property relations and are thus resistant

tutes the city. T h e city, o f course, is not just a built environment

to market logic and exchange. In efficient free markets, they claim,

consisting o f buildings and streets and subways and parks and waste

people make rational decisions, but w h e n there are "market distor-

systems and communications cables but also a living dynamic o f c u l -

tions," w h e n externalities come into play and social costs do not

tural practices, intellectual circuits, affective networks, and social i n -

equal private costs, market rationality is lost and "market failure" re-

stitutions. These elements o f the c o m m o n contained i n the city are

sults. T h e crazy thing is that especially i n urban environments the

not only the prerequisite for biopolitical production but also its re-

value o f real estate is determined primarily by externalities. Market

sult; the city is the source o f the c o m m o n and the receptacle into

failure is the n o r m . T h e most orthodox neoliberal economists thus

w h i c h it flows. (We w i l l explore more fully the dynamics o f the b i o -

spend their time inventing schemes to "rationalize" the situation and

political metropolis i n De Corpore 2, following Part 4.)

privatize the c o m m o n so it can be traded and w i l l obey market rules,

O n e lens for recognizing the c o m m o n wealth o f the metropo-

seeking ways to monetize p o l l u t i o n or traffic, for instance, i n order

lis and the efforts to privatize it is provided by urban real estate eco-

to make the social costs equal to the private costs and thus restore

nomics, a field i n desperate need o f demystification. It is useful to

logic to market exchanges.

27

remember that ground rent and the value o f land presented great

Parenthetically we should note that the important and g r o w -

difficulties for classical political economists. If labor is the source o f

ing role o f externalities allows us to rethink some o f the standard

all wealth, according to A d a m Smith's a x i o m , then what accounts for

assumptions o f political economy. Just as there is today an inversion

the value o f land or real estate more generally? Labor is i n c o r p o -

o f the progression traditionally assumed by political economists from

rated into the land, o f course, by w o r k i n g the soil and constructing

rent to profit, as we said earlier, so too is there an inversion o f the

on it, but that clearly does not account adequately for the value o f

presumed tendency from "absolute rent" (based o n mere appropria-

real estate, especially i n an urban environment. To say that land rent

tion) to "relative rent" (based o n the value o f labor added to the

is a m o n o p o l y price does not address the central problem either.

property).To the extent that w o r k done to the property has increas-

R e a l estate value cannot be explained internally but can be under-

ingly less significant effect i n relation to the " c o m m o n w o r k " exter-

stood only w i t h reference to external factors.

26

Contemporary real estate economists are fully aware, o f course, that the value o f an apartment or a building or land i n a city is not

nal to i t — i n the general social circuits o f biopolitical production and reproduction o f the city—the tendency is today m o v i n g back from relative toward absolute rent.

28

represented exclusively by the intrinsic characteristics o f the prop-

R e a l estate agents, the everyday practitioners o f trading urban

erty, such as the quality and size o f its construction, but is also and

value, w i t h their feet solidly o n the ground and their hands greedily

even primarily determined by externalities—both negative exter-

clutching their pocketbooks, do not need any complicated theories

nalities, such as air pollution, traffic congestion, noisy neighbors,

to understand the dominant role o f the c o m m o n . T h e i r mantra—

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"location, location, location"—is their way o f expressing the strat-

specters o f the c o m m o n . G e o r g S i m m e l remarks that the qualities o f

egy to m i n i m i z e the negative externalities and maximize the posi-

the metropolis are the very same qualities that money demands: a

tive. L o c a t i o n is merely a name for proximity and access to c o m m o n

detailed division o f labor, impersonal encounters, time synchronic-

wealth—not only w i t h respect to the park but also the quality o f

ity, and so forth. W h a t really underlies these various characteristics

neighborhood relations, the pathways o f communication, the intel-

to a large extent is the power o f abstraction. Finance capital is an

lectual and cultural dynamics, and so forth. R e a l estate agents do not

enormous engine o f abstraction that simultaneously represents and

need to privatize externalities and "rationalize" the markets. W i t h an

mystifies the c o m m o n as i f reflecting it i n a distorted m i r r o r .

eye to the c o m m o n , they are very capable o f making money from the metropolis and its "irrationality."

30

31

Finance capital has l o n g been criticized for amplifying econ o m i c risks and for not producing anything—and after the global

O u r aim, though, is not to give advice o n h o w to get r i c h w i t h

crisis o f 2008 vilification o f finance has become extremely w i d e -

real estate, but to track d o w n the specters o f the c o m m o n . T h e theo-

spread. Finance is casino capitalism, its critics charge, little more than

ries o f real estate economics, along w i t h the practices o f real estate

a legal f o r m o f gambling w i t h no social utility. T h e dignity o f indus-

agents, demonstrate h o w the metropolis itself is an enormous reser-

trial capital, they claim, is that it directly engages productive forces

voir o f the c o m m o n , o f not only material but also and moreover

and produces value i n material products, whereas the products o f f i -

immaterial factors, both good and bad. W h a t the economists do not

nance are fictional, m a k i n g money from money, remaining abstract

understand, though, is where c o m m o n wealth comes from. T h e

from and thus parasitical o n the production o f real value. Such c r i t i -

c o m m o n may be external from the perspective o f the market and

cisms are partly true—even though financial instruments are used

the mechanisms o f capitalist organization, but it is completely inter-

for risk management as well as speculation and the biopolitical

nal to the processes o f biopolitical production. T h e wealth produced

economy is increasingly oriented toward immaterial products. B u t

i n c o m m o n is abstracted, captured, and privatized, i n part, by real

they do not grasp the essential nature o f finance. If financial specula-

estate speculators and financiers, w h i c h , as we saw earlier, is a fetter

tion is to be conceived as gambling, it is an intelligent, informed

to further production o f the c o m m o n . T h i s dilemma is illustrated by

type o f gambling i n w h i c h the investor, like someone w h o bets o n

the classic dialectic o f urban artist neighborhoods and gentrification:

horse races w h o gauges the animal's physical condition and that o f

poor artists move into a neighborhood w i t h l o w property values

the racetrack, has to judge the future performance o f a sector o f

because they cannot afford anything else, and i n addition to produc-

production through a variety o f indicators, some o f them very ab-

i n g their art they also produce a new cityscape. Property values rise

stract. Finance capital is i n essence an elaborate machine for repre-

as their activity makes the neighborhood more intellectually stimu-

senting the c o m m o n , that is, the c o m m o n relationships and networks

lating, culturally dynamic, and fashionable, w i t h the result that, even-

that are necessary for the production o f a specific commodity, a field

tually, artists can no longer afford to live there and have to move out.

o f commodities, or some other type o f asset or phenomenon. T h i s

R i c h people move i n , and slowly the neighborhood loses its intel-

representation involves an extraordinary process o f abstraction from

lectual and cultural character, becoming b o r i n g and sterile. Despite

the c o m m o n itself, and indeed financial products take o n ever more

the fact that the c o m m o n wealth o f the city is constantly being ex-

abstract, esoteric forms such that they may refer not to production

propriated and privatized i n real estate markets and speculation, the

directly but to representations o f future production or representa-

c o m m o n still lives o n there as a specter.

29

Finance is another vast realm i n w h i c h we can track d o w n

tions o f representations. Finance's powers o f abstraction are dizzying, and that is w h y mathematical models become so central. Abstraction

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itself, though, is possible only because o f the social nature o f the

nate this ambivalence by l o o k i n g briefly at Marx's approach to cap-

wealth being represented. W i t h each level o f abstraction financial

ital's powers o f abstraction. Abstraction is essential to both the func-

instruments grasp a wider social level o f networks that directly or

tioning o f capital and the critique o f it. Marx's point o f departure i n

indirectly cooperate i n the production process. T h i s power o f ab-

Capital, i n fact, is his analysis o f abstract labor as the determining

straction, i n other words, rests on and simultaneously mystifies the

foundation o f the exchange-value o f commodities. L a b o r i n cap-

common.

italist society, M a r x explains, must be abstracted from the concrete

32

T h e role o f finance w i t h respect to other forms o f capital has

labors o f the tailor, the plumber, the machinist to be considered as

expanded exponentially i n recent decades. G i o v a n n i A r r i g h i inter-

labor i n general, without respect to its specific application. T h i s ab-

prets this as a cyclical phenomenon parallel to the rise o f finance

stract labor once congealed i n commodities is the c o m m o n sub-

centered i n B r i t a i n i n the late nineteenth century and earlier m o -

stance they all share, w h i c h allows for their values to be universally

It is more important i n our view, however, to link finance's

commensurable, and w h i c h ultimately allows money to function as

rise w i t h the concurrent emerging centrality o f biopolitical produc-

a general equivalent. T o o many readers o f M a r x , eager to discern

tion. Insofar as biopolitical labor is autonomous, finance is the ade-

political coordinates from the opening pages o f the text, correlate

quate capitalist instrument to expropriate the c o m m o n wealth pro-

these distinctions to political positions: for concrete labor and against

duced, external to it and abstract from the production process. A n d

abstract labor, for use-value and against exchange-value. M a r x views

finance cannot expropriate without i n some way representing the

abstraction, however, w i t h ambivalence. Yes, abstract labor and the

product and productivity o f c o m m o n social life. In this respect fi-

system o f exchange are mechanisms for extracting surplus value and

nance is n o t h i n g but the power o f money itself. " M o n e y represents

maintaining capitalist control, but the concept o f abstract labor—

pure interaction i n its purest form," G e o r g S i m m e l writes. "It makes

representing what is c o m m o n to labor i n different occupations—is

comprehensible the most abstract concept; it is an individual thing

what makes it possible to think the w o r k i n g class. W i t h o u t abstract

whose essential significance is to reach beyond individualities. Thus,

labor there is no w o r k i n g class! T h i s is yet another example o f the

money is the adequate expression o f the relationship o f man to

ways i n w h i c h capital, by pursuing its o w n interests and guarantee-

the world, w h i c h can only be grasped i n single and concrete i n -

i n g its essential functions, creates the tools to resist and eventually

stances, yet only really conceived w h e n the singular becomes the

overcome the capitalist m o d e o f production. Capitalist abstraction

embodiment o f the living mental process w h i c h interweaves all sin-

always rests o n the c o m m o n and cannot survive without it, but can

ments.

33

gularities and, i n this fashion, creates reality."

34

Finance grasps the

c o m m o n i n its broadest social f o r m and, through abstraction, ex-

only instead constantly try to mystify it. H e n c e the ambivalence o f abstraction.

presses it as value that can be exchanged, mystifying and privatizing the c o m m o n i n order to generate profits. W e have no intention o f

Corruption and Exodus

celebrating or condemning finance capital. W e propose instead to

Every social institution rests o n the c o m m o n and is defined, i n fact,

treat it as a field o f investigation for tracking d o w n the specters o f

by the c o m m o n it draws o n , marshals, and creates. Social institutions

the c o m m o n l u r k i n g there.

are thus essential resources for the project o f exodus. B u t we should

B o t h our examples, the real estate market and finance, reveal a

remember that not all forms o f the c o m m o n are beneficial. Just as, i n

tense and ambivalent relation between abstraction and the c o m m o n .

the language o f economists, some externalities are positive and o t h -

Before b r i n g i n g this discussion to a close, though, we might i l l u m i -

ers negative, some forms o f the c o m m o n increase our powers to

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think and act together, as Spinoza might say, and others decrease

paradigm for relationships o f intimacy and solidarity, eclipsing and

them. Beneficial forms are motors o f generation, whereas detrimen-

usurping all other possible forms. Intergenerational relationships are

tal forms spread corruption, blocking the networks o f social interac-

inevitably cast i n the parent-child m o d e l (such that teachers w h o

tions and reducing the powers o f social production. Exodus thus re-

care, for example, should be like parents to their students), and same-

quires a process o f selection, m a x i m i z i n g the beneficial forms o f

generation friendships are posed as sibling relationships (with a band

the c o m m o n and m i n i m i z i n g the detrimental, struggling, i n other

o f brothers and sorority sisters). A l l alternative kinship structures,

words, against corruption. Certainly capital constitutes one f o r m o f

whether based o n sexual relationships or not, are either prohibited

the corruption o f the c o m m o n , as we have seen, through its mecha-

or corralled back under the rule o f the family. T h e exclusive nature

nisms o f control and expropriation, segmenting and privatizing the

o f the family model, w h i c h carries w i t h it inevitably all o f its inter-

c o m m o n , but relatively independent forms o f the corruption o f the

nal hierarchies, gender norms, and heteronormativity, is evidence o f

c o m m o n are found too i n the ruling social institutions.

not only a pathetic lack o f social imagination to grasp other forms

T h e three most significant social institutions o f capitalist soci-

o f intimacy and solidarity but also a lack o f freedom to create and

ety i n w h i c h the c o m m o n appears i n corrupt f o r m are the family,

experiment w i t h alternative social relationships and nonfamily k i n -

the corporation, and the nation. A l l three mobilize and provide ac-

ship structures.

35

cess to the c o m m o n , but at the same time restrict, distort, and de-

T h i r d , although the family pretends to extend desires and i n -

form it. These are social terrains o n w h i c h the multitude has to

terests beyond the individual toward the community, it unleashes

employ a process o f selection, separating the beneficial, generative

some o f the most extreme forms o f narcissism and individualism. It

forms o f c o m m o n from the detrimental and corrupt.

is remarkable, i n fact, h o w strongly people believe that acting i n the

T h e family is perhaps the primary institution i n contemporary

interests o f their family is a k i n d o f altruism w h e n it is really the

society for m o b i l i z i n g the c o m m o n . F o r many people, i n fact, the

blindest egotism.When school decisions pose the g o o d o f their child

family is the principal i f not exclusive site o f collective social e x p e r i -

against that o f others or the c o m m u n i t y as a whole, for example,

ence, cooperative labor arrangements, caring, and intimacy. It stands

many parents launch the most ferociously antisocial arguments u n -

o n the foundation o f the c o m m o n but at the same time corrupts it

der a halo o f virtue, doing all that is necessary i n the name o f their

by imposing a series o f hierarchies, restrictions, exclusions, and dis-

child, often w i t h the strange narcissism o f seeing the child as an ex-

tortions. First, the family is a machine o f gender normativity that

tension or reproduction o f themselves. Political discourse that justi-

constantly grinds d o w n and crushes the c o m m o n . T h e patriarchal

fies interest i n the future through a logic o f family c o n t i n u i t y — h o w

structure o f family authority varies i n different cultures but m a i n -

many times have y o u heard that some public policy is necessary for

tains its general form; the gender division o f labor w i t h i n the family,

the g o o d o f your children?—reduces the c o m m o n to a k i n d o f pro-

though often critiqued, is extraordinarily persistent; and the heter-

jected individualism via one's progeny and betrays an extraordinary

onormative m o d e l dictated by the family varies remarkably little

incapacity to conceive the future i n broader social terms.

36

throughout the w o r l d . T h e family corrupts the c o m m o n by impos-

Finally, the family corrupts the c o m m o n by serving as a core

i n g gender hierarchies and enforcing gender norms, such that any

institution for the accumulation and transfer o f private property.The

attempt at alternative gender practices or expressions o f alternative

accumulation o f private property w o u l d be interrupted each gener-

sexual desires are unfailingly closed d o w n and punished.

ation i f not for the legal f o r m o f inheritance based o n the family.

Second, the family functions i n the social imaginary as the sole

D o w n w i t h the family!—not, o f course, i n order for us to become

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isolated individuals but instead to realize the equal and free participation i n the c o m m o n that the family promises and constantly denies and corrupts.

ties these are the o n l y social spaces that provide access, however dis-

T h e corporation is another f o r m i n w h i c h the c o m m o n is

m o n is both deployed and corrupted. M a n y certainly do experience

both generated and corrupted. Capitalist production i n general is an

belonging to the nation as a terrain o f the c o m m o n , w h i c h engages

enormous apparatus for developing the c o m m o n networks o f social

the collective cultural, social, and political expressions o f the popula-

cooperation and capturing their results as private accumulation. F o r

tion. T h e nation's claim as the central terrain o f social life is height-

many workers, o f course, the workplace is the o n l y site outside the

ened i n times o f crisis and war, w h e n the population is called to set

family where they experience cooperation w i t h others and collective projects, the o n l y place where they escape the individualism and isolation o f contemporary society. P r o d u c i n g together i n a planned way stimulates the "animal spirits," as M a r x says, and thus generates i n the workplace the rewards and pleasures o f sociality and productive exchange. Predictably, corporations encourage workers to attribute the stimulation and satisfaction they experience at w o r k to the corporation itself, w i t h consequent feelings o f dedication and l o y alty. W h a t is g o o d for the corporation, the ideological refrains goes, is g o o d for all o f us. It is true, and one should not deny the fact, that w o r k i n capitalist society does engage the c o m m o n and provide a site for social and productive cooperation—in varying degrees, o f course, and often m u c h less at the lower levels o f the workforce. A s we have already explained at length, however, the c o m m o n engaged and generated i n production is not only expropriated but also fettered and corrupted through capital's imposition o f hierarchy and control. W h a t we should add here instead is that the corporation is remarkably similar to the family i n some o f the ways it generates and corrupts the c o m m o n . T h e two institutions can easily appear as oases o f the c o m m o n i n the desert o f contemporary society. A t w o r k as i n the family, though, cooperative relationships are subject to strict internal hierarchies and external limitations. A s a result, many w h o try to flee the horrors o f the family r u n into the w e l c o m i n g e m brace o f the corporation, and vice versa, others flee the corporation, seeking refuge i n the family. T h e much-discussed "balance" between w o r k and family is really an alternative between lesser evils, between

torted, to the c o m m o n .

37

Finally, the nation too is a social institution i n w h i c h the c o m -

aside differences i n the interest o f national unity. M o r e than a shared history or a set o f linguistic and cultural traditions, the nation is, according to Benedict Anderson's influential formulation, an imagined community, w h i c h is another way o f saying a deployment o f the c o m m o n . W h a t a sad indication o f the wretched state o f our p o l i t i cal alternatives, though, that the nation becomes the only c o m m u nity imaginable, the o n l y f o r m for expressing social solidarity and escaping from individualism! H o w pathetic it is w h e n politics can be conducted only i n the name o f the nation! In the nation too, o f course, just as i n the family and the corporation, the c o m m o n is submitted to severely restrictive operations: the nation is defined i n ternally and externally by hierarchies and exclusion. T h e nation i n evitably functions through the construction and enforcement o f "a people," a national identity, w h i c h excludes or subordinates all those w h o are different. It is true that the nation and its people, along w i t h their centripetal mechanisms that unify the social field, have i n some cases, particularly i n anticolonial and anti-imperialist struggles, functioned as part o f liberation projects; but even then the nation and national consciousness present "pitfalls," as Frantz F a n o n says, that may be recognized fully o n l y after the furors o f battle die d o w n . Calls to sacrifice for the glory and unity o f the nation and the p e o ple always have a fascist r i n g i n our ears, since we have so often heard them, i n dominant and subordinate countries alike, as the repeated refrain o f authoritarian, totalitarian, and militaristic adventures. These are just some o f the corruptions the c o m m o n suffers at 38

t w o corrupt forms o f the c o m m o n , but for too many i n our socie-

the hands o f the n a t i o n . In spite o f the revulsion they inspire i n us, we should r e m e m -

163

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ber that the family, the corporation, and the nation do engage and mobilize the c o m m o n , even i f i n corrupted form, and thereby pro-

3.3

vide important resources for the exodus o f the multitude. A l l these institutions present networks o f productive cooperation, resources o f wealth that are openly accessible, and circuits o f c o m m u n i c a t i o n

KAIROS

OF THE M U L T I T U D E

that simultaneously whet the desire for the c o m m o n and frustrate it. T h e multitude must flee the family, the corporation, and the nation but at the same time b u i l d o n the promises o f the c o m m o n they mobilize. Keep i n m i n d that opening and expanding access to the

The gradual crumbling that left unaltered the face of the whole is cut

c o m m o n i n the context o f biopolitical production means seizing

short by a sunburst which, in one flash, illuminates the features of the

control o f the means o f production and reproduction; that it is the

new world. — G . W. F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit

basis for a process o f subtraction from capital and the construction o f autonomy o f the multitude; and that this project o f exodus is the primary f o r m class struggle takes today. O u r readers w i t h a taste for combat may be reluctant to accept a n o t i o n o f class struggle as exodus because it does not have enough

What a Multitude Can Do

fight i n it. N o t to worry. Moses learned l o n g ago that those i n power

A l l the objective conditions are i n place: biopolitical labor constantly

do not just let y o u go w i t h o u t a fight. A n d , more important, exodus

exceeds the limits o f capitalist c o m m a n d ; there is a breach i n the

does not mean getting out as naked life, barefoot and penniless. N o ;

social relation o f capital opening the possibility for biopolitical labor

we need to take what is ours, w h i c h means reappropriating the

to claim its autonomy; the foundations o f its exodus are given i n the

c o m m o n — t h e results o f our past labors and means o f autonomous

existence and constant creation o f the c o m m o n ; and capital's m e c h -

production and reproduction for our future. That is the field o f

anisms o f exploitation and control increasingly contradict and fetter

battle.

biopolitical productivity. B u t there are also countervailing objective conditions: n e w capitalist mechanisms find novel ways to e x p r o p r i ate and privatize the c o m m o n , and the o l d social institutions ceaselessly corrupt it. W h e r e does all this leave us? Analysis o f objective conditions take us this far but no further. Capitalist crisis does not proceed automatically to collapse. T h e multiplicity o f singularities that produce and are produced i n the biopolitical field o f the c o m m o n do not spontaneously accomplish exodus and construct their autonomy. Political organization is needed to cross the threshold and generate political events. T h e kairos—the opportune m o m e n t that ruptures the m o n o t o n y and repetitiveness o f chronological t i m e — has to be grasped by a political subject. W e propose the multitude as an adequate concept for organiz-

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i n g politically the project o f exodus and liberation because we are

that today there exists the initial condition o f the multitude: the so-

convinced that, i n the current biopolitical context even more than

cial field is radically heterogeneous. H e explains, then, still along the

before, traditional organizational forms based o n unity, central lead-

lines o f the multitude, that political action requires that the singu-

39

ership, and hierarchy are neither desirable nor effective. T h e m u l t i -

larities o n the plane o f immanence engage i n a process o f articula-

tude proposition has n o w been debated i n intellectual and political

tion to define and structure political relations among them. Laclau

circles for several years, and we can take advantage o f these discus-

diverges, though, w h e n he insists that i n order for articulation to

sions to evaluate and refine the concept. T h e critiques and chal-

take place, a guiding hegemonic force must emerge above the plane

lenges we have found most productive center generally o n two fun-

o f immanence that is able to direct the process and serve as a point

damental questions: one regarding the multitude's capability to take

o f identification for all the singularities. H e g e m o n y represents the

coherent political action and a second about the progressive or l i b eratory character o f its actions. T h e best critics o f the concept o f multitude regarding the first

plurality o f singularities as a unity and thus transforms the multitude into a people, w h i c h because o f its unity is deemed capable o f p o litical action and decision making: " T h e political operation par excel-

line o f questions accept our assessment that, especially i n the b i o p o -

lence is always going to be the construction o f a 'people."

litical context, society is composed o f a radical plurality, or rather a

cherey, Laclau sees the multitude as a figure o n the road to politics

multiplicity o f irreducible singularities. T h e question is whether and

but not yet a political figure.

41

Like M a -

h o w these singularities can act together politically. A t play funda-

A second line o f questioning concerns p r i m a r i l y not whether

mentally is the concept o f the political itself. Pierre Macherey, for

the multitude can act politically but the direction o f its political ac-

instance, explains quite rightly that politics requires the ability to

tions—not the f o r m , so to speak, but the content o f the multitude's

make decisions o n not an individual but a social level. " H o w can the

politics. Specifically, these authors see no reason to assume that the

flesh o f the multitude become a b o d y ? " he asks. " T h e intervention

political decisions and action o f the multitude w i l l be oriented to-

o f a political entity is necessary, an entity i n this case that, w h i l e

ward liberation. Paolo V i r n o , for example, one o f those w h o has

maintaining the rhizomatic structure o f the multitude, must itself be

most fruitfully advanced the concept o f the multitude, considers its

collective and refuse any vertical form o f ordering, and i n that way

politics profoundly ambivalent since the multitude is endowed i n his

remain faithful to its immanent destiny that requires it to unfold o n

view w i t h roughly equal measures o f social solidarity and aggres-

a plane o f horizontality. H o w then can the multitude organize itself,

siveness. Just as a l o n g tradition o f political philosophy warns it is

without sacrificing the autonomy o f the singularities that compose

naive or irresponsible to assume that humans i n the state o f nature

it?"

40

Macherey sees the multiplicity o f the multitude as posing a

are unfailingly g o o d , V i r n o emphasizes the ambivalence o f the "state

political obstacle or challenge because he assumes that acting as a

o f nature" characterized by biopolitical production. T h e powerful

political body and m a k i n g decisions requires unity. H e thus sees any

new tools i n the possession o f the multitude—linguistic tools, along

political project for the multitude caught i n a contradiction: either

w i t h tools o f communication, affect, knowledge, and so forth—have

sacrifice its horizontal multiplicity and adopt a unified vertical orga-

no necessary predisposition to the good but can just as easily be used

nization, thereby ceasing to be a multitude; or maintain its structure

for i l l . V i r n o thus advocates a "realist" position, insisting that any dis-

and be incapable o f political decision and action.

cussion o f the positive political capacities o f the multitude be ac-

Ernesto Laclau similarly considers the immanence and plurality o f the multitude a barrier to its capacity for politics. H e agrees

companied by a sober l o o k at the negative.

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Etienne Balibar similarly insists that the concept o f the m u l t i -

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tude lacks internal political criteria that w o u l d guarantee its actions

never recognizes the necessity for the event to break w i t h power.

a progressive orientation or antisystemic character. It may just as

A n y conception o f a creative, antisystemic multitude, he claims, is

likely contribute to the systems o f global exploitation as resist and

only a dreamy hallucination (un reverie hallucinee). " T h a t w h i c h goes

contest them. Like V i r n o , Balibar emphasizes the ambivalent stand-

by the name 'resistance,' i n this instance, is only a component o f the

point o f the multitude, w h i c h he explains, for example, i n terms o f

progress o f power itself." T h e existing movements o f the multitude

the double meaning o f fear o f the multitude. B o t h the fear the m u l -

thus amount to little i n Badiou's estimation. " A l l we've seen are

titude feels and the fear it inspires can lead, i n his view, i n varying

very ordinary performances from the w e l l - w o r n repertoire o f petit-

political directions. T h e multitude may be a sound sailing vessel, to

bourgeois mass movements, noisily laying claim to the right to en-

lend Balibar a metaphor, but w i t h o u t a rudder there is no way to

joy w i t h o u t d o i n g anything, while taking special care to avoid any

predict where it w i l l end u p .

form o f discipline. Whereas we k n o w that discipline, i n all fields, is

43

Slavoj Zizek and A l a i n B a d i o u take this questioning o f the

the key to truths."

45

Badiou's critique o f the multitude is i n effect an

multitudes political orientation one step further, posing it as not

extension and generalization o f Zizek's: whereas Zizek, indicating

ambivalent but aligned w i t h the forces o f domination. Z i z e k charges

Marx's error, charges that the multitude i n the guise o f contesting

that the multitude, even i n the guise o f anticapitalist struggles, really

capital merely mimics and supports its rule, B a d i o u , referring to

mimics and supports capitalist power, and he traces the flaw o f m u l -

Foucault, maintains that the multitude and other projects o f resis-

titude t h i n k i n g back to M a r x . Marx's error, he suggests, is to be-

tance are really only components o f the progress o f power itself.

lieve that capital creates its o w n gravediggers, that the developments o f capitalist society and production create w i t h i n capital itself an

The Common Nature of the Multitude

antagonistic political subject, the proletariat, capable o f revolution.

These questions and critiques regarding the political capacities and

Z i z e k maintains, however, that the apparent antagonisms and alter-

orientation o f the multitude are useful because they help us focus

natives that capital produces internally really end up supporting the

on and clarify the extent to w h i c h the concept is adequate to orga-

system. H e focuses, for example, o n h o w capital creates proliferating

nizational projects o f liberation i n o u r biopolitical reality. In order to

multiplicities i n the realm o f the market and consumption, through

respond to these questions we have to show h o w the multitude is

the infinite variety o f its commodities and the desires they elicit.

not a spontaneous political subject but a project o f political organi-

F r o m this perspective, then, the multiplicities o f the multitude and

zation, thus shifting the discussion from being the multitude to mak-

its horizontal network structures m i r r o r capital's o w n decentered

ing the multitude. Before addressing them directly, though, we need

and deterritorializing deployment, and thus, even w h e n thought to

to explore some o f the philosophical and political bases o f the c o n -

be resisting it, the multitude's actions inevitably repeat and repro-

cept o f multitude, investigating i n particular the way the multitude

duce capitalist rule. R a d i c a l transformation and, specifically, revolu-

interacts w i t h and transforms nature.

tionary opposition to capitalist rule, Z i z e k insists, w i l l never emerge, as the multitude does, from w i t h i n capital i t s e l f

44

L i k e "the people," the multitude is the result o f a process o f political constitution, although, whereas the people is formed as a

Whereas Zizek credits the mistakes o f multitude t h i n k i n g to

unity by a hegemonic power standing above the plural social field,

an error i n M a r x , B a d i o u traces them to the w o r k o f Foucault and

the multitude is formed through articulations o n the plane o f i m -

his conception o f resistance. Since resistance is constantly engaged

manence w i t h o u t hegemony. W e can see this difference from an-

w i t h power, B a d i o u reasons, it never escapes power, and moreover

other perspective by recognizing that these two processes pose dif-

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ferent relations between politics and the state o f nature. A l o n g

is no such thing as nature, but rather nature is constantly transformed

tradition o f political theory tells us that the construction o f hege-

by social and cultural interactions.The claim that nature is subject to

m o n y or sovereignty requires a passage from the anarchy o f the state

mutation is closely related to the philosophical proposition o f a c o n -

o f nature to the political life o f the civil state. The constitution o f the

stituent ontology—the notion, that is, that being is subject to a pro-

multitude, however, confounds this division between the state o f na-

cess o f b e c o m i n g dictated by social action and practices. G o d or be-

ture and the civil or political state: it is thoroughly political while

ing or nature, i n Spinoza's vocabulary, is not separate from and p r i o r

never leaving behind the state o f nature. This is not as paradoxical as

to the interaction o f modes i n the w o r l d but rather entirely consti-

it seems once we see the metamorphosis o f nature at w o r k i n the

tuted by t h e m .

48

These investigations o f the plasticity and mutability o f nature

constitution o f the multitude. Feminist scholars, appreciating the political obstacle posed by a

really refer to the c o m m o n — a n d indeed nature is just another w o r d

notion o f nature as fixed and immutable, separate from and prior to

for the c o m m o n . B u t it is important to keep i n m i n d the distinction

cultural and social interaction, have demonstrated h o w nature is

between the two notions o f the c o m m o n we cited earlier. Whereas

constantly constructed and transformed. Judith Butler, for example,

the traditional n o t i o n poses the c o m m o n as a natural w o r l d outside

challenges the traditional sex-gender distinction by questioning the

o f society, the biopolitical conception o f the c o m m o n permeates

fixity o f nature. T h e major stream o f feminist theory throughout its

equally all spheres o f life, referring not only to the earth, the air, the

second wave investigates h o w gender is malleable and socially c o n -

elements, or even plant and animal life but also to the constitutive

structed, Butler explains, but assumes that sex differences are natural,

elements o f human society, such as c o m m o n languages, habits, ges-

biological, and hence immutable. She argues instead that, i n addition

tures, affects, codes, and so forth. A n d whereas according to the tra-

to gender, sex too is socially constructed, that sex and sexual differ-

ditional notion, for thinkers like L o c k e and Rousseau, the formation

ences are, following Foucault, discursive formations. T h i s is not to

o f society and the progress o f history inevitably destroy the c o m -

deny that sex is directly linked to biology and bodies, but rather to

mon, fencing it off as private property, the biopolitical conception

suggest that what we k n o w and think about sex, our mode o f ap-

emphasizes not only preserving the c o m m o n but also struggling

prehension o f it, is inextricably embedded i n determinate social dis-

over the conditions o f producing it, as well as selecting among its

O t h e r feminist scholars pursue this argument i n scientific

qualities, p r o m o t i n g its beneficial forms, and fleeing its detrimental,

and biological terms to demonstrate that nature modulates accord-

corrupt forms. W e might call this an ecology o f the c o m m o n — a n

ing to social constructs and practices. A n n e Fausto-Sterling, for i n -

ecology focused equally o n nature and society, o n humans and the

stance, explores h o w nature and bodies are constantly transformed

nonhuman w o r l d i n a dynamic o f interdependence, care, and m u -

through social interactions and, specifically, h o w what we under-

tual transformation. N o w we are better positioned to understand

stand as sex and sexual difference are entirely embedded i n social

how the b e c o m i n g political o f the multitude does not require leav-

and cultural practices and consciousness. Even human bone struc-

ing behind the state o f nature, as the tradition o f sovereignty insists,

ture, she argues, w h i c h we think o f as one o f the elements o f the

but rather calls for a metamorphosis o f the c o m m o n that operates

body most fixed i n nature, requires specific triggers for development

simultaneously on nature, culture, and society.

courses.

46

and modifies differently depending on complex relations to bodily

T h e metamorphosis o f the c o m m o n leads us directly to the

practices d u r i n g growth, many o f w h i c h are defined by specific gen-

problem o f the production o f subjectivity. It is useful to remember

47

der practices. Culture shapes bones. This does not mean that there

how

heated the so-called postmodernism debates became i n the

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1980s and 1990s around this question. O n one side were postmod-

relation between economic production and subjectivity thus cuts

ernists w h o focused generally o n the production o f consciousness.

out the ground from under traditional notions o f the labor process

In some respects their position repeated the classic Frankfurt School

and creates a potentially vertiginous loop. W e can cut through some

thesis that alienated consciousness is produced i n capitalist society,

o f these seeming paradoxes, though, by approaching the production

its culture industries, its mandate to consumption, and its c o m m o d -

process i n terms o f metamorphoses o f the c o m m o n . A n d it should

ity culture, but replaced the g l o o m o f the Frankfurt School w i t h a

be obvious that this k i n d o f economic process, central to biopolitical

more cheerful disposition.The claim that subjectivity is produced i n

production, is also an ontological process through w h i c h nature and

the circuits o f commodified capitalist culture seemed to some to

subjectivity are transformed and constituted.

herald a weak n o t i o n o f freedom based o n play and contingency. O n

M u l t i t u d e should be understood, then, as not a being but a

the other side were modernist defenders o f the subject i n the name

m a k i n g — o r rather a being that is not fixed or static but constantly

o f not only reason, reality, and truth but also the possibilities o f a

transformed, enriched, constituted by a process o f making. T h i s is a

politics o f liberation. A stable subject residing outside the function-

peculiar k i n d o f making, though, insofar as there is no maker that

ing o f power was thought to be necessary as a ground for politics i n

stands behind the process. T h r o u g h the production o f subjectivity,

class politics, race politics, feminism, and other identity domains.

the multitude is itself author o f its perpetual b e c o m i n g other, an u n -

These two sides, w h i c h we have painted i n admittedly reductive

interrupted process o f collective self-transformation.

terms, m o n o p o l i z e d the most visible debates, but a third approach, m u c h closer to our o w n , was developed i n the same p e r i o d by

From Being to Making the Multitude

Foucault, Deleuze, and Guattari. These authors focus o n the social

O n c e we shift our perspective from being the multitude to m a k i n g

mechanisms o f the production o f subjectivity i n institutional archi-

the multitude, and once we recognize the multitude as a constant

tectures, psychoanalytic discourse, state apparatuses, and so forth,

process o f metamorphosis grounded i n the c o m m o n , we are i n a

but they do not greet the recognition that subjectivity is produced

better position to respond to the questions and critiques o f the c o n -

through apparatuses o f power w i t h either celebration or despair.

cept we outlined earlier. T h e first set o f questions deems the m u l t i -

T h e y regard the production o f subjectivity rather as the primary

tude incapable o f politics because it is not unified by hegemony. A t

terrain o n w h i c h political struggle takes place. W e need to inter-

issue here is whether only hegemonic, unified subjects or also h o r i -

vene i n the circuits o f the production o f subjectivity, flee from the

zontally organized multiplicities are capable o f political action. W e

apparatuses o f control, and construct the bases for an autonomous

can answer these questions by referring to our earlier economic i n -

production.

49

vestigations. Biopolitical production takes place and can only take

T h e politics o f the production o f subjectivity helps us under-

place o n the terrain o f the c o m m o n . Ideas, images, and codes are

o f the

produced not by a lone genius or even by a master w i t h supporting

c o m m o n , w h i c h we analyzed earlier. T h e biopolitical production o f

apprentices but by a w i d e network o f cooperating producers. Labor

ideas, codes, images, affects, and social relationships directly treats the

tends to be increasingly autonomous from capitalist command, and

constituent elements o f human subjectivity: this terrain is precisely

thus capital's mechanisms o f expropriation and control become fet-

where subjectivity is b o r n and resides. O n e might still conceive o f

ters that obstruct productivity. Biopolitical production is an orches-

economic production as an engagement o f the subject w i t h nature,

tra keeping the beat w i t h o u t a conductor, and it w o u l d fall silent i f

a transformation o f the object through labor, but increasingly the

anyone were to step onto the p o d i u m .

stand better the economic process o f the metamorphoses

"nature" that biopolitical labor transforms is subjectivity itself. This

T h e m o d e l o f biopolitical economic production serves us here

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as an analogy for political action: just as a w i d e social multiplicity

also distinguishes a third fundamental human activity, w h i c h she calls

produces immaterial products and economic value, so too is such a

labor. T h e labor she has i n m i n d corresponds to the biological func-

multitude able to produce political decisions. It is m u c h more than

tioning o f the body and thus the production o f vital necessities. B o t h

an analogy, though, because the same capacities that are set i n play,

the condition and goal o f this labor, she explains, is thus life itself.

w h i c h are necessary for the one, are also sufficient for the other. T h e

Arendt primarily uses this concept o f labor, o f course, as a foil to

ability o f producers autonomously to organize cooperation and pro-

distinguish the political realm, separating it from the w o r l d o f needs,

duce collectively i n a planned way, i n other words, has immediate

but here again we can see that her distinctions are progressively

implications for the political realm, providing the tools and habits

breaking d o w n . Politics has probably never really been separable

for collective decision making. In this respect the division between

from the realm o f needs and life, but increasingly today biopolitical

economic production and political action posed by authors such as

production is aimed constantly at producing forms o f life. H e n c e

H a n n a h Arendt completely breaks d o w n . Arendt's conception o f

the utility o f the term "biopolitical." Focusing on the m a k i n g o f the

politics focuses o n plurality and freedom, characterizing political ac-

multitude, then, allows us to recognize h o w its productive activity is

tion as a realm o f singularities that communicate and cooperate i n a

also a political act o f self-making.

c o m m o n w o r l d . She distinguishes this from the economic realm o f

W e are n o w finally i n a position to respond easily to the first

Homo faber, w h i c h is separated off i n the workplace and driven i n -

set o f questions about the political capacities o f the multitude. It is

strumentally toward m a k i n g a product.The economic producer, she

true that the organization o f singularities required for political ac-

reasons, is inclined to denounce the action and speech that define

tion and decision making is not immediate or spontaneous, but that

politics as idleness and useless chatter. W o r k is driven narrowly to-

does not mean that hegemony and unification, the formation o f a

ward a telos, such that "the strength o f the production process is e n -

sovereign and unified power—whether

tirely absorbed i n and exhausted by the end product," whereas the

people—is the necessary condition for politics. Spontaneity and he-

strength o f the political process is never exhausted i n a product but

gemony are not the only alter natives. T h e multitude can develop the

it be a state, a party, or a

rather grows " w h i l e its consequences multiply; what endures i n the

power to organize itself through the conflictual and cooperative i n -

realm o f human affairs are these processes, and their endurance is as

teractions o f singularities i n the c o m m o n . E v e n i f one recognizes

unlimited, as independent o f the perishability o f material and the

this tendency, it is reasonable to question whether the multitude is

50

mortality o f men as the endurance o f humanity itself." Arendt is

ready for such responsibilities, whether it has become sufficiently

clearly referring to an economic paradigm o f material production,

endowed w i t h the capacities to organize, act, and decide politically.

w i t h the factory as her primary model, but once we shift our gaze to

R e m e m b e r Lenin's warning o n the eve o f O c t o b e r 1917: never

biopolitical production, we clearly see that all o f the qualities she at-

make revolution o n the basis o f some ideal or imagined population.

tributes to the political apply equally to the economic: the coopera-

T h e Russian people are not ready to rule themselves, he claims, but

tion o f a w i d e plurality o f singularities i n a c o m m o n w o r l d , the fo-

need a hegemonic force to guide them through the transition pe-

cus o n speech and communication, and the interminable continuity

riod. T h e y have been trained at work to need subordination, super-

o f the process both based i n the c o m m o n and resulting i n the c o m -

vision, and managers: they have a boss o n the j o b , and thus they

m o n . T h i s is one reason for using the term"bio/w/iH'ai/" to name this

need a boss i n politics. T h e logic o f Lenin's warning puts all the

f o r m o f production, because the economic capacities and acts are

more pressure on our demonstration earlier o f both the tendential

themselves immediately political. W e should note here that Arendt

hegemony o f biopolitical production i n the contemporary economy

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and the qualities and capacities that come w i t h it. If one can realisti-

O n e facet o f the political direction o f the multitude lies i n its

cally establish the capacities for self-organization and cooperation i n

exodus from all corrupt derivations o f the c o m m o n accumulated i n

people's daily lives, i n their work, or more generally i n social pro-

social institutions, i n c l u d i n g the family, the corporation, and the na-

duction, then the political capacity o f the multitude ceases to be a

tion. T h e multitude must select the beneficial and flee the detri-

question.

mental forms o f the c o m m o n . W h a t is corrupt about the c o m m o n

T h e second set o f questions, w h i c h regard the political o r i e n -

in these institutions, we can see now, is that through hierarchies, d i -

tation o f the multitude, progressive or regressive, resisting the cur-

visions, and limits, they block the production o f subjectivity and,

rent system o f power or supporting it, is not so easily addressed. In

moreover, the production o f the c o m m o n . T h r o u g h its selection and

earlier chapters we proposed a conception o f resistance that is p r i o r

exodus the multitude must set the c o m m o n i n m o t i o n , opening up

to power since power is exercised only over free subjects, and thus,

again its processes o f production.

although situated " w i t h i n and against," resistance is not condemned

T h e political orientation also should be defined i n the making

to reinforce or repeat the structures o f power. W e also presented a

o f the multitude, conceived not only as its political constitution but

biopolitical n o t i o n o f the event, different from the conception that

also as its economic production. In the context o f biopolitical pro-

events come only "from the outside," and thus our sole political duty

duction, by w o r k i n g o n the c o m m o n and producing the c o m m o n ,

is to be faithful to them and their truth, to maintain discipline after

the multitude constantly transforms itself.This brings to m i n d Marx's

the event arrives. Those w h o follow this notion o f the event can

admiration for Charles Fourier's Utopian insight that the proletariat

only wait w i t h a k i n d o f messianic fervor for another event to come.

is a subject i n transformation, transformed through labor but also

Biopolitical events instead reside i n the creative acts o f the produc-

and moreover through social, cooperative, inventive activity i n the

tion o f the c o m m o n . There is indeed something mysterious about

time left free from the constraints o f work. " T h e process," M a r x ex-

the act o f creation, but it is a miracle that wells up from w i t h i n the

plains, extending Fourier's insight, "is then both discipline, as regards

multitude every day.

the human being i n the process o f becoming; and, at the same

Resistance and the creation o f events, however, do not yet es-

time, practice, experimental science, materially creative and objec-

tablish the political orientation o f the multitude. T h e characteristics

tifying science, as regards the human being w h o has become, i n

o f the c o m m o n and the multitude's relation to it give us some i n d i -

whose head exists the accumulated knowledge o f society."

cations o f h o w to proceed. Pierre Macherey identifies the rebellious

self-transformation o f the multitude i n production, grounded i n the

character o f the c o m m o n , w h i c h always exceeds the limits o f power.

expansion o f the c o m m o n , gives an initial indication o f the direc-

" B y c o m m o n life," he writes, "one must thus understand all the fig-

tion o f the self-rule o f the multitude i n the political realm.

53

The

ures o f collective creation that put to w o r k cooperation and collab-

A l l o f these elements, however, animated by biopolitical events,

oration, the network that, once set i n m o t i o n , can extend infinitely.

fleeing corrupt forms o f the c o m m o n , and dedicated to furthering

That is w h y c o m m o n life exceeds every system and every fixed o r -

the production o f the c o m m o n i n its beneficial forms, do not yet

der, to w h i c h it is necessarily rebellious." T h e fact that the m u l t i -

specify adequately the political orientation o f the multitude. W e

tude, based i n the c o m m o n , always exceeds the limits o f power i n d i -

need at this point to engage directly w i t h the question o f organiza-

cates its incompatibility w i t h the ruling system—and its antisystemic

tion because that is the terrain o n w h i c h the progressive, liberatory,

nature i n that sense—but does not yet establish its liberatory p o l i t i -

antisystemic character o f the multitude w i l l have to be verified and

cal orientation.

consolidated i n its o w n durable institutions. T h i s w i l l be one o f the

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primary tasks for us to address, first i n De Singularitate 1 and the I n termezzo that follow this section and then throughout the second half o f the book: a theory o f political organization adequate to the multitude. T h e terrain o f organization is where we must establish that the multitude can be a revolutionary figure and indeed that it is the only figure today capable o f revolution.

DE

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POSSESSED

Let your loves be like the wasp and the orchid. —Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari

A l l the theoretical elements we have accumulated thus far—from the multitude o f the p o o r to the project o f altermodernity and from the social productivity o f biopolitical labor to the exodus from capitalist command—despite all their power, risk l y i n g inert beside one another without one more element that pulls them together and animates them i n a coherent project. W h a t is missing is love.Yes, we k n o w that term makes many readers u n comfortable. Some squirm i n their seats w i t h embarrassment and 54

others smirk w i t h superiority. Love has been so charged w i t h sentimentality that it seems hardly fit for philosophical and m u c h less political discourse. Leave it to the poets to speak o f love, many w i l l say, and wrap themselves i n its w a r m embrace. We think instead that love is an essential concept for philosophy and politics, and the failure to interrogate and develop it is one central cause o f the weakness o f contemporary thought. It is unwise to leave love to the priests, poets, and psychoanalysts. It is necessary for us, then, to do some conceptual housecleaning, clearing away some o f the m i s c o n ceptions that disqualify love for philosophical and political discourse and redefining the concept i n such a way as to demonstrate its utility. W e w i l l find i n the process that philosophers, political scientists, and even economists, despite the imagined cold precision o f

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their thinking, are really often speaking about love. A n d i f they were

love, we are not merely creating new objects or even new subjects

not so shy they w o u l d tell us as m u c h . This w i l l help us d e m o n -

i n the w o r l d . Instead we are producing a new w o r l d , a new social

strate h o w love is really the living heart o f the project we have been

life. B e i n g , i n other words, is not some immutable background

developing, w i t h o u t w h i c h the rest w o u l d remain a lifeless heap.

against w h i c h life takes place but is rather a living relation i n w h i c h

To understand love as a philosophical and political concept, it

we constantly have the power to intervene. Love is an ontological

is useful to begin from the perspective o f the poor and the i n n u -

event i n that it marks a rupture w i t h what exists and the creation o f

merable forms o f social solidarity and social production that one

the new. B e i n g is constituted by love. This ontologically constitutive

recognizes everywhere among those w h o live i n poverty. Solidarity,

capacity has been a battlefield for numerous conflicts among p h i -

care for others, creating community, and cooperating i n c o m m o n

losophers. Heidegger, for instance, strenuously counters this n o t i o n

projects is for them an essential survival mechanism.That brings us

o f ontological constitution i n his lecture o n poverty that we read

back to the elements o f poverty we emphasized earlier. A l t h o u g h

earlier. H u m a n i t y becomes poor to become rich, he argues, w h e n it

the p o o r are defined by material lack, people are never reduced to

lacks the nonnecessary, revealing what is necessary, that is, its rela-

bare life but are always endowed w i t h powers o f invention and pro-

tion to B e i n g . T h e poor as Heidegger imagines them i n this rela-

duction. T h e real essence o f the poor, i n fact, is not their lack but

tion, however, have no constitutive capacity, and humanity as a

their power. W h e n we band together, w h e n we f o r m a social body

whole, i n fact, is powerless i n the face o f B e i n g . O n this point S p i -

that is more powerful than any o f our individual bodies alone, we

noza stands at the opposite end from Heidegger. L i k e Heidegger, he

are constructing a new and c o m m o n subjectivity. O u r point o f de-

might say that humanity becomes r i c h w h e n it recognizes its rela-

parture, then, w h i c h the perspective o f the p o o r helps reveal, is that

tion to being, but that relation for Spinoza is entirely different. E s -

love is a process o f the production o f the c o m m o n and the produc-

pecially i n the mysterious fifth b o o k o f Spinoza's Ethics, we consti-

tion o f subjectivity. This process is not merely a means to producing

tute being actively through love. Love, Spinoza explains w i t h his

material goods and other necessities but also i n itself an end.

usual geometrical precision, is joy, that is, the increase o f our power

If such a statement sounds too sentimental, one can arrive at

to act and think, together w i t h the recognition o f an external cause.

the same point through the analysis o f political economy. In the

T h r o u g h love we f o r m a relation to that cause and seek to repeat

context o f biopolitical production, as we have demonstrated i n the

and expand our joy, f o r m i n g new, more powerful bodies and minds.

course o f Part 3, the production o f the c o m m o n is not separate

For Spinoza, i n other words, love is a production o f the c o m m o n

from or external to economic production, sequestered neither i n

that constantly aims upward, seeking to create more w i t h ever more

the private realm nor i n the sphere o f reproduction, but is instead

power, up to the point o f engaging i n the love o f G o d , that is, the

integral to and inseparable from the production o f capital. L o v e — i n

love o f nature as a whole, the c o m m o n i n its most expansive figure.

the production o f affective networks, schemes o f cooperation, and

Every act o f love, one might say, is an ontological event i n that it

social subjectivities—is an economic power. C o n c e i v e d i n this way

marks a rupture w i t h existing being and creates new being, from

love is not, as it is often characterized, spontaneous or passive. It

poverty through love to being. B e i n g , after all, is just another way o f

does not simply happen to us, as i f it were an event that mystically

saying what is ineluctably c o m m o n , what refuses to be privatized or

arrives from elsewhere. Instead it is an action, a biopolitical event,

enclosed and remains constantly open to all. (There is no such

planned and realized i n c o m m o n .

thing as a private ontology.) To say love is ontologically constitutive,

Love is productive i n a philosophical sense too—productive o f being. W h e n we engage i n the production o f subjectivity that is

then, simply means that it produces the c o m m o n . As soon as we identify love w i t h the production o f the c o m -

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m o n , we need to recognize that, just like the c o m m o n itself, love

poetry, i n w h i c h the love o f the stranger continually reappears as an

is deeply ambivalent and susceptible to corruption. In fact what

encounter characterized by wonder, growth, and discovery. N i e t z -

passes for love today i n ordinary discourse and popular culture is

sche's Zarathustra echoes W h i t m a n w h e n he preaches that higher

predominantly its corrupt forms. T h e primary locus o f this c o r r u p -

than love o f neighbor is "love o f the farthest." Love o f the

56

tion is the shift i n love from the c o m m o n to the same, that is, from

stranger, love o f the farthest, and love o f alterity can function as an

the production o f the c o m m o n to a repetition o f the same or a

antidote against the poison o f identitarian love, w h i c h hinders and

process o f unification. W h a t distinguishes the beneficial forms o f

distorts love's productivity by forcing it constantly to repeat the

love instead is the constant interplay between the c o m m o n and sin-

same. Here then is another meaning o f love as a biopolitical event:

gularities.

not only does it mark rupture w i t h the existent and creation o f the new, but also it is the production o f singularities and the composi-

O n e corrupt f o r m o f love is identitarian love, that is, love o f

tion o f singularities i n a c o m m o n relationship.

the same, w h i c h can be based, for example, o n a narrow interpreta-

A second f o r m o f corrupt love poses love as a process o f u n i f i -

tion o f the mandate to love thy neighbor, understanding it as a call to love those most proximate, those most like y o u . Family l o v e —

cation, o f b e c o m i n g the same. T h e contemporary dominant notion

the pressure to love first and most those w i t h i n the family to the

o f romantic love i n our cultures, w h i c h H o l l y w o o d sells every day,

exclusion or subordination o f those outside—is one f o r m o f identi-

its stock i n trade, requires that the couple merge i n unity. T h e m a n -

tarian love. R a c e love and nation love, or patriotism, are similar ex-

datory sequence o f this corrupted romantic love—couple-

amples o f the pressure to love most those most like y o u and hence

marriage-family—imagines people finding their match, like lost

less those w h o are different. Family, race, and nation, then, w h i c h

puzzle pieces, that n o w together make (or restore) a whole. M a r -

are corrupt forms o f the c o m m o n , are unsurprisingly the bases o f

riage and family close the couple i n a unit that subsequently, as we

corrupt forms o f love. F r o m this perspective we might say that p o p -

said earlier, corrupts the c o m m o n . T h i s same process o f love as u n i -

ulisms, nationalisms, fascisms, and various religious fundamentalisms

fication is also expressed i n many different religious traditions, espe-

are based not so m u c h o n hatred as o n love—but a horribly cor-

cially i n their mystical registers: love o f G o d means merging i n the

rupted form o f identitarian love.

divine unity. A n d it is not so surprising that such notions o f mystical u n i o n often use the conventional language o f romantic love, i n -

A n initial strategy to combat this corruption is to employ a more expansive, more generous interpretation o f the mandate to

v o k i n g the betrothed, divine marriage, and so forth, because they

love thy neighbor, reading the neighbor not as the one nearest and

are aimed at the same goal: m a k i n g the many into one, m a k i n g the

most like y o u but, to the contrary, as the other. " T h e neighbor is

different into the same. Similarly, various forms o f patriotism share

therefore . . . only a place-keeper," says Franz R o s e n z w e i g . "Love is

this n o t i o n o f setting (or pushing) aside differences and alterity i n

really oriented toward the embodiment o f all those—men and

order to form a united national people, a national identity. T h i s sec-

things—that could at any moment take this place o f its neighbor, i n

o n d corruption o f love as unification is intimately related, i n fact, to

the last resort it applies to everything, it applies to the w o r l d . "

55

the first identitarian corruption o f love: love o f the same, love mak-

The

ing the same.

mandate to love thy neighbor, then, the embodiment o f each and

O n e philosophical key to our argument here, w h i c h should be

every commandment for the monotheistic religions, requires us to love the other or, really, to love alterity. A n d i f you are not comfort-

clear already, is that the dynamic o f multiple singularities i n the

able w i t h scriptural exegesis as explanation, think ofWalt Whitman's

c o m m o n has nothing to do w i t h the o l d dialectic between the

I

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many and the one. Whereas the one stands opposed to the many,

o f the hive, weary o f the constant harping, makes all the bees v i r t u -

the c o m m o n is compatible w i t h and even internally composed o f

ous and eliminates vice, but as soon as he does so, the w o r k o f the

multiplicities. This compatibility between the c o m m o n and m u l t i -

hive comes to a halt a n d the society o f the hive falls apart. T h e fable

plicity can be understood i n simple terms (perhaps too simple)

is

w h e n posed i n the field o f political action: i f we d i d not share a

Mandeville, like Machiavelli and Spinoza before h i m , insists that,

c o m m o n w o r l d , then we w o u l d not be able to communicate w i t h one another or engage one another's needs and desires; and i f we were not multiple singularities, then we w o u l d have no need to communicate and interact. We agree i n this regard w i t h H a n n a h Arendt's conception o f politics as the interaction and composition o f singularities i n a c o m m o n w o r l d .

aimed,

obviously,

at s o c i a l m o r a l i s t s a n d r a t i o n a l i s t

Utopians.

instead o f preaching h o w people should be, social theorists must study h o w people are and analyze the passions that actually animate them. Mandeville's fable scandalized eighteenth-century English society, as it was meant to, but some, including A d a m Smith, read it as

57

P r o m o t i n g the encounters o f singularities i n the c o m m o n ,

a confirmation o f capitalist ideology. Smith takes Mandeville's p o lemic that vice, not virtue, is the source o f public benefit—people

then, is the primary strategy to combat love corrupted through

w o r k out o f greed, obey the law out o f cowardice, and so forth—to

identity and unification, w h i c h brings the production o f subjectiv-

support the n o t i o n that self-interest is the basis o f market exchanges

ity to a halt and abrogates the c o m m o n . Sameness and unity involve

and the capitalist economy. I f each acts out o f self-interest, then the

no creation but mere repetition w i t h o u t difference. Love should

public good w i l l result from market activity as i f guided by an invis-

be defined, instead, by the encounters and experimentation o f sin-

ible hand. Smith, o f course, a stalwart advocate o f sympathy and

gularities i n the c o m m o n , w h i c h i n turn produce a new c o m m o n

other moral sentiments, is not advocating vice but simply wants to

and new singularities. Whereas i n the ontological context we char-

keep misplaced moral imperatives and well-intentioned public c o n -

acterized the process o f love as constitution, here i n a political c o n -

trol out o f the economy. W h a t Smith bans most adamantly from the

text we should emphasize its power o f composition. Love composes

marketplace is the c o m m o n : only from private interests w i l l the

singularities, like themes i n a musical score, not i n unity but as a

public good result. "It is not from the benevolence o f the butcher,

network o f social relations. B r i n g i n g together these two faces o f

the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner," Smith fa-

love—the constitution o f the c o m m o n and the composition o f sin-

mously writes, "but from their regard to their o w n interest.We ad-

gularities—is a central challenge for understanding love as a mate-

dress ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and

rial, political act.

never talk to them o f our o w n necessities but o f their advantages."

We began this discussion by claiming that economic production is really a matter o f love, but we are perfectly aware that e c o n -

58

O u r love for one another has no place i n the realm o f economic exchanges.

omists do not see it that way Economists, i n fact, have l o n g cele-

W e get a rather different, updated fable o f economic life w h e n

brated Bernard Mandeville's early-eighteenth-century satire The

we focus o n not the society w i t h i n the hive but bee pollination ac-

Fable of the Bees as an anti-love anthem, p r o o f that there is no pos-

tivity outside it. For honeybees, flowers located w i t h i n flying dis-

sible connection between economics and love. Mandeville tells o f a

tance o f the hive constitute a positive externality. Bees fly from one

beehive that is wealthy and powerful but ridden w i t h all order o f

apple blossom to another, one cherry blossom to another, gathering

private vices, including deceit, greed, laziness, and cowardice.The

nectar to transport back to the hive. As a bee collects nectar, its legs

hive moralists constantly rail against vice to no avail. Finally the god

rub pollen off the anther o f the flower, and w h e n it proceeds to an-

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other, some o f the pollen from its legs rubs off o n the stigma o f the

bees; they aren't driven to produce anything. T h e y just want to have

next flower. For the flowers, then, bee activity is a positive external-

fun. A second point o f interest for Guattari is undoubtedly the way

ity, completing the cross-pollination necessary to produce fruit. T h e

this pollination story reinforces his lifelong diatribe against the cor-

economic fable o f these bees and flowers suggests a society o f m u -

ruptions o f love i n the couple and the family. Wasps and orchids do

tual aid based o n positive externalities and virtuous exchanges i n

not suggest any morality tale o f marriage and stable u n i o n , as bees

w h i c h the bee provides for the needs o f the flower and, i n turn, the flower fulfills the bee's needs.

59

W e can imagine Mandeville and S m i t h frowning at this fable

and flowers do, but rather evoke scenarios o f cruising and serial sex c o m m o n to some gay male communities, especially before the onslaught o f the A I D S pandemic, like passages from the writings

because o f its suggestion o f virtue and purposeful mutual aid as the

o f Jean Genet, D a v i d Wojnarowicz, and Samuel Delany.This is not

basis o f social production. W e are hesitant about the bee pollination

to say that cruising and anonymous sex serve as a m o d e l o f love

fable too, but for a different reason: the k i n d o f love it promotes.

to emulate for Guattari (or Genet, Wojnarowicz, or Delany), but

Bees and flowers do indeed suggest a k i n d o f love, but a static, cor-

rather that they provide an antidote to the corruptions o f love i n

rupt form. (We know, we're anthropomorphizing the bees and

the couple and the family, opening love up to the encounter o f sin-

flowers, projecting human traits and desires onto them, but isn't that

gularities.

what all fables do?) T h e marriage between bee and flower is a

W h e n the wasp and orchid story appears i n print i n Deleuze

match made i n heaven; they are the two halves that "complete"

and Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus, several years after Guattari's i n i -

each other and f o r m a whole, closing the c o m m o n d o w n i n same-

tial letter, the fable has been refined and cast i n the context o f evo-

ness and unity. B u t isn't this u n i o n a m o d e l o f the productivity o f

lutionary discourse. Deleuze and Guattari insist, first o f all, that the

the c o m m o n , y o u might ask? Doesn't it produce honey and fruit?

orchid is not imitating the wasp or trying to deceive it, as botanists

Yes, y o u might call this a k i n d o f production, but it is really just the

often say.The orchid is a becoming-wasp (becoming the wasp's sex-

repetition o f the same. W h a t we are l o o k i n g for—and what counts

ual organ) and the wasp is a b e c o m i n g - o r c h i d (becoming part o f

in love—is the production o f subjectivity and the encounter o f sin-

the orchid's system o f reproduction). W h a t is central is the encoun-

gularities, w h i c h compose new assemblages and constitute new

ter and interaction between these two becomings, w h i c h together

forms o f the c o m m o n .

form a new assemblage, a wasp-orchid machine. T h e fable is devoid

Let's switch species, then, to write a new fable. C e r t a i n orchids

o f intentions and interests: the wasps and orchids are not paragons

give off the odor o f the sex pheromone o f female wasps, and their

o f virtue i n their mutual aid, nor are they models o f egotistic self-

flowers are shaped like the female wasp sex organs. Pollination is

love. Deleuze and Guattari's machinic language allows them to

thus achieved by "pseudocopulation" as male wasps move from one

avoid asking " W h a t does it mean?" and focus instead on " H o w does

orchid to the next, sinking their genital members into each flower

it w o r k ? " T h e fable thus tells the story o f wasp-orchid love, a love

and rubbing off pollen on their bodies i n the process. "So wasps

based o n the encounter o f alterity but also o n a process o f b e c o m -

fuck flowers!" Felix Guattari exclaims w i t h rather juvenile glee i n a

ing different.

letter to Gilles Deleuze. "Wasps do this w o r k just like that, for n o t h ing, just for f u n ! "

60

Guattari's delight at this example is due i n part

61

Mandeville's bees (at least according to Smith's reading) are the m o d e l for a capitalist dream o f individual free agents trading l a -

to the fact that it undercuts the industriousness and "productivism"

bor and goods i n the marketplace, intent o n their o w n self-interest

usually attributed to nature.These wasps aren't your dutiful worker

and deaf to the c o m m o n good. T h e dutiful worker bees, i n contrast,

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j o i n e d w i t h their flowers i n a virtuous u n i o n o f mutual aid, are the stuff o f socialist Utopia. A l l o f these bees, however, belong to the b y -

INTERMEZZO

gone era o f the hegemony o f industrial production. Wasps w h o love orchids, instead, point toward the conditions o f the biopolitical economy. H o w c o u l d these wasps be a m o d e l for economic pro-

A FORCE TO COMBAT

EVIL

duction, y o u might ask, w h e n they don't produce anything? T h e bees and flowers produce honey and fruit, but the wasps and o r chids are just hedonists and aesthetes, merely creating pleasure and beauty! It is true that the interaction o f wasps and orchids does not result primarily i n material goods, but one should not discount their immaterial production. In the encounter o f singularities o f

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. —William Shakespeare, Hamlet

their love, a new assemblage is created, marked by the continual metamorphosis o f each singularity i n the c o m m o n . Wasp-orchid love, i n other words, is a m o d e l o f the production o f subjectivity that animates the biopolitical economy. Let's have done w i t h worker bees, then, and focus o n the singularities and becomings o f wasp-orchid love!

As a motor o f association, love is the power o f the c o m m o n i n a double sense: both the power that the c o m m o n exerts and the power to constitute the c o m m o n . It is thus also the movement toward freedom i n w h i c h the composition o f singularities leads toward not unity or identity but the increasing autonomy o f each participating equally i n the web o f c o m m u n i c a t i o n and cooperation. Love is the power o f the poor to exit a life o f misery and solitude, and engage the project to make the multitude. As we continue our study, we w i l l have to identify h o w this march o f freedom and equality can be made lasting, strengthened, and consolidated i n the formation o f social and political institutions. A l l o f this sounds good, y o u might say, for a political theory designed for angels, not humans, but people do not always act o n the basis o f love, and they often destroy the c o m m o n . Is it not more realistic, then, rather than assuming that humans are fundamentally good, to conceive o f them as fundamentally evil? Indeed such a "realist" or, really, pessimistic position is the dominant v i e w i n E u r o Atlantic political philosophy, from Thomas Hobbes's n o t i o n o f a "war o f all against all" to H e l m u t h Plessner's proposition o f a p o l i t i cal anthropology i n w h i c h humans are characterized by "potentially unlimited intraspecies aggressiveness."

1

F r o m this perspective, a p o -

litical anthropology based o n love, w h i c h does not take into account

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the evil that lurks i n human hearts, is naive at best. Believing that

to do every day—the wars, the cruelty, the suffering! This amounts

people are what we want them to be and that human nature is fun-

to something like a secular theodicy: H o w can humans be g o o d

damentally g o o d is dangerous, i n fact, because it undermines the

w h e n there is so m u c h evil i n the w o r l d and w h e n they so often act

political and conceptual tools necessary to confront and restrain evil.

in evil ways? W h e t h e r o n religious, philosophical, and/or empirical

B y focusing instead o n h o w dangerous humans are, such authors

bases, then, pessimistic political anthropologies treat evil as an invari-

maintain, and specifically o n h o w human nature is characterized by

ant feature o f human nature, w h i c h must be constantly restrained

discord, violence, and conflict, such a theory can treat this evil, c o n -

and contained i n society.

tain it, and thereby construct a society that holds evil i n check.

W h a t we are confronting here, though, is a poorly posed ques-

We agree that a realist perspective, w i t h its mandate for p o l i t i -

tion. It is a mistake to ask whether human nature is g o o d or evil, first

cal thought to understand humanity as it is, not as we want it to be,

o f all, because good and evil are contingent evaluations, not invari-

is extremely important. Humans are not naturally good. In the terms

ants.They are judgments that arise after the exercise o f the w i l l . S p i -

we developed i n the last chapter, this corresponds to the ambiva-

noza, for example, like Nietzsche after h i m , explains that humans do

lence o f the c o m m o n and love, that is, the fact that they can take

not strive for something because they deem it g o o d but instead

negative as well as positive forms. A n d furthermore the spontaneous

deem it good because they strive for it. Foucault poses Spinoza's

actions o f a multitude o f people, as we said, are not necessarily anti-

point i n more clearly political terms w h e n he claims, i n a debate

systemic or oriented toward liberation. In fact people often struggle

w i t h N o a m C h o m s k y , that the question o f justice—just war i n this

for their servitude, as Spinoza says, as i f it were their salvation.

2

T h e problem w i t h the pessimistic conceptions o f political anthropology, however, is that after justly dismissing any fundamental

case—arises only after political action: the proletariat does not make war o n the ruling class because it considers that war just but rather considers class war just because it wants to overthrow the ruling 4

goodness, they pose evil as an equally fundamental, invariable element o f human nature. E v i l is posed by some i n religious terms as transcendent (sin, for example) and by others as a transcendental e l -

class. To say that g o o d and evil, like just and unjust, are relative terms that depend o n relations o f force is not to say that they do not exist, but rather simply that they are not fixed, invariable foundations.

ement (a radical evil that marks a limit o f human society). Saint Paul

W h e t h e r human nature is g o o d or evil is a poorly posed ques-

manages to grasp these two formulations i n a single verse: "I w o u l d

tion also because basing the analysis o f political anthropology o n

not have k n o w n sin except through l a w " (Romans 7:7). I f evil is

invariants o f any sort leads to a dead end. T h e question is not what

radical, then one must try to neutralize and contain it; even i f evil

invariant defines human nature, i n other words, but what human na-

and sin are recognized as "necessary illusions" that result from the

ture can become. T h e most important fact about human nature (if we

"sleep o f reason," as K a n t says, they must be regulated. T h e f o r m o f

still want to call it that) is that it can be and is constantly being trans-

law (and thus the practices and theoretical mechanisms that grant

formed. A realist political anthropology must focus o n this process o f

law the function o f controlling the entire set o f social behaviors ac-

metamorphosis. This brings us back to the issue o f making the m u l -

cording to a p r i o r i norms) has always i n this metaphysical frame

titude, through organization and self-transformation. Questions o f

constituted the transcendental complement o f an ontology o f radi-

good and evil can only be posed after the m a k i n g o f the multitude is

3

cal e v i l . In most political discussions, though, metaphysical founda-

initiated, i n the context o f its project.

tions are not required. The evil i n human nature is simply confirmed

B y arguing against the fixity o f evil i n h u m a n nature, we do

empirically: l o o k at all the evil that humans have done and continue

not intend to make it impossible to use the term. E v i l does exist.We

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5

see it all around us. B u t the problem o f evil has to be posed i n such

solve it." T h i s passage resembles those o f other seventeenth- and

as way that its genealogy can be understood, thereby giving us a key

eighteenth-century authors w h o theorize the negation o f the state

to combating it. T h e pessimistic v i e w o f political anthropology reg-

o f nature i n the formation o f society, but the key difference is that

isters the existence o f evil but by treating it as an invariant blocks

Spinoza poses this as a positive, cumulative progression: the striving

any attempt to understand its genesis: evil just is.

toward freedom and the c o m m o n resides at the most basic level o f

proposition for political anthropology is to conceive o f

life; then desire sets i n m o t i o n the construction o f the c o m m o n ; and

evil as a derivative and distortion o f love and the c o m m o n . E v i l is

finally love consolidates the c o m m o n institutions that f o r m society.

the corruption o f love that creates an obstacle to love, or to say the

H u m a n nature is not negated but transformed i n this sequence.

Our

same thing w i t h a different focus, evil is the corruption o f the c o m -

Spinoza, however, is the ultimate realist. H e recognizes that the

that blocks its production and productivity. E v i l thus has no

social construction o f the c o m m o n through love does not function

originary or p r i m a r y existence but stands o n l y i n a secondary posi-

unimpeded and that humans are the authors o f the obstacles. O n the

tion to love. W e spoke earlier o f corruptions o f love i n racisms, na-

surface his explanation is that humans create these impediments and

mon

tionalisms, populisms, and fascisms; and we similarly analyzed not

evil i n general out o f ignorance, fear, and superstition. Since to c o m -

only the destruction o f the c o m m o n through capitalist expropria-

bat evil, then, one must overcome ignorance and fear and destroy

tion and privatization but also institutionalized corruptions o f the

superstition, education i n the truth o f the intellect and the correct

c o m m o n i n the family, the corporation, and the nation. T h i s double

exercise o f the w i l l are the antidotes to evil. B u t any Stoic could tell

position o f evil as corruption and obstacle presents us w i t h some

us that! Spinoza's difference resides at a deeper level where the edu-

initial criteria for our investigation.

cation or training o f the m i n d and body are grounded i n the m o v e -

H a v i n g posed the problem o f evil i n this way allows us to re-

ment o f love. H e does not conceive evil, as does Augustine, for i n -

turn to Spinoza's conception, w h i c h served us as the m o d e l for a

stance, as a privation o f being; nor does he pose it as a lack o f love.

politics o f love. W e should start w i t h this typically Spinozian geo-

E v i l instead is love gone bad, love corrupted i n such a way that it

metrical sequence: at the level o f sensations he identifies a striving

obstructs the functioning o f love. Consider ignorance, fear, and su-

(conatus) o f and for life; this striving is built u p o n and directed i n de-

perstition, then, not just as the lack o f intelligence but as the power

sire (cupiditas), w h i c h functions through the affects: and desire i n

o f intelligence turned against itself, and equally the power o f the

turn is strengthened and affirmed i n love (amor), w h i c h operates i n

body distorted and blocked. A n d since love is ultimately the power

reason. T h e movement o f this sequence involves not negation—

o f the creation o f the c o m m o n , evil is the dissolution o f the c o m -

striving is not negated by desire, or desire by love—but rather a pro-

m o n or, really, its corruption.

gressive accumulation, such that desire and love are increasingly

T h i s gives us a Spinozian explanation for w h y at times people

powerful strivings for life. A n d this process is immediately political

fight for their servitude as i f it were their salvation, w h y the poor

since the object o f all the terms o f this sequence is the formation o f

sometimes support dictators, the w o r k i n g classes vote for r i g h t - w i n g

collective social life and, more generally, the constitution o f the

parties, and abused spouses and children protect their abusers. Such

c o m m o n . "Since fear o f solitude exists i n all men," Spinoza writes,

situations are obviously the result o f ignorance, fear, and superstition,

"because no one i n solitude is strong enough to defend himself, and

but calling it false consciousness provides meager tools for transfor-

procure the necessaries o f life, it follows that m e n naturally aspire to

mation. Providing the oppressed w i t h the truth and instructing them

the civil state; nor can it happen that m e n should ever utterly dis-

in their interests does little to change things. People fighting for their

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servitude is understood better as the result o f love and c o m m u n i t y

lack o f being, push us toward the c o m m o n . Force and love construct

gone bad, failed, and distorted. T h e first question to ask w h e n c o n -

together weapons against the corruption o f being and the misery it

fronting evil, then, is, What specific love went bad here? What instance of

brings.

the common has been corrupted? People are powerfully addicted to love

7

Love is thus not only an ontological motor, w h i c h produces

gone bad and corrupt forms o f the c o m m o n . Often, sadly, these are

the c o m m o n and consolidates it i n society, but also an open field o f

the only instances o f love and the c o m m o n they k n o w ! In this c o n -

battle. W h e n we think o f the power o f love, we need constantly to

text it makes sense that Spinoza thinks o f ethics i n a medical frame-

keep i n m i n d that there are no guarantees; there is nothing auto-

w o r k — c u r i n g the ills o f the body and m i n d , but more important,

matic about its functioning and results. Love can go bad, b l o c k i n g

identifying h o w our intellectual and corporeal powers have been

and destroying the process.The struggle to combat evil thus involves

corrupted,

a training or education i n love.

turned

against

themselves,

become

self-destructive.

M a y b e this ethical and political therapeutic model explains w h y Freud was so fascinated by Spinoza.

To clarify, then, we should individuate and b r i n g together three operations or fields o f activity for the power o f love. First, and p r i -

B u t this is not only a therapeutic model. Ethics and politics

marily, the power o f love is the constitution o f the c o m m o n and u l -

come together i n an "ontology o f force," w h i c h eliminates the sepa-

timately the formation o f society. This does not mean negating the

ration between love and force that so many metaphysical, transcen-

differences o f social singularities to f o r m a u n i f o r m society, as i f love

dental, and religious perspectives try to enforce. F r o m a materialist

were to mean merging i n unity, but instead composing them i n so-

perspective instead, love is the propositional and constituent key to

cial relation and i n that way constituting the c o m m o n . B u t since the

the relationship between being and force, just as force substantiates

process o f love can be diverted toward the production o f corrupt

love's powers. M a r x , for example, speaks o f the " w i n n i n g smiles" o f

forms o f the c o m m o n , since love gone bad creates obstacles that

matter and its "sensuous, poetic glamour," w r i t i n g , " I n B a c o n [and

block and destroy the c o m m o n — i n some cases reducing the m u l t i -

in the Renaissance i n general] materialism still holds back w i t h i n

plicity o f the c o m m o n to identity and unity, i n others imposing h i -

itself i n a naive way the germs o f a many-sided development."These

erarchies w i t h i n c o m m o n relations—the power o f love must also be,

forms o f matter are "forces o f being," endowed w i t h "an impulse, a

second, a force to combat evil. Love n o w takes the form o f indigna-

6

vital spirit, a tension," even a "torment o f matter." There is some-

tion, disobedience, and antagonism. Exodus is one means we identi-

thing monstrous i n the relationship between love and force! B u t

fied earlier o f combating the corrupt institutions o f the c o m m o n ,

that monstruum, the overflowing force that embodies the relation-

subtracting from claims o f identity, fleeing from subordination and

ship between self and others, is the basis o f every social institution.

servitude. These two first guises o f the power o f love—its powers o f

W e have already seen h o w Spinoza poses the development o f insti-

association and rebellion, its constitution o f the c o m m o n and its

tutions i n the movement from the materiality o f conatus or striving

combat against corruption—function together i n the third: m a k i n g

all the way to rational, divine love, composing isolated singularities

the multitude. T h i s project must b r i n g the process o f exodus t o -

i n the multitude.We find something similar, albeit from a completely

gether w i t h an organizational project aimed at creating institutions

different perspective, i n Wittgenstein's meditations o n pain, w h i c h is

o f c o m m o n . A n d all three o f these guises are animated by the train-

incommunicable except though constructing a c o m m o n linguistic

ing or Bildung o f the multitude. There is nothing innate or sponta-

experience and, ultimately, instituting c o m m o n forms o f life. S p i n o -

neous about love going well and realizing the c o m m o n i n lasting

zian solitude and Wittgensteinian pain, w h i c h are both signs o f a

social forms. T h e deployment o f love has to be learned and new

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habits have to be formed through the collective organization o f our

tionship o f reciprocity and collective self-rule. Fifth, this force is a l -

desires, a process o f sentimental and political education. Habits and

ways directed toward consolidating this process i n institutions that

practices consolidated i n new social institutions w i l l constitute our

can allow it to continue ever more powerfully. A n d the list could

n o w transformed human nature.

go o n .

It should be clear at this point that love always involves the use

T h e real difficulties are not at the conceptual level o f distin-

o f force or, more precisely, that the actions o f love are themselves

guishing criteria but i n the political field where we must conduct

deployments o f force. Love may be an angel, but i f so it is an angel

the battle. E v e n w h e n we understand clearly the powers o f love and

armed. W e saw earlier that the constitutive power o f love and its cre-

its corruptions, even w h e n we face w i t h open eyes the evil i n our

ation o f the c o m m o n i m p l y what we might call an ontological force

societies, the love gone bad and the corrupt forms o f the c o m m o n

involved i n the production o f being, the production o f reality. T h e

to w h i c h we and others are addicted, there is no guarantee o f suc-

combative figure o f love's force becomes clearer, though, w h e n we

cess. G i a c o m o Leopardi, i n his famous p o e m Lenta ginestra, captures

focus o n the revolt against and exodus from hierarchical institutions and the corruptions o f the c o m m o n . A n d furthermore m a k i n g the multitude and f o r m i n g its institutions o f the c o m m o n entail what might be called a constituent political force. B u t really these three forces o f love are not separate. T h e y are merely different guises o f love's power.

the fragility o f love and the singularities struggling i n c o m m o n against the seemingly ineluctable destiny o f death and destruction. T h e l o o m i n g volcano Vesuvius towers above threateningly, but the delicate flowers o f the Scotch b r o o m continue indefatigably to push up its slopes. It w o u l d be easy to enter the struggle i f we were guaranteed v i c t o r y beforehand. Leopardi celebrates the fact that love

T h e l i n k between love and force, we should be clear, does not

constantly battles, regardless o f the enormity o f the forces stacked

come w i t h any guarantees either. W e k n o w that the racial, patriar-

against us. V i c t o r y is possible and fear o f the volcano defeated only

chal, identitarian, and other corruptions o f love are not lacking i n

w h e n hope is organized to construct human community.

8

force. In fact they often w i e l d a surplus o f force as i f to cover over

Finally, let us return to the pessimistic political anthropologies

their deviation from love's dedication to the c o m m o n . Is the force o f

we set out from i n order to emphasize the political difference marked

love, then, indistinguishable from the force o f its corruptions? N o ;

by our conception o f evil and the means to combat it. Even among

w o r r y i n g about the use o f force i n this way is a false scrupulousness.

authors whose w o r k is very close to ours, we recognize a recent ten-

W e can easily enumerate several criteria available for distinguishing

dency to link a n o t i o n o f evil as an invariant o f human nature to a

love's force. First, the content o f the link between love and force is

politics aimed at restraining evil. O n e fascinating occasion for devel-

the c o m m o n , w h i c h composes the interaction o f singularities i n

oping this line o f reasoning is a passage i n Paul's epistles that p r o -

processes o f social solidarity and political equality. Second, the direc-

poses the figure o f the katechon (the one that restrains). T h e katechon,

tion o f love's force is oriented toward the freedom o f those singu-

Paul explains, restrains "the lawless one," a satanic figure, and thus

larities. T h i r d , the organizational forms o f this exercise o f force are

holds off the apocalypse until its proper time (2 Thessalonians 2:1—

always open, constitutive, and horizontal, such that every time it is

12). T h i s mysterious "restrainer" has generally been interpreted i n

solidified i n fixed vertical relations o f power, love exceeds it and

Christian theology as a sovereign power: i n the early Christian era

overflows its limits, reopening organization again to the participa-

Tertullian identifies the katechon as the R o m a n Empire, and i n the

tion o f all. Fourth, the relation between love and force is legitimated

twentieth century C a r l Schmitt proposes that it is a Christian E m -

i n the consensus o f singularities and the autonomy o f each, i n a rela-

pire. Regardless o f the specific referent, these authors concur that

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the katechon is a lesser evil that protects us against a greater one. This notion corresponds perfectly to the implications o f a pessimistic p o litical anthropology. I f we accept that evil or intraspecies aggressiveness or some such element is an invariant o f human nature, then restraining evil w i l l be one i f not the central task o f politics, l i m i t i n g us to a politics o f the "lesser evil."

9

O u r conception o f evil as a corruption o f and obstacle to love in the creation o f the c o m m o n leads instead to a politics o f not restraining but combating evil. Since evil is secondary to love, we are not limited to external containment but have access to its inner mechanisms. Love is the battlefield for the struggle against evil. Moreover, the primacy o f love indicates the power we have i n this fight. If evil were primary, we w o u l d be helpless against it. W e w o u l d need to trust i n an E m p i r e to restrain it and h o l d death at bay. B u t since evil derives from love, the power o f evil is necessarily less. Love is stronger than death. A n d thus acting through love we have the power to combat evil. Such a politics o f love has no need to accept the rule o f a lesser evil. This is not to say we should imagine we can defeat evil once and for all—no, the corruptions o f love and the c o m m o n w i l l continue. W h a t it means, though, is that the battle is ours to fight and w i n . In the second half o f this book, from this point on, we seek to discover w i t h i n the movements o f the multitude the mechanisms o f the c o m m o n that produce new subjectivity and f o r m institutions. B u t before leaving this discussion we should consider one terrible historical experience o f the relation between love and force i n the socialist and Bolshevik conceptions o f the party. T h e premise is rational and understandable: nothing is possible w h e n we are isolated and only unity makes effective and multiplies the value o f indignation and individual revolt. Militants thus go forward hand i n hand to create a compact group, armed w i t h knowledge and passion. That w o u l d be the spark to transform society. T h e conclusion, though, is false: surreptitiously but implacably the party's determinations o f norms and measures, its decisions (even the right to life and death) become separated from the experience o f the movements and ab-

sorbed by the logic o f capitalist alienation, turning bureaucratic and tyrannical.What should give force to multiplicity is transformed into the violence o f identity. U n i t y is projected as a transcendent value, and the slogan o f revolution serves to corrupt the c o m m o n . N o , the party w i l l not defeat evil.Today the m e m o r y o f that corruption only pushes us further to discover a force to combat evil.

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And perhaps the great day will come when a people, distinguished by wars and victories and by the highest development of a military order and intelligence, and accustomed to make the heaviest sacrifices for these things, will exclaim of its own free w i l l , " We break the sword," and will smash its entire military establishment down to its lowest foundations. —Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human

4.1

BRIEF H I S T O R Y OF A FAILED C O U P

D'ETAT

We shall run the world's business whether the world likes it or not. The world can't help it—and neither can we, I guess. —Joseph Conrad, Nostromo

Let the Dead Bury the Dead T h e most significant event o f the first decade o f the new m i l l e n n i u m for geopolitics may be the definitive failure o f unilateralism. A t the end o f the last m i l l e n n i u m a genuinely new global situation had emerged, w h i c h set i n m o t i o n new processes o f governance and began to establish new structures o f global order. A new E m p i r e was being formed that was qualitatively different from the previously existing imperialisms, w h i c h had been based primarily o n the power o f nation-states. Instead o f engaging directly the formation o f E m pire, however, the dominant forces o n the global scene, the U . S . government i n particular, denied and repressed the novelty, conjuring up specters from the past, forcing dead figures o f political rule to stumble across the stage and replay outdated dreams o f grandeur. A m b i t i o n s o f imperialist conquest, nationalist glory, unilateral d e c i sion making, and global leadership were all revived, w i t h horrifyingly real violence. W i t h i n the U n i t e d States, where these fantasies were most powerful, what had seemed i n the past to be alternatives—isolationism, imperialism, and internationalism—were resuscitated and woven together, turning out merely to be different faces o f the same project, all stitched together w i t h the thread o f U . S . exceptionalism. It took only a few years, though, for these ghostly fig-

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ures to collapse i n a lifeless heap. T h e financial and economic crisis

one o f the cardinal features o f the contemporary international

o f the early twenty-first century delivered the final b l o w to U . S . i m -

system is that nation-states have lost their m o n o p o l y o n power

perialist glory. B y the end o f the decade there was general recogni-

and i n some domains their preeminence as well. States are be-

tion o f the military, political, and economic failures o f unilateralism.'

i n g challenged from above, by regional and global organiza-

There is no choice n o w but to confront head-on the formation o f

tions; from below, by militias; and from the side, by a variety o f

Empire.

nongovernmental

T h e decade put an end to dreams o f a unipolar w o r l d . T h e

organizations

(NGOs)

and

corporations.

Power is n o w found i n many hands and i n many places.

conventional narrative o f international relations scholars is that the twentieth century witnessed a major transformation from a m u l t i -

A c c o r d i n g to Haass, therefore, none o f the conventional geome-

polar w o r l d ruled by a set o f dominant nation-states—which traces

tries—unipolar, bipolar, or multipolar—adequately describes

its roots back to the Peace ofWestphalia but emerged i n truly global

emerging global order. " T h e principal characteristic o f twenty-first-

form through the European, U . S . , and Japanese imperialist proj-

century international relations," he continues, "is turning out to be

ects—to the bipolar w o r l d defined by the two cold war superpow-

nonpolarity: a w o r l d dominated not by one or two or even several

ers. T h e collapse o f the Soviet U n i o n and the end o f the cold war

states but rather by dozens o f actors possessing and exercising v a r i -

opened an alternative, i n the minds o f many scholars and p o l i c y -

ous kinds o f power. This represents a tectonic shift from the past." It

makers, between a return to some f o r m o f multipolarity or the cre-

has n o w become uncontroversial, even commonplace, to pose the

ation o f a unipolar system centered o n the U n i t e d States, the sole

contemporary global order, w h i c h has i n fact been f o r m i n g since

superpower, a single imperialist w i t h no competitors or peers. T h e

the end o f the cold war, as characterized by a distribution o f powers,

attempt and failure to establish U . S . hegemony and unilateral rule i n

or more precisely a f o r m o f network power, w h i c h requires the w i d e

the course o f the decade, however, proved the vision o f a unipolar

collaboration o f dominant nation-states, major corporations, supra-

w o r l d to be an illusion. A t this point even the strategists o f U . S .

national economic and political institutions, various N G O s , media

power are beginning to recognize that what the collapse o f u n i p o -

conglomerates, and a series o f other powers. It is quickly b e c o m i n g

larity signals is not a return to any previous bipolar or multipolar

c o m m o n sense, i n other words, that the problem o f the twenty-first

arrangement but the emergence o f a new order. " A t first glance,"

century is the problem o f E m p i r e .

explains R i c h a r d Haass, former director o f policy planning at the U . S . State Department,

the

2

3

Was it a lost decade, then? After this detour through resurrected imperialist adventures and unilateral pretenses, w h i c h "perfected" the imperialist machine only to demonstrate its definitive obsoles-

the w o r l d today may appear to be multipolar. T h e major p o w -

cence, are we right back where we were before? W e need to l o o k a

ers—China, the European U n i o n ( E U ) , India, Japan, Russia,

bit more closely at the failures o f unilateralism and the impossibility

and the U n i t e d States—contain just over half the world's peo-

o f multilateralism to see h o w the formation o f E m p i r e has pro-

ple and account for 75 percent o f global G D P and 80 percent

ceeded through this process—both h o w its shape has clarified and

o f global defense spending. Appearances, however, can be de-

h o w it has moved i n new directions.

ceiving. Today's w o r l d differs i n a fundamental way from one

T h e attempt to create a unipolar order centered o n the U n i t e d

o f classic multipolarity: there are many more power centers,

States was really a coup d'etat w i t h i n the global system, that is, a dra-

and quite a few o f these poles are not nation-states. Indeed,

matic subordination o f all the "aristocratic" powers o f the emerging

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imperial order, such as the other dominant nation-states and the su-

to the accusation o f "fascist," suddenly a small but significant group

pranational institutions, i n order to elevate the "monarchical" power

o f pundits and politicians publicly embraced imperialism! Others,

o f the U n i t e d States. T h e coup d'etat was an effort to transform the

even w h e n shying away from using the term, resurrected all the c o n -

emerging f o r m o f E m p i r e back into an o l d imperialism, but this

ventional apologies for imperialism: its ability to remake the global

time w i t h only one imperialist power. T h e primary events and u l t i -

environment, its civilizing influence, its moral superiority, and so

mate failure o f the coup have by n o w been thoroughly chronicled

forth. M o r e prudent scholars and policymakers accepted as given

by journalists and scholars. Plans for a " N e w A m e r i c a n C e n t u r y "

the coup d'etat and its success but warned against its excesses and

were i n place well before the attacks o n the W o r l d Trade Center and

sought to make its reign more humane and long-lasting. Typical o f

the Pentagon o n September 11, 2001, but every coup needs a t r i g -

this effort were the various discussions o f hegemony that cautioned

ger, a catastrophic event that legitimates taking the reins o f power.

against the dangers o f relying too heavily o n "hard power" and rec-

T h e rhetoric o f a "war o n terror" justified a state o f emergency i n

ommended strong doses o f "soft power."

the imperial system, and the coup was set i n m o t i o n i n the attempt

these various positions, however, despite their differences, was an

to concentrate the powers o f the global order i n the hands o f the

imperialist conception o f political order.

5

R u n n i n g throughout

U n i t e d States, establishing unilateral control, raising or l o w e r i n g the

T h e visionaries most dedicated to the coup and most c o n -

status o f nation-states according to their alignment w i t h the w i l l o f

vinced o f its success were the so-called neoconservatives, a m u c h -

Washington, u n d e r m i n i n g the capacities and autonomy o f the inter-

publicized group o f journalists, pseudo-academics, and government

national and supranational institutions, and so forth. O n the emerg-

officials w h o have a strong presence i n the mainstream and conser-

ing imperial system was imposed a central authority through w h i c h

vative sectors o f the U . S . media. These ideologues are "idealists" i n

all global decisions were to pass. T h e invasions and occupations o f

the sense that they share a vision o f a global political order i n w h i c h

Afghanistan and Iraq were the centerpiece, but the coup also i n -

the U n i t e d States holds overwhelming power, unilaterally decides

volved a series o f economic and political operations at various levels

political issues for other nations, and thereby guarantees global peace.

i n the global system. T h e military failures were thus the most visible

A n d they are equally apocalyptic, warning about the dire conse-

but by no means the only measure o f the collapse o f the coup. F r o m

quences o f not following their dictates. " T h e r e is no middle way for

this perspective, then, it is not true, as so many tirelessly repeat, that

Americans" i n the war o n terror, write D a v i d F r u m and R i c h a r d

everything changed o n September 11. T h e rhetoric o f a historic

Perle ominously. "It is victory or holocaust." These ideologues are

break facilitated the forces o f the coup, but we can see clearly now,

fundamentally against Empire—against, that is, collaboration w i t h

after the coup has failed and the dust cleared, that the attacks and the

the w i d e network o f powers i n the emerging imperial f o r m a t i o n —

subsequent unilateralist adventures, however horrifying and tragic,

and for imperialism. T h e i r war cry, i n effect, is "Imperialism or

were not i n fact moments o f radical change but steps i n the forma-

death!"

tion o f E m p i r e .

6

4

T h o u g h l o n g o n vision, neoconservatives are remarkably short

It is n o coincidence that i n the heady early days o f the coup

o n substance. In their hubris they pay little attention to the neces-

some o f the planners and supporters began to sing the praises o f past

sary bases for exercising imperialist power and maintaining unilat-

imperialist formations, especially those o f the U n i t e d States and

eral hegemony. T h e i r plans rely heavily o n military power, but they

Britain. Whereas for several decades the term "imperialist" had func-

fail to invent or develop new military capacities, putting their faith

tioned as an insult across the political spectrum almost comparable

simply i n a strategic transformation, as we w i l l see i n the next sec-

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tion. T h e y show astonishingly little concern, furthermore, for eco-

theories. G l o b a l order and domination continue to be defined, as

n o m i c planning. A t times they ally themselves w i t h proponents o f

they were throughout the twentieth century, by U . S . imperialism.

neoliberal economics, but that remains peripheral to their vision.

These arguments are correct o n the surface, o f course, since the

T h e essence o f their agenda is political: establishing and exercising

coup was indeed an attempt to resurrect imperialism, but profoundly

the unilateral capacity o f the U n i t e d States to "shape the global e n -

mistaken i n substance. T h e tradition o f dead generations still weighs

vironment," to organize and dictate global political affairs. E v e n i n

like a nightmare on the brain o f the living. In effect these scholars

the political realm, though, neoconservatives disregard the need to

were duped by the boasting o f the instigators o f the coup, accepting

gain moral and political authority. T h e y seem to take for granted

at face value their resurrected figures and pretenses to imperialist

that nation-states and other significant powers w i l l unquestioningly

power. Such theories o f a new (or not so new) U . S . imperialism are

consent to the wishes ofWashington.The neoconservatives, i n short,

really an inverted repetition o f U . S . exceptionalism, such that the

strike the pose o f the great British imperialists o f a bygone era, but

U n i t e d States is an exception here not, as the U . S . celebrants and

w i t h o u t the substance to support their dreams—without the force

apologists w o u l d have it, because o f its virtue and vocation for free-

to maintain domination or the consent to sustain hegemony—they

d o m and democracy but rather because o f its w i l l to dominate, and

strike only a farcical figure. T h e y embarked o n a very strange proj-

moreover, since many nation-states share that w i l l , its power to do

ect: to assert hegemony w i t h o u t concern for, and even scorning the

so. T h e time has come, though, to let the dead bury the dead.

7

9

necessary prerequisites for, that hegemony itself. After the failure o f the coup d'etat became apparent, the neo-

The Exhaustion of U.S. Hegemony

conservatives scattered into separate camps.The most intelligent and

N o w that the coup d'etat has failed and the attempt to establish the

most opportunistic try to save their careers by shifting their posi-

unilateral control o f the U n i t e d States over global affairs has been all

tions—for example, reasserting the power o f nation-states for global

but aborted, we need to detail the breakdown i n military, economic,

order—and claiming they never really agreed w i t h the coup i n the

political, and moral affairs i n order to analyze the current state i n

first place. T h e hardliners instead remain convinced o f the vision

w h i c h this leaves the imperial system. T h e military failure is most

and simply blame the B u s h administration or others for carrying it

visible and dramatic. T h e invasion o f Afghanistan and the quick c o l -

8

lapse o f the Taliban government were really only a prelude. Iraq

T h e coup d i d not, o f course, fail only because o f incompetence. U . S .

w o u l d be the proving ground where the U n i t e d States demonstrates

unilateralism and its imperialist projects were already dead before

it can "go it alone," i n defiance o f the U n i t e d Nations and some o f

the coup forced them to their feet to thrash about for a few bloody

its primary traditional allies. Baghdad is conquered quickly w i t h lit-

years. Perhaps the neoconservative ideologues are the adequate

tle resistance, forces o f the U n i t e d States and its allies spread through-

gravediggers for an ideology that was already defunct.

out the national territory, and a U . S . occupying administration is

out poorly, focusing most often o n military errors made i n Iraq.

O n e other oddly symmetrical historical anomaly o f this period

established. B y the summer o f 2003 the mission has been a c c o m -

is the explosion o f scholarly and popular books o n the Left that ana-

plished: unilateral military power has proved its effectiveness, and the

lyzed the coup as a return to imperialism. F o r a couple o f years,

coup d'etat seems to stand o n f i r m ground.The victor starts l o o k i n g

roughly from 2003 to 2005, such books dominated the shelves o f

around for new arenas (Syria? Iran?) i n w h i c h to exert its power.

bookstores.There is no new w o r l d order, they explain, no new f o r m

O v e r the course o f the next few years, however, the presumed

o f Empire, and thus (what a relief!) no need for new concepts and

military victory is swept away: at first w i t h drips and drops o f resis-

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tance to the occupation forces, then periodic showers, and finally

c o m m o n sense. B y early 2007, w i t h Rumsfeld ousted as secretary o f

massive downpours. Afghanistan, w h i c h was once reported to be

defense, the U . S . government effectively abandons the core strate-

successfully under the control o f the occupying forces and the ap-

gies o f the "revolutionary i n military affairs" and begins instead a

pointed government, is soon revealed to be rocked by serious c o n -

dramatic escalation o f troops i n Iraq.

10

flicts. In Iraq the occupying military forces and their counterparts i n

A second traditional military v i e w reconfirmed by the defeat

the newly created Iraqi government are forced into the position o f

in Iraq highlights the vast difference i n subjectivity o n the two sides

the boy w i t h his finger i n the dike. As death tolls rise, so do the pos-

o f conflict. A r m e d resistance, particularly armed resistance against an

sibilities o f a flood and unrestricted civil war. T h e eventual "surge"

occupying army, is a terrific engine o f the production o f subjectivity.

o f U . S . forces and decline o f violence i n Iraq cannot change the fact

The

that has been revealed. O n the proving ground o f Iraq, unilateral

to risk h a r m and death, sometimes taking horrible, barbaric forms. It

military power has not demonstrated its ability to create and guaran-

teaches us, once again, that the presence o f the occupier is sufficient

tee global order but has, o n the contrary, shown its complete inabil-

to produce resistance. For the occupying army, however, there is no

ity to do so. Even i f the U n i t e d States eventually declares victory,

such production o f subjectivity, regardless o f all the ideological c a m -

unilateralism was defeated i n Iraq.

paigns to link the war to the September 11 attacks and, more gener-

occupation creates an extraordinary willingness among Iraqis

In retrospect the failure i n Iraq highlights two well-established

ally, to create "terrorism" or radical Islam as a unified global enemy.

truths o f military thought. T h e first demonstrates the necessary size

A t certain points i n the past, patriotism enabled a production o f

and composition o f a conquering and occupying army. A primary

subjectivity that could support a foreign war effort, but today the ef-

element o f the unilateral project i n Iraq was the military strategy

fectiveness o f that mechanism is limited. O c c u p y i n g armies n o w

often referred to as the "revolutionary i n military affairs" ( R M A ) or

tend, i n one way or another, to be populated by mercenaries. M a -

"defense transformation." This strategy, w h i c h was most publicly

chiavelli recognized l o n g ago the superiority o f a "people i n arms"

supported at the time by U.S. Secretary o f Defense D o n a l d R u m s -

to any mercenary army because o f the production o f subjectivity

feld, often against the objections o f generals and the military estab-

that drives it. A n d no technological advantage w i l l ever address that

lishment, is based o n two primary strategic innovations: reducing

subjective imbalance.

troop levels through the coordinated use o f information and weap-

These two obstacles for U . S . unilateralist military strategy—the

ons technologies i n combat; and reorganizing military formations to

limitations o f technological transformations and the imbalance i n

make them lighter, more mobile, and more flexible. T h e 2003 " v i c -

subjectivity—coincide powerfully i n urban warfare. M i l i t a r y strate-

tory o f Baghdad" and the seeming success o f this strategy briefly

gists are well aware that insurgencies and resistances w i l l increasingly

inspired dreams o f cyborg and robot armies that could vanquish en-

be located i n metropolises and that the technological apparatus m o -

emies w i t h no soldiers lost (no U . S . soldiers, that is). A s Iraqi resis-

bilized by the R M A is i l l equipped for this environment.

tance grew, however, the effectiveness o f the strategy was quickly

labyrinthine passageways o f the urban landscape it is difficult to fight

undermined. It became obvious that the relatively small army orga-

and k i l l at a distance. T h e metropolis is also a factory for the produc-

nized i n technologically equipped mobile units is a powerful offen-

tion o f subjectivity, as we argue i n De Corpore 2 at the end o f this

sive weapon but unable to defend established positions, or rather, i n

section o f the b o o k . The well-established spaces o f the c o m m o n , the

journalistic jargon, it can w i n the war but not the peace. T h e tra-

circuits o f communication, and the social habits that f o r m the m e -

ditional v i e w that occupations require large numbers returned as

tropolis serve as powerful multipliers o f the production o f subjectiv-

11

In the

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ity i n resistance. A metropolis can ignite overnight, and the blazes

moreover, other nation-states to be grateful to the U n i t e d States for

stubbornly refuse to be extinguished.

taking leadership i n the war. It w i l l soon be hard to remember that

Defeat i n one campaign, o f course, does not disprove a military

during significant periods o f the twentieth century, especially dur-

strategy. Some are b o u n d to say that the fiasco was due merely to

ing the most intense years o f the cold war, the U n i t e d States enjoyed

tactical errors, such as dismissing former Baath Party officials, dis-

a hegemonic position i n many parts o f the w o r l d . T h e i d e o l o g i -

banding the Iraqi military, or failing to counter the resistance quickly

cal explanation o f U . S . hegemony has been predicated o n the n o -

enough. W e can rest assured, too, that the strategists i n the U.S. m i l i -

tion that the U n i t e d States acts consistently, both domestically and

tary and its allied think tanks are busy w o r k i n g — w i t h the aid o f

abroad, to promote and defend freedom and democracy. W e k n o w

abstract theories and video game simulations—to reformulate the

well, however, the l o n g history o f the U . S . government u n d e r m i n -

R M A for urban environments and achieve goals like "persistent area

ing democratically elected governments and supporting dictator-

dominance" through technological and strategic innovations.

12

Is-

ships, through overt and covert operations, from Guatemala and

raeli military theorists also are hard at w o r k developing effective

C h i l e to the Philippines and Indonesia. T h e real cause for consent

strategies to control urban environments w i t h o u t exposing troops to

to U . S . hegemony rested o n the fact that other nation-states believed

risk.

13

14

It is already clear, though, that regardless o f future innovations

the actions o f the U n i t e d States consistently advanced their o w n

and refinements, this strategy cannot support a unilateral military

national interests, or rather the interests o f those i n power. T h i s is a

project o f the U n i t e d States.

delicate balance, though, because material interests are necessarily

T h e primary architects o f the U.S. war i n Iraq may be naive or

coupled w i t h the "idealistic" ideological rationale and cannot sur15

inexpert military strategists, but they are undoubtedly lucid political

vive w i t h o u t i t .

As C i c e r o said o f R o m e , U . S . global leadership

thinkers. T h e y are conscious that large numbers o f U S . casualties

often sounded to its allies more like patrocinium than imperium.

are certain to undermine domestic support. T h e y are also thinking

T h e photos o f A b u Ghraib prison can serve as a symbol for the

ahead, beyond Afghanistan and Iraq, to the future requirements o f a

erosion o f the moral and political authority o f the U n i t e d States and

unilateral global order. There is no way that the U . S . military can

the inversion o f its image from defender o f freedom and democracy

match up to other major powers, such as Russia and C h i n a , i n the

to violator o f basic rights and international law. F o r decades, o f

logic o f the o l d military strategy. It simply does not have the n u m -

course, critical voices have protested the way the U . S . military has

bers. T h e promise o f the new strategy is that it can overcome the

trained death squads and encouraged the use o f torture. T h e photos

numerical imbalance and turn asymmetry to its advantage. Such

o f U . S . soldiers torturing and m o c k i n g prisoners i n Iraq, however,

a technological-strategic advantage, its authors believe, is the only

completely shattered what remained o f its virtuous image, shifting

hope for creating long-lasting unilateral military control. A l t h o u g h

focus to the widespread use o f terror and torture as a political and

they answer the needs o f the political logic, however, these strategies

military tool by the U n i t e d States, i n Guantanamo and other irregu-

have proved unable to h o l d up militarily, even against relatively small,

lar prisons, and underlining the fact that the U . S . government ap-

poorly equipped militias like those i n Afghanistan and Iraq.

proves and promotes the use o f torture i n violation o f international

T h e international political hegemony o f the U n i t e d States has

law. " W e are i n danger o f losing something m u c h more i m p o r -

also rapidly declined during the period o f the coup and its failure.

tant than just the war i n Iraq," Thomas Friedman warns after the

Some o f the architects o f the 2003 Iraq invasion probably d i d expect

publication o f the A b u Ghraib photos. " W e are i n danger o f losing

U . S . tanks to be greeted i n Baghdad w i t h flowers and kisses and,

A m e r i c a as an instrument o f moral authority and inspiration i n the

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w o r l d . " T h e U n i t e d States is certainly not the greatest violator o f

provides a powerful illustration o f the impossibility o f the unilateral-

rights or proponent o f torture, but its image can no longer function

ist project. C o n t r o l o f Iraqi o i l reserves is undoubtedly important,

as a paradigm for the p r o m o t i o n o f rights and law, freedom and de-

but the primary economic objective o f the occupation was to c o n -

mocracy.

duct a radical experiment i n neoliberal transformation. T h e o c c u -

16

17

T h e ideological cover o f U . S . hegemony probably wore thin,

pation administration i n Iraq led by Paul Bremer was given the

we suspect, because its substance had already emptied out. O t h e r

charge to destroy the existing social structures o f the Iraqi economy,

powers had determined, i n other words, that the international ac-

including labor rights, state-owned industries, and welfare systems—

tion o f the U n i t e d States—its wars, its unilateral adventures, its eco-

raze the economic terrain, so to speak, create a clean slate, and from

n o m i c models, and so forth—no longer consistently advanced their

there, from point zero, invent a pure neoliberal economy. Bremer's

o w n interests. W e w i l l have to analyze this shift more closely i n the

regime, however, was thwarted by a variety o f stiff economic resis-

next section i n terms o f economic interests, but for the moment it is

tances (in addition to its o w n incompetence). It quickly learned the

sufficient to recognize h o w the failure o f the coup d'etat coincides

difficulty o f privatizing the economic goods o f the country and sell-

w i t h the decline o f the hard and soft power o f the U n i t e d States,

ing them to foreign corporations. Foreign corporations are reluctant

that is, the defeat o f its military strategy and the collapse o f its moral

to buy, o n the one hand, because the continuing violence i n the

and political authority.

country makes business all but impossible and, o n the other, because they fear that international law w i l l not recognize as legitimate their

What Is a Dollar Worth?

ownership o f national industries and resources sold by an occupying

T h e breakdown o f U.S. unilateralism and the failure o f the U n i t e d

regime. Creation o f a pure neoliberal economy also proved impos-

States' attempted coup d'etat w i t h i n the imperial system is not

sible because Iraqi workers resist privatization. N a o m i K l e i n reports,

merely a function o f military might or strategy. Together w i t h p o l i t i -

in fact, that some workers fired from state industries immediately

cal and moral authority, economic strength is part o f the "soft power"

enlisted i n the military resistance. In addition to failing militarily i n

necessary for hegemony. T h e economic, military, and political/moral

Iraq, then, the U . S . unilateral project failed economically—failed,

aspects o f the unilateralist project operate according to independent

that is, to create a new economic regime that could generate and

logics but mutually reinforce one another, bolstering one another

guarantee profits. Iraq is an example o f the general strategy o f radical

d u r i n g the ascent o f power and dragging one another d o w n i n de-

neoliberal transformation coupled w i t h U . S . military control and

cline. In the broadest terms, the success o f hegemonic power i n the

political hegemony i n the unilateralist project.

18

economic sphere, at least i n contemporary capitalist conditions, rests

T h e essential question, although it is impossible to answer d i -

o n its ability to guarantee profits o n a general level among capitalists,

rectly i n a satisfactory way, is whether U . S . unilateralism—with its

not only for its o w n national interests but also for those o f its allied

"war o n terror," its political hegemony, and its economic policies—

powers. G a u g i n g economic hegemony is certainly an inexact sci-

is g o o d for business and favors the profits o f global capital. That is

ence, but we can read symptoms from a variety o f arenas i n a g r o w -

not to ask, obviously, whether it favors a handful o f specific corpora-

ing chorus o f "no confidence" votes for unilateral U . S . economic

tions, such as H a l l i b u r t o n or Bechtel, but whether it benefits collec-

control.

tive capital as a whole. O n e useful way to approach this question is

A l t h o u g h the military defeat o f the U n i t e d States i n Iraq is

to focus o n the abilities o f the U n i t e d States to impose its wishes o n

most visible, its economic failure is perhaps more significant and

the other nation-states i n international economic agreements. T h e

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U n i t e d States, i n fact, is experiencing increasing difficulty gaining

posed to sheer domination," writes G i o v a n n i A r r i g h i , " i n all l i k e l i -

consent to its economic hegemony. There has been m o u n t i n g resis-

h o o d has already ended; but, just as the p o u n d sterling continued to

tance, for example, to U.S. proposals at the so-called D o h a round o f

be used as an international currency three to four decades after the

W o r l d Trade Organization meetings, beginning i n D o h a i n 2001

end o f B r i t i s h hegemony, so may the dollar." M a y b e someday i n

and C a n c u n i n 2003, and continuing for several years. Each annual

the future the euro or the yuan or some combination o f currencies

meeting is pronounced a failure w h e n a deadlock develops, most often over farm subsidies i n the dominant nations and access to i n dustrial and agricultural markets. T h e most noteworthy symbolic defeat for the U n i t e d States i n this regard was perhaps its failure to gain Latin A m e r i c a n support o f the Free Trade Area o f the Americas ( F T A A ) agreement. F o r so m u c h o f the last century Washington could rely o n "its backyard" and count o n the support o f the Latin A m e r i c a n nations for its economic projects. A t M a r del Plata i n 2005, however, Latin A m e r i c a n governments were able, at least i n part, to declare their independence from U.S. economic hegemony. This is not just a political affirmation o f national sovereignty but also and more significantly an indication that the ruling elites o f these countries no longer v i e w U . S . hegemony as beneficial to their economic interests. A l l o f these discrete failures, then, these resistances to the w i l l o f Washington, from Baghdad and D o h a to M a r del Plata, can be read as a series o f votes o f "no confidence" i n the soft power o f the U n i t e d States—symptoms o f the failure o f its u n i lateral economic project.

19

w i l l ascend to the dominant position, but by that time the dollar's hegemony w i l l already be l o n g past. T h e U . S . mortgage crisis beginning i n 2007 and the subsequent global financial and economic crises demonstrate some i m portant facets o f the current global position o f the U . S . economy. O n the one hand, it reveals the extent to w h i c h the achievements o f the N e w D e a l and the welfare structures i n the U.S. economy have been dismantled largely by drawing o n global finance markets. G l o balization has served to stabilize and underwrite U . S . economic p o l icies o f privatization. W h e n U.S. homeowners find it impossible to pay their mortgages, o n the other hand, it becomes clear h o w m u c h capitalists throughout the w o r l d are affected by the U . S . crisis. T h e hegemony o f the U . S . market, w h i l e still attracting global investment, has been dramatically weakened. T h e value o f the dollar depends increasingly on not the productivity o f the country o f w h i c h it is the monetary symbol but the ability to blackmail global finance markets.

20

T h e various strands o f the failure o f the U n i t e d States' unilatT h e most fundamental indicator o f international economic hegemony may be the position and function o f the national currency. T h e dominance o f the dollar has been demonstrated, for several decades, by its role as the primary currency o f exchange and reserve i n the global economy, w h i c h represented international c o n fidence i n the U . S . economy and consent to U . S . economic leadership. This does not mean that the dollar has constantly maintained a high value w i t h respect to other currencies. In fact the manipulation o f exchange rates often serves the dominant power as a mechanism to resolve internal economic problems on the international scene. T h e dollar today does still function as the global currency, but this may be merely an aftereffect o f its past glory. " U . S . hegemony, as o p -

eral project came together as a perfect storm i n the aftermath o f H u r r i c a n e Katrina i n 2005. T h e corruption and incompetence o f the government agencies charged w i t h responding to the emergency were really just the surface effects o f a social structure deprived systematically for years. T h e effects o f failed neoliberal econ o m i c projects, w h i c h had been felt around the w o r l d , n o w appeared dramatically o n domestic soil.The furor caused w h e n some j o u r n a l ists and politicians called the displaced populations "refugees" is i n dicative o f the anxiety aroused by the confusion between inside and outside w h e n U . S . viewers are confronted by images they are accustomed to associating w i t h the subordinate regions o f the w o r l d . T h e aftermath o f H u r r i c a n e Katrina also exposed the continuing racial

217

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divisions o f the U n i t e d States and the strong correspondence between race and poverty. T h e catastrophe served as a reminder o f not

4.2

only the high percentage o f African Americans living without adequate resources i n areas such as Louisiana and Mississippi, but also how government agencies and the media react differently to differ-

AFTER

U.S. HEGEMONY

ent racial populations. In the weeks after the hurricane the racism o f the U n i t e d States at every level o f society, from governmental structures to c o m m o n prejudices, was vividly on display. Finally, the K a trina disaster marked a turning point i n the U S . population's sup-

The provinces generally go, in the changes they make, from order to

port for the Iraq war. Some commentators pointed out the direct

disorder and then pass again from disorder to order, for worldly things

connections—money spent o n war had deprived the national infra-

are not allowed by nature to stand still. —Machiavelli, Florentine Histories

structure, the Mississippi and Louisiana National Guard deployed i n war zones was unavailable for disaster relief, and so forth—but we suspect that the connection i n public o p i n i o n functioned more powerfully at a more abstract and profound level. B y the summer o f 2005, just two years after the celebrations o f imperialist glory i n the

Interregnum

"victory o f Baghdad," cracks i n the unilateral projects were showing

The

everywhere, and the disaster following Katrina was confirmation.

search about for successor candidates to global hegemony. W i l l a

Events w o u l d drag o n for years, but it was already obvious that the

new caliphate emerge that can order large parts o f the globe o n the

coup d'etat had failed.

basis o f M u s l i m unity under theocratic control? W i l l Europe n o w

failure o f the U . S . unilateral project leads many analysts to

united reclaim its dominant position and dictate global affairs? O r is the rest o f the w o r l d just waiting for the moment w h e n C h i n a is ready to exert its unilateral hegemony? W e find all these notions o f " n e w pretenders to the throne" implausible, however, because they are based o n the assumption that the form o f global order remains imperialist and that, although the U n i t e d States is incapable o f achieving unilateral hegemony, some other nation-state or sovereign power is. T h e breakdown o f U.S. unilateralism demonstrates, i n our view, the failure not only o f a U.S. project but also and more i m p o r tant o f unilateralism itself. T h e form o f global order has irreversibly shifted. W e are living today i n a p e r i o d o f transition, an interregnum in w h i c h the o l d imperialism is dead and the new E m p i r e is still emerging. Giovanni A r r i g h i offers one o f the most trenchant and astute analyses o f the waning o f U.S. hegemony T h e rising p e r i o d o f a he-

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HEGEMONY

gemonic power i n the global economic system, according to A r r i -

litical system. T h e global order that emerges n o w must take a funda-

ghi's reading o f cycles o f accumulation, is characterized by steady

mentally novel f o r m .

21

investment i n new productive processes, whereas the shift from pro-

T h e theorists and policymakers previously dedicated to U . S .

duction to finance is a symptom o f decline. T h e financialization o f

hegemony w h o are intelligent enough to recognize this shift are

the U . S . economy since the 1970s thus signals an "autumnal" phase,

n o w forced to find another paradigm o f global order and c o n -

parallel i n his v i e w to the p e r i o d o f diminishing British economic

front the threat o f global disorder. T h e i r imaginations are so limited,

hegemony almost a century earlier. T h e military failures o f the

though, that w i t h the collapse o f unilateralism to solve the problem

U n i t e d States, coordinated w i t h its retreating economic hegemony,

o f global order, they r u n quickly back to multilateralism, that is, an

are further evidence o f decline for A r r i g h i , such that the V i e t n a m

international order directed by a limited group o f dominant nation-

War, not l o n g after the decoupling o f the dollar from the gold stan-

states i n collaboration. H e n r y Kissinger declares it openly:"the w o r l d

dard and the first o i l crisis, marked its signal crisis and the occupation

resembles Europe o f the seventeenth century; it needs to become

o f Iraq its terminal crisis. A r r i g h i thus hypothesizes that the U . S . - l e d

Europe o f the nineteenth century."

cycle o f global accumulation w i l l be succeeded by a new cycle cen-

rope, before the T h i r t y Years' War, the w o r l d was chaotic. O n l y the

tered i n East Asia (with Japan seen at the h e l m i n his earlier w o r k

Peace ofWestphalia, w h i c h brought the war to an end, created a E u -

and C h i n a i n his more recent). It is a mistake, however, to read A r -

ropean order, the organizing principle o f w h i c h was religion and

righi's argument, even though some elements i n his w o r k do point

absolute sovereignty. There was thus no international order outside

in this direction, as projecting that C h i n a or any other nation-state

o f the agreements among sovereign powers and no structure that

w i l l repeat the form o f U . S . hegemony, w h i c h itself repeated the

exercised power outside o f the nation-states. B y the nineteenth cen-

British, and further back the D u t c h , the Genoese, and the Venetian.

tury, the Westphalian political w o r l d had reached its perfection, i n

Instead the new cycle o f accumulation requires a new global p o l i t i -

Kissinger's view. T h e only difference desirable today, he adds, w o u l d

cal order and a reorganization o f the geography and mode o f opera-

be the disappearance o f religion i n favor o f ideology, and thus the

tion o f w o r l d capital. C h i n a w i l l not be the new imperialist power,

renovation o f the plural concert o f sovereign states. E v e n Kissinger

i n other words, and neither w i l l there emerge a global mega-state

recognizes that the sixteenth-century European principle cuius regio,

that repeats the features o f nation-state hegemony o n a larger scale.

eius religio, w h i c h links political rule to religious authority, cannot

T h e most innovative aspect o f Arrighi's analysis, i n fact, is his pro-

today serve as the foundation o f planetary order. H e focuses not o n

posal o f an emerging "world-market society based o n greater.equal-

any clash o f civilizations but o n the multilateral concert

ity among the world's civilizations," w h i c h he articulates through a

nation-states. Francis Fukuyama, having renounced neoconservative,

creative and attentive reading o f A d a m Smith. H e views the ascent

unilateralist dreams, echoes Kissinger i n his call for a multilateral

o f C h i n a most significantly as one piece o f the general rise o f the

order based o n the collaboration o f strong states. Fukuyama and

subordinated nations as a w h o l e w i t h respect to the dominant, inau-

Kissinger both, however, imagine a multilateral arrangement o f states

gurating a fundamentally new f o r m o f accumulation not based o n

that does not rely o n international institutions for support.

the hegemony o f a single nation-state. A n important consequence o f

perhaps w h y Kissinger's imagination goes back to the

Arrighi's argument, then, is that the decline o f U.S. hegemony marks

century to describe such an order.

the end o f hegemony based o n a single nation-state—in imperialist, unilateralist, and all other forms—over the global economic and p o -

22

In seventeenth-century E u -

23

among

That is

nineteenth

T h e international system that could sustain a multilateral order has, i n fact, completely fallen apart. A l l the international and supra-

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HEGEMONY

national institutions constructed after 1945 to support the postwar

spond—on the military, economic, ideological, or legal terrain—to

order are i n crisis. W i t h the creation o f the U n i t e d Nations, to take

the contemporary challenges. In this context it is thus not even pos-

just one o f those, it was thought that an "ought," a j u r i d i c a l sollen,

sible to heed Kissinger's call for a return to Westphalia.

could be constructed internationally and imposed by a concert o f nation-states.Today, however, multilateralist moral obligation has lost

Imperial Governance

its power. This is not to say that at the foundation o f the U n i t e d N a -

For those whose political imagination is populated only by previ-

tions the effort to constitutionalize fundamental aspects o f the inter-

ously existing forms o f global order, once unilateralism has failed

national order was i n vain. Despite the injustices that it covered over

and multilateralism has been revealed as impossible, all that is left is

and its frequent manipulation by the dominant powers, the U n i t e d

disorder, a war o f all against all w i t h a k i n d o f law o f the jungle pre-

Nations did succeed at times i n imposing a m i n i m a l standard o f

vailing i n global markets. It should be clear, however, that even i n a

peace. Consider simply some o f the many disasters that the juridical

situation o f weakened unilateral and multilateral controls, globaliza-

order o f the U n i t e d Nations dealt w i t h d u r i n g the cold war: i n the

tion continues. W e need to recognize the new forms o f manage-

two great crises o f 1956, for instance, at Suez and i n Hungary, the

ment, regulation, and control that are emerging to order the global

U n i t e d Nations' realistic political orientation helped avoid m u c h

system. O n c e we adopt a new perspective, i n fact, we can begin to

more destructive w o r l d explosions.The U . N . order was not a " H o l y

see that there already exists a complex network o f global norms,

A l l i a n c e " or an imperial dictatorship but rather an international sys-

structures, and authorities, w h i c h is partial, incomplete, and i n some

tem o f law, contradictory and always open to breakdowns but solid,

respects fragile but nonetheless real and effective.

i n the end, and realistically active. Its beginnings are rooted not re-

Saskia Sassen's precise analyses o f the emerging institutional

ally i n the nineteenth century but rather i n the twentieth-century

forms o f economic and political control give us a f i r m basis for i n -

defeat o f fascism, w h i c h unleashed so many democratic aspirations.

vestigating this n e w global order. She definitively puts to rest all o f

B u t its conditions o f effectiveness have been exhausted. T h e letter

those useless debates that pit the continuing importance o f nation-

and the spirit o f the U n i t e d Nations Charter are n o w undone. In

states against the processes o f globalization as i f the two were m u t u -

short, a multilateral order, a new Westphalia capable o f orchestrating

ally exclusive. T h e emerging global order, she argues, is f o r m i n g not

international agreement and collaboration, is impossible today i n

only outside o f nation-states but also, and more important, w i t h i n

large part because the institutional order o n w h i c h it w o u l d rest—

them, initiating a process o f the "denationalization" o f certain c o m -

from the U n i t e d Nations to the Bretton Woods institutions—is no

ponents o f the nation-state that makes them increasingly oriented

longer effective.

toward global agendas and systems.The global is w i t h i n the national,

T h e failure o f unilateralism, then, cannot lead to the resurgence

i n other words, just as m u c h as the national is w i t h i n the global. Sas-

o f what seemed for a p e r i o d its primary competitor: multilateralism.

sen thus proposes reading the emergent global political and institu-

In effect the international system could not survive the U n i t e d

tional order i n terms o f assemblages i n w h i c h "the nation-state and

States' attempted coup d'etat. In defeat, Samson pulled his enemies

interstate system remain critical building blocks but they are not

d o w n w i t h h i m . B u t really the international institutions necessary to

alone, and are profoundly altered from the inside out."

support a multilateral order were already tottering before unilateral-

onstrates h o w the conditions o f global order have changed such that,

ism dealt the decisive blow. In any case, w i t h unilateralism defeated,

o n the one hand, neither the U n i t e d States nor any other pretender

multilateralism and its international structures are not able to re-

to the throne can exercise unilateral control and successfully c o n -

24

She d e m -

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duct imperialist projects, and o n the other, no multilateral interstate

These two primary genealogies o f the concept o f governance,

institutional structure can o n its o w n manage and regulate the global

the corporate and the philosophical, both help to open a new per-

system. T h e assemblages that she sees determining global order are

spective from w h i c h to analyze the contemporary situation. G l o b a l

constituted by a mixture o f supranational, national, and nonnational

governance is not a management m o d e l based o n the unity o f c o m -

institutions and authorities.

mand and legitimation, deriving from a single center o f power. It is

A w i d e variety o f authors employ "governance," i n contrast to

rather a process o f continual negotiation, an arrangement o f instru-

"government," to explore the novelty o f these authorities and as-

ments for consensual planning and coordination i n w h i c h a m u l t i -

semblages f o r m i n g w i t h i n and outside the nation-state. T h e term

plicity o f state and non-state actors w i t h vastly unequal powers w o r k

"global governance" is generally used to refer to regulatory struc-

together. A n d only the collaboration among these actors can deter-

tures that function and produce norms, often i n an ad hoc and v a r i -

mine the processes o f policymaking o n the global terrain.The global

able fashion, i n the absence o f an overarching political authority,

order today is defined by a varied set o f norms, customs, statutes, and

25

such as a hegemonic power or the international system. T h e two

laws that constitute a heterogeneous ensemble o f demands and p o w -

most significant genealogies o f the term coincide i n some respects

ers o n the global h o r i z o n .

but inflect discussions very differently. First, "governance" derives

Different scholars develop the n o t i o n o f governance to c o n -

from corporate discourse, where it highlights the structures o f au-

struct significantly different models o f global order. O n e model,

thority and the mechanisms o f management

and accountability

w h i c h derives primarily from economics and finance, focuses o n

typical o f capitalist corporations i n contrast to state structures. T h e

"market values" as the measure o f effectiveness i n governance. T h e

allusion to corporate management serves, at the m i n i m u m , as a

concrete institutional figures o f this continuous activity are those

means to conceive o f global order i n a way not limited to state ac-

that construct and manage the rules o f international economic and

tors, as a h y b r i d system containing state, corporate, and other r u l -

social relations. This m o d e l conceives o f governance as a polycentric

ing bodies.

26

Second, the n o t i o n o f governance also derives from a

and distributed mechanism o f regulation enacted by state and n o n -

philosophical discourse, i n particular the w o r k o f M i c h e l Foucault

state institutions but, since it derives primarily from the corporate

and Niklas L u h m a n n , w h o , i n very different ways, investigate the

notion, it generally understands the functions and structures o f au-

genealogy o f a new concept o f government, focusing attention o n

thority and rule only insofar as they facilitate and support c o m -

the creativity determined by the relationship between actors, regulation, and normativity i n administrative processes. L u h m a n n and Foucault both attempt to transcribe traditional concepts o f sovereignty and its power o f dictation into more flexible structures o f decision m a k i n g and more open processes o f negotiation. G o v e r nance marks, i n this context, an inversion o f the direction o f p o l i t i cal communication: a bottom-up process is substituted for a topd o w n one, and an inductive procedure replaces the deductive one, as the system's center o f gravity shifts toward greater collaboration between state and non-state actors w i t h i n the decision-making networks at multiple levels.

merce and profits.

28

A second model, w h i c h derives from the neoinstitutional l i b eral tradition, conceives governance as a machine that can construct, w i t h i n the relations o f interests and jurisdictions, post-sovereign forms o f global government. T h i s m o d e l should be understood as a departure from, but still closely related to, the realist tradition i n i n ternational relations, w h i c h focuses o n states as the primary actors, thus highlighting the ways i n w h i c h state and interstate institutions continue to function, sometimes transformed, i n the new global context. T h i s m o d e l proves useful, for example, i n the innumerable

27

fields o f confrontation and negotiation that are opened domestically

225

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HEGEM

and internationally to resolve and regulate local conflicts. N e o i n s t i -

geometry. Certainly states (some more than others) continue 0

tutional governance is not limited, though, to such activity but also

strategic sites where the connections among the diverse infrast

has recourse to preventive police forces and ad hoc tribunals, and i n

tures o f global policymaking are achieved,just as the major corp

this way creates a network o f effective mechanisms for integrating

tions and multinational firms at times offer (and impose) m i n i r

and deploying governmental structures.

29

governance standards o f redistribution and social parity, w h i c h s

A third model o f governance draws o n the neocorporative i n -

have to enact. T h e various notions o f governance thus share an

struments o f labor u n i o n institutions to manage directly collective

o f the deconstitutionalization and the governmentalization oi

interests, w h i c h cannot be treated effectively by procedures based at

positifs o f the production o f law that takes c o m m a n d away from

the individual level. Governance here is defined as a process o f the

ereignty, makes it adequate to the market, and distributes it amc

self-regulation o f exchanges among interests, driven by actors w h o

variety o f actors.

32

consent to a plural and polyarchic jurisdiction, constraining states

N o one should confuse this governance, however, with

and governmental institutions to recede from the terrain o f n o r m a -

mocracy.Yes, it is composed o f plural actors, it is relatively fle

tive production to that o f the production o f shared rules, trying to

and open, and it is formed "from below," at least w i t h respect t