Movement for a Socialist Future

Why has the book Empire* created widespread interest as well as controversy? Many have welcomed a new attempt to critique capitalism and promote discussion about alternatives to capitalism. This is not to suggest that Empire is above criticism, but it should not be dogmatically written off. Empire is more than an apologia for post-modernism, even if it shares post-modern themes. By Phil Sharpe

What is Empire? How does this conception differ from the traditional view of capitalism as imperialism? The authors have a vision of capitalism as becoming deterritorialised, and truly universal. Globalisation has replaced the nation state as the central economic and political unit of capital accumulation. Negri and Hardt argue that this process should be critically welcomed. Indeed, the working class has acted to bring it about, and it improves the possibility of transcending capitalism.

This point is elaborated by the authors in historical terms. Capitalism has traditionally, politically, ideologically and philosophically upheld a conception of the nation state as an entity that constrains the power of the multitude (working class and other oppressed strata). Hence capital has the task of transforming the multitude into a people, or a homogenous national entity that will support the expansion of capital as imperialism.

Capital accumulation, as Marx, Hilferding, Lenin and Luxemburg showed, was based upon imperialism and the necessity to obtain an outside realm of sources of raw materials, markets, and labour power. These outside areas became incorporated into the logic of capital. To Lenin, imperialism was a system of contradiction and crisis, and so the only alternative was proletarian revolution. This meant capitalism would not evolve into ultra-imperialism and international economic co-operation.

Lenin’s standpoint anticipated that class struggle could not lead to the historical continuation of imperialism, and world revolution was the most likely occurrence. But the actual result, argue the authors, has been Empire that expresses the subjectivity of the multitude in struggle, a struggle which has established a new terrain for world revolution. (p235)

The period after the Second World War was one of transition to Empire. From the point of view of capital, imperialism became increasingly liable to crisis and started to impede the needs of capital accumulation. The domination of USA imperialism after WW2, and the increasing role of the transnational corporations (TNCs) challenged traditional colonial style imperialism. The hegemony of USA imperialism was based upon a new model of decolonisation, the decentering of production, and a disciplinary system of the new deal/welfare state. (pp240-249)

This situation represented a tendency towards an increasingly integrated world production and world market, and an enhanced subjectivity of the multitude caused by national liberation struggles, peasants becoming workers, and new opportunities for mobility and the development of the working class as an international class. (pp249-254)

As a result, there was an increasing “virtual unity”, although not a conscious political unity, against the disciplinary regime of capital, and this culminated in the anti-imperialist victory of Vietnam against USA imperialism. (p262) The only way that capital could ensure its hegemony over labour/multitude was by a massive structural transformation. (p268)

But Empire is not a total victory for labour, because the power of capital remains and creates new conditions to exploit labour. However, the previous relations of outside/inside have been transformed. Instead of the rigid outside/other of capitalism as imperialism, and the domination of non-capitalist areas, there is now one global and universal world economy. (pp186-190) There is no longer any individual, rigid and centralised power structure, but instead power is diverse and diffuse and present throughout Empire. A fluid unitary power based upon “no-space” has replaced the geographical tensions of inter-imperialist conflict. (p9)

In contrast to Empire, imperialism had serious “ecological limitations”, it is suggested. The territorial struggle for geographically defined markets led to acute crisis, slump, and inter-imperialist war, and primarily the problem was that the working class and anti-imperialist struggle was in rebellion against the disciplinary regime. (pp269-272) This meant that the social wage/necessary labour time was increasing and surplus labour time was decreasing, so the rate of profit was falling. Therefore capital had to adapt to the new subjectivity and dynamism of the working class, or its authority would be seriously challenged. (p276)

Capital was also aware that the USSR had collapsed because the bureaucracy had not adapted to the new creativity and subjectivity of the working class. (pp273-279) Primarily change was necessary because capital’s logic was in contradiction with its own subjectivity, a situation which had arisen from its own ontological limits as a geographically limited and rigid structure. Thus imperialism represented serious limits on the development of capital, and so if capital was to develop it had to go beyond these limits. (pp332-333)

In the Gulf war the formation of Empire was ideologically expressed by the concept of just war, ethical imperatives, and the role of international organisations like the UN. But primarily what comes to the fore are the requirements of globalisation rather than the resurgence of imperialism, the book argues. (p20)

The objective material basis of Empire is the role of the TNC’s. They have not replaced the traditional imperialist role of the old style colonial powers, but instead represent the basis of a new global system that continually redefines the internal and external relations between the different parts of Empire. (pp31-40) The autonomy of the political, such as the power of the independent nation state is challenged by the TNC, but this power is often mediated by new international organisations like the UN and G7, though the TNC remains structurally hegemonic in Empire. (p310)

Primarily we have to consider these structures of global power in terms of the facilitation and reassertion of control of labour/multitude in the interests of capital and its reproduction. (p318) This task requires not a rigid assertion of spatial and geographical power, but instead a modification and displacement of the subjectivity of the multitude/labour in the interests of capital. (pp318-319) There is a potentially important contradiction between the requirement of political passivity and the necessity to allow for the dynamism and creativity of the subjectivity of labour. (pp319-321)

So the domination of capital is deterritorialised, immanent, and in flux, and is not transcendent, external, and rigid. Formerly peripheral areas are transformed into integral parts of a single economic and cultural system in terms of the totalising logic of capital. In precise economic terms capital is quantitative in its reduction of everything to the cash nexus, and it is immanent and internal in terms of the operation of economic laws such as the extraction of surplus value. (pp326)

The limits of the nation state therefore represented an externality that contradicted the dynamic immanence of the development of capital, and capital has striven to overcome these limits. This is why the external institutions of the disciplinary/civil/nation state have declined and have been replaced by the internal discipline of subjectivity of the subjects, or the society of control, Empire argues.

The rigid identities of family, factory, etc., of disciplinary society have increasingly contradicted the logic of capital, and so the more fluid, immanent, diverse, mobile, flexible, hybrid identity of the multitude is a subjectivity that can be utilised by capital. (pp321-332)

However, the basis for opposing Empire is not to nostalgically revive the politics of the nation state. Even in the period of imperialism the Social Democratic and Stalinist adaptation to the nation state was an adaptation to the requirements of capitalism. (pp111-114) Also national liberation became a contradiction in terms, in that it did express progressive opposition to imperialism, but it also resulted in incorporation within the logic of the global world economy of capitalism. (pp132-134) Primarily, anti-imperialist politics of the nation state have become anachronistic because the nation is in structurally irreversible decline and is historically reactionary. (p336)

It would be an over-generalisation to consider that Negri and Hardt are arguing that Empire is a straightforward victory for the multitude. The new dynamism of the multitude has made imperialism untenable, but as a definitive victory over capital did not occur, the result was Empire. (p43) The result is contradictory. The outcome is that Empire has universalised and increased the domination of capital and exploitation has intensified. (p43) Nevertheless, to the authors Empire is still an expression of historical progress, just as capitalism was an advance upon pre-capitalist modes of production because the material and subjective basis for human liberation has been advanced. (p43)

So it is anachronistic, nationalist, and localist to advocate traditional strategies that call for the defence of the nation state against globalisation. It is an idealist illusion to defend the “purity” and naturalist view of the local as diversity and difference in contrast to the homogeneity of globalisation. For the local is a specific adaptation in its heterogeneity to the homogenous and global requirements of capital. The real opponent is not globalisation, but rather the global relations of Empire. (p46)

It is odd that Negri and Hardt deny the character of their philosophical standpoint as an expression of a dialectic of struggle between capital and labour. What is more theoretically significant is that their conception does seem to presuppose a given end to history. Nevertheless Empire has outlined the objective historical significance of the class struggle in a manner that is more cogent and powerful than many orthodox Marxist analyses. This possibly explains its popularity.

The analysis of Empire is the basis for the authors’ conception of strategy. They argue that the traditional working class has changed from the industrial working class to the more general and diffuse characterisation of the multitude. But the multitude is still exploited and dominated by capital. At present struggles often seem to lack international dimensions, and appear as a local, national and anachronistic echo of previous times. But this is a misleading appearance because these new struggles are an expression of the context of Empire, and so all struggles have the potential to be subversive and challenge the power of Empire from any geographical location. (p58)

On this view, the old strategy of opposing capital as imperialism at the weakest link is outmoded. The struggle against Empire has not yet produced concrete models of an effective alternative, which would be comparable to the Paris Commune. (p206) But it is still necessary to learn from existing struggles. One lesson that is already apparent is that although Empire can be resisted locally, this is not as effective as developing an alternative and oppositional global strategy.

A visual history of the different governments of France from 1831 to 1871 with each new leader preceded and followed by a revolution, ending in the Paris Commune

Previous struggles of the working class were about opposing capitalist exploitation from the inside in relation to the antagonism concerning the production of exchange value. The aim was to modify the process of capital accumulation in favour of the working class and realise a non-capitalist outside with the capacity to produce and obtain use-values. But now the relations of exploitation and domination are “total” and lack an exact determination, and labour is without a rigid place and is increasingly mobile, flexible, intellectual and communicative.

The universality and non-place of labour, and the creativity of the multitude, shows the potential for international class struggle, but the strategic problem concerns what is the most effective focus of struggle in a system that is increasingly complex and indeterminate in relation to the hierarchies of exploitation and oppression. With the changing forms of exploitation and domination, we have to redefine what being against means.

In this context Empire suggests that mobility is not just a movement of labour, but is rather a nomadism that represents resistance against oppression and the search for liberation. Mobility and nomadism represent the universal productive creativity of the multitude, but the problem of spontaneity means that it is not sufficient in itself to overcome poverty and global exploitation. Exodus and nomadism did lead to the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and brought down Stalinism, but this process could not replace the structures of Empire, and it is still necessary to develop a conscious alternative.

So Negri and Hardt seem to have a perceptive understanding of the potentialities and problems of developing a strategy for overcoming Empire. This is a true observation in regards to how they conceive of the material and political problems of developing opposition to Empire. They are not justifying an uncritical adaptation to spontaneity in relation to an understanding of some of the concrete problems of developing an alternative to Empire, and their reference to the Paris Commune shows they are aware the multitude has not yet constructed or even aspired to the development of oppositional structures that could topple Empire.

Nevertheless there is also an apparent indifference to the importance of strategy and tactics in relation to an important problem in their understanding of Empire. This is connected to the idealist view that Empire represents a primary lack, or has no real grounding, because it is parasitic on the dynamism of the multitude. On this view strategy and tactics represent an uncomplicated unity as the realisation of the primacy of the creativity of the multitude.

It is one thing to suggest that the creativity of the multitude is the primary basis of Empire, and to show that the wealth and power of Empire is a displaced expression of this dynamic role of the multitude. But it is another thing to reduce exploitation, wealth and power to an essentially ephemeral expression of the role of the multitude and therefore lacking in their own significance. This idealist standpoint that denies the materiality and importance of alienating power structures becomes aligned to the view that history is moving inevitably in favour of the multitude.

In these almost mystical terms the question of the significance of strategy and tactics becomes an unreflective and mechanical representation of the imperatives of history. The strategic conclusion to be drawn from this is that history is moving in the direction of the omnipotent power of the multitude. From this historical perspective, the importance of developing oppositional strategy and tactics becomes minimised, and instead they become derivative of the inherently favourable processes of history.

The authors maintain that the fluidity and dynamism of the multitude within Empire is beyond quantitative measure. Measure, they say, is shown to be a metaphysical abstraction because the question of what value is will be defined by humanity’s creativity and not by the rigidities of capital’s logic. (pp353-356) But this logical contradiction cannot be sustained because it represents an absurdity of indecision about whether labour has a quantifiable quality as measure and value, or whether it goes beyond value because of the dynamism of subjectivity.

But this has a theoretical purpose in that it upholds their view that labour is almost autonomous from its relation to capital because of its dynamic and creative subjective capacity. This standpoint creates absurdities because to accept that labour still produces commodities is to accept that labour has an abstract and value-creating character owing to the alienating control of labour power by capital. Negri and Hardt cannot accept such a resolution of their theoretical problems because it would mean an acknowledgement of the real, material and concrete power of capital. It would show that Empire has a substance that is not idealistically reducible to the subjective power of the multitude.

The idealism of Negri and Hardt in their view that the multitude constitutes and redefines time is tantamount to suggesting that the workers already have control of production when it is obvious that production still retains its abstract, value, measurable, and alienating quality. This naive strategic conclusion is not surprising in that it relates to the view that Empire is unreal and nothing more than the negative parasitic effect of the power of the multitude. Hence what is primarily problematic is not their formal rejection of the law of value, but rather that this rejection is based upon an untenable and idealist standpoint that effectively denies the material actuality and importance of the alienating power of capital over labour. They say: "When imperial government intervenes, it selects the liberatory impulses of the multitude in order to destroy them, and in return is driven forward by resistance. ….the effectiveness of Empire’s regulatory and repressive procedures must finally be traced back to the virtual, constitutive action of the multitude. Empire itself is not a positive reality….. Imperial power is the negative residue, the fallback of the operation of the multitude; it is a parasite that draws its vitality from the multitude’s capacity to create ever new sources of energy and value. A parasite that saps the strength of its host, however, can endanger its own existence." (p361)

This standpoint is formally politically radical, but is essentially a justification of a schema that glosses over and denies the importance of the state power of capital. To theoretically deny the actuality of the economic and political power of capital may seem reassuring, but it is actually an absurdity to maintain that only the repressed subjectivity of the multitude keeps Empire in control. If this were true then why haven’t the multitude been able to act sooner to overthrow Empire?

In other words, Negri and Hardt seem to suggest that the only real strategic problem is the self-repression, lack of confidence and initiative within the multitude, and if this problem is resolved then the question of political power is a historical certainty. But this idealist strategic conception skates over the actuality – not ephemeral shadow of the multitude – of the alienating power and importance of the bourgeois state and ideology. For if Empire really was nothing more than the displaced subjectivity of the multitude then it would surely be strategically less difficult and inexorable that revolutionary change would occur, and smoothly overcome the resistance of the bourgeois state.

Consequently the subjective rejection of the importance of Marx’s theory of value, together with a denial of the alienating economic and political qualities of Empire, is connected to a conception that advocates a rigid identity between the real, actual, and possible. This means that history is conceived as the realisation of an inherent end.

It is admirable that Negri and Hardt want to emphatically reject the bourgeois ideological reduction of the possible to the real and actual, and instead locate the real as expressing the possibility of an alternative to Empire. It is also admirable that they want to show that migrants and refugees constitute not an object of liberal sympathy but rather express revolutionary possibilities. But what is problematic about these sentiments is that they are connected to an idealist view that denies the open-ended character of history and instead can only consider one possible outcome: the triumph of the multitude.

So the hollow optimism of the bourgeoisie is being opposed with another type of shallow optimism that ideologically contrasts one predetermined outcome to history with a predetermined alternative. Consequently, the materialist aspects of Negri and Hardt’s historical construction of Empire come into contradiction with their idealist accommodation to a predetermined philosophy of history.

Consequently, this becomes the basis for justifying a spontaneous conception of revolutionary struggle without the necessity of developing a conscious political organisation and strategy, and so strategy is primarily a question of realising spontaneous possibilities. For example, the mobility and hybridity of the multitude is connected to the demand for global citizenship. There is no tactical problem with this demand, but the theoretical and practical problem concerns the emphasis upon spontaneity which suggests that the internationalisation and mobility of the working class has an inexorable logic towards overcoming Empire.

The unity of the logical and historical is represented as a unity of the social, economic and political, and so there is no problem of mediation and relation. Instead, this uncomplicated unity is represented by the demand for reappropriation of the economy by the producers: “Just because these productive machines have been integrated into the multitude does not mean that the multitude has control over them. Rather, it makes more vicious and injurious their alienation. The right to reappropriation is really the multitude’s right to self-control and autonomous self-production.” (p407) Negri and Hardt are actually rigidly equating the real with the actual, in that the being of the multitude seems to inherently suppose a different historical future: "The new range of possibilities in no way guarantees what is to come. And yet, despite such reservations, there is something real that foreshadows the coming future: the telos that we can feel pulsing, the multitude that we construct within desire." (p406)

Indeed the multitude has already essentially constructed a new mode of production within the shell of capitalism: "The mode of production of the multitude is posed against exploitation in the name of labour, against property in the name of co-operation, and against corruption in the name of freedom. It self-valorises bodies in labour, reappropriates productive intelligence through co-operation and transforms existence in freedom. The history of class composition and the history of labour militancy demonstrate the matrix of these ever new and yet determinate reconfigurations of self-valorisation, co-operation, and political self-organisation as an effective social project." (pp408-409)

Thus in a certain sense the dynamism and subjectivity of the multitude means that we are already in a state of freedom and well-being in terms of the capacity of the multitude to transcend the rigid and alienating limits of value, measure, and the requirements of capital. It is one thing to show the historical possibilities for the emergence of alternatives within capitalism, such as the subjective energy and capacity of the multitude. But it is another thing to suggest that these possibilities are effectively being realised within the limits of the domination of capital.

Negri and Hardt are emphatic about the ability of labour to overcome the problem of alienation within capitalism, and so it seems that the producers can establish non-alienating and non-exploitative conditions without the necessity for revolutionary change. They seem to be suggesting that change can be accomplished without class struggle, because what is revolutionary is being accomplished by the subjectivity of the multitude within capitalism.

Thus demands like control by the producers, global citizenship, and a social wage, could be conceived as reformist demands that do not require revolutionary struggle for their realisation. This is the strategic ambiguity of these demands, and it is an ambiguity that represents the idealist flaws of Empire.

*Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt: EMPIRE
Harvard University Press: 2000, £13.99