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Empire Versus Multitude: Place Your Bets
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 September 2012
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- Copyright © Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 2004
References
1 Hardt, Michael and Negri, Antonio, Empire (Cambridge,: Harvard University Press, 2000Google Scholar); Emily Eakin, “What Is the Next Big Idea? The Buzz Is Growing,”New York Times, July 7, 2001, p. B7; Anatol Lieven, “The Empire Strikes Back,”Nation (July 7, 2003), pp. 25–30; and Tony Judt, “Dreams of Empire,”New York Review of Books 51, no. 17 (November 4,2004), pp. 38–41.
2 Harvey, David, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change (London,: Blackwell, 1989Google Scholar); and Jameson, Fredric, Postmodernism, Or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1992Google Scholar).
3 Rustin, Michael, “Empire: A Postmodern Theory of Revolution,” in Balakrishnan, Gopal, ed., Debating Empire (New York,: Verso, 2003), p. 5Google Scholar; henceforth, Debating Empire is abbreviated as DE. Malcolm Bull, “You Can't Build a New Society with a Stanley Knife,” in DE, p. 86, likewise points out the parallel between, on one hand, Hardt and Negri's declaration that national sovereignty is at an end, and on the other hand, neoliberal attacks on “big government.”
4 See Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin, “Gems and Baubles in Empire” in DE, p. 57; Laclau, Ernesto, “Can Immanence Explain Social Struggles,” in Passavant, Paul and Dean, Jodi, eds., Empire's New Clothes: Reading Hardt and Negri (New York: Routledge, 2003), p. 29Google Scholar; and Paul Passavant, “From Empire's Law to the Multitude's Rights: Law, Representation, Revolution,” in Passavant and Dean, eds., Empire's New Clothes, p. 114; henceforth, Empire's New Clothes is abbreviated as ENC.
5 Timothy Brennan, “The Italian Ideology,” in DE, p. 97; Stanley Aronowitz, “The New World Order,” in DE, p. 23; and Giovanni Arrighi, “Lineages of Empire,” in DE, p. 29.
6 Malcolm Bull, “You Can't Build a New Society with a Stanley Knife,” in DE, p. 84; Slavoj Zizek quoted in Eakin, “What Is the Next Big Idea?” p. B7.
7 Mark Laffey and Jutta Weldes, “Representing the International: Sovereignty after Modernity?” in ENC, p. 121; Rustin, “Empire” p. 9; and Alex Callinicos, “Toni Negri in Perspective,” in DE, p. 121.
8 Panitch and Gindin, “Gems and Baubles,” p. 52.
9 Aronowitz, “New World Order,” p. 24.
10 Ruth Buchanan and Sundhya Pahuja, “Legal Imperialism: Empire's Invisible Hand?” in ENC, p. 91; and Ellen Meiksins Wood, “A Manifesto for Global Capitalism?” in DE, p. 63.
11 Ernesto Laclau, “Can Immanence Explain Social Struggles?” in ENC, p. 25; and Peter Fitzpatrick, “The Immanence of Empire” in ENC, p. 37.
12 Charles Tilly, “A Nebulous Empire,” in DE, p. 26.
13 Kevin C. Dunn, “Africa's Ambiguous Relation to Empire and Empire” in ENC, p. 143; Brennan, “Italian Ideology,” p. 97; William Chaloupka, “The Irrepressible Lightness and Joy of Being Green: Empire and Environ-mentalism,” in ENC; Lee Quinby, “Taking the Millenni-alist Pulse of Empire's Multitude: A Genealogical Feminist Diagnosis,” in ENC; and Aronowitz, “New World Order,” p. 24.
14 Laffey and Weldes, “Representing the International,” p. 129; Dunn, “Africa's Ambiguous Relation,” p. 155.
15 See esp. the essays by Laffey and Weldes, Fitzpatrick, Meiksins Wood, and Buchanan and Pahuja in ENC.
16 Wood, “A Manifesto for Global Capitalism?” p. 81.
17 Tom Merles, “Grass-Roots Globalism,” in DE, p. 146.
18 Dunn, “Africa's Ambiguous Relation,” pp. 146,148.
19 Laffey and Weldes, “Representing the International,” p.122.
20 See Paul Passavant, “From Empire's Law to the Multitude's Rights: Law, Representation, Revolution,” in ENC.
21 Buchanan and Pahuja, “Legal Imperialism: Empire's Invisible Hand?” p. 85.
22 Fitzpatrick, “Immanence of Empire,” p. 39.
23 Brennan, “Italian Ideology,” p. 101.
24 Sanjay Seth, “Back to the Future?” in DE, p. 47.
25 E.g., Arrighi provides “Asian” capitalism and Bill Maurer offers “Islamic banking” practices as examples of hybrid forms. Arrighi, “Lineages of Empire,” p. 40; and Bill Maurer, “On Divine Markets and the Problem of Justice: Empire as Theodicy,” in ENC, pp. 63–65.
26 Tilly, “A Nebulous Empire,” p. 27.
27 At least G. W. F. Hegel justified his audacious claims about totality with the equally bold assertion that history was over and, Minerva's owl of wisdom flying at dusk, we could know it from the outside. In spite of Hardt and Negri's explicit renunciation of dialectical thought Seth, e.g., has concluded that the authors operate fully within that paradigm, and when one considers the way Empire and the multitude are both cut from the same cloth and opposed in world-historical conflict, the judgment is compelling. Seth, “Back to the Future?” PP- 45–46.
28 Bull, “You Can't Build a Society with a Stanley Knife,” p. 86; Callinicos, “Toni Negri in Perspective,” p. 131; and Maurer, “On Divine Markets and the Problem of Justice: Empire as Theodicy.”
29 Brennan, “Italian Ideology,” p. 97.
30 See esp. the essays by Panitch and Gindin, Bull, and Callinicos.
31 See what Hardt and Negri say, however, about the need for the multitude to formulate new “weapons” in the struggle against empire. Hardt, and Negri, , Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire (New York: Penguin, 2004), pp. 341–47Google Scholar.
32 Hardt and Negri, Multitude, pp. xiii, 220,222–27,255, 268–306; on sovereignty, see pp. 101,238–43,328–36; on representation, see pp. 238,270–73.
33 In his essay “Kairòs, Alma Venus, Multitude” (2000), published in Time for Revolution, trans. Matteo Man-darini (New York: Continuum, 2003), Negri goes into great depth about kairòs, the moment in the present that opens to the future, a moment of action in which new possibilities emerge. Action relates to language, thought, and truth, and these in turn touch on the common, on what is shared and constitutive, on the revolt against that which curbs, reduces, or obliterates life. There is an existential, even erotic component, facing the choice and “decision” every moment to cultivate the common and facilitate life's multiplication and diversification: the multitude. See also Hardt and Negri, Multitude, p. 357. Also published in Time for Revolution is the lamentably arduous “The Constitution of Time” (1981), which I quickly decided was not worth my time.
34 Hardt and Negri, Multitude, pp. 99,100,103,301–302, 308–309,330,339–40.
35 Fitzpatrick, “Immanence of Empire,” p. 36; and Passavant, “From Empire's Law to the Multitude's Rights,” p. 101.
36 Aronowitz, “New World Order,” p. 24; and Panitch and Gindin, “Gems and Baubles,” p. 56.