Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s excerpted work in Lemert’s Social Theory, The Multitude Against the Empire, attempts to introduce a new locution into the canon of post-Marxist terminology. The concept, termed Empire, along with the eponymous book written by the authors has been seen by some critics as their effort to create a modern-day Communist Manifesto and the work suffers as a result. However, the idea of Empire and the ability of capitalism to cross borders with impunity are both interesting and valid in how they relate to looking at globalization and transnational capitalist entities. Empire as defined by Hardt and Negri is a consequence of how globalization has weakened and reduced nation-states. The sovereign power of individual nation-states is lessened by the fluidity of the modern means of production and profit—capital, workers, technology, and goods. The porousness of national boundaries has weakened the specific sovereignty of nation-states, but it has not weakened the idea of sovereignty as a whole. Instead the crux of sovereignty has shifted to a ‘series of national and supranational organisms united under a single logic of rule.’ Global sovereignty is the result of the slow removal of any geographic or topographic barriers to profit and production. The authors note that Empire is not imperialism because imperialism requires boundaries and expansion of those boundaries, along with rule stretching from a center of power. Empire differs from colonialism and imperialism because it is both ‘decentered’ and ‘deterritorializing.’ Hardt and Negri employ a metaphor wherein the map of imperialism is a checkerboard of European flag colors with land parceled out to specific colonial powers. Meanwhile the map of Empire is a muddled blend of all the imperial colors. In addition to being divorced from spatiotemporal restrictions, Empire is also ahistorical. Empire does not present itself as a transitionary phase between late capitalism and some other future economic system. Empire conveys itself not an imperial power born from conquest but as a concept that occupies history. Empire is ever-present and everlasting and seeks to position itself such that a Marxian revolution in a single nation-state would not be able to disrupt its global reach.
April Fools
Long Live the Proletariat
Written by Michael Loukeris
– THE CLOVE –
The Clove 