EMPIRE by michael hardt and antonio negri

but this is me already bending this book to fit my own esthetic-politix, so give yr salt a sharp pinch as u read

Pinefox, why?

extremely cheap, but largely RUBBISH books. In fact I can't think of one (just now off the top of my head) Collins book I wanted to read in ages. I picked up the Michael Bracewell thing on the 90s. but meh. might read Ween's Marx thing -- but it's hyowg.

But now the Gramscian notion of "hedgemony" is turned against his squarely leninist aim of the seizure of ideological and political power and into hand-wringing in fear of "hierarchy" by the autonomists, and the savvier workers in the syndicatish COBAS federation thus leaving Italy circa 2003 needing W. Z. Foster circa 1920.

But back the the point, there's a syncretic adoption of autonomism and globalism in Empire which never actually resolves the concepts of centralization and hedgemony and fixes them in definite relations (both positive and negative) and leaves it open either to "Mass Strike" (early Luxemburg) type s-s-storming of the barricades or "Ultra-Imperialism" (Late Kautsky) type panglossianism (a globalized world can't fight against itself anymore) or more often simply suspendid mid-action between alternatives.

I don't know of this is more clear or less.

also wasn't late kautsky talking abt a kind of necessary truce of super-extended imperialisms plural (eg exactly what DIDN'T happen back then) => isn't h&n's idea that *as* the whole of the world disappears into america, america disappears as the whole of the world emerges within america?

i've got a bettah grip on one of the BAD reasons i like it: it dispenses in fine nietszchean sweep w.the tiresome imposed conformist moralisms of soc-dem civil society, which feels like a relief esp.when it's super-generalised extensions of same which used to justify imperialism blah blah (except of course a shared idea of CivSoc = part of the positive-constitutive thingie...)

Anyone have any thoughts how they reconcile or don't with the CivSoc notions of bourdeiu?

It's okay Josh I know *you* try. I'm more commenting on my lack of knowledge and pathetic attempts to stay abreast rather than any specific cases of obscurantism and obsfucation.

Gramsci -- The Modern Prince (to be read by way of Trotsky's "The Lessons Of October")

Lenin -- Imperialism (to be read by way of the a subscription to The Economist)

Luxemburg -- The Mass Strike (to be read by way of Lenin's "State and Revolution).

First speaks to the question of power, second to the question of the nation, and third to the question of autonomy. H&N claim to be "Communists" so they might as well confront the foax who already were.

It was great fun.

hey and look I thought the same thing last month. at least I'm consistent.

"it rescues-redeems the ideas of the NoPoMo sect as regards the perspective of the YoPoMo sect,
AND VICE VERSA) "

and then

"a clear idea is a little idea"

these threads always make me curious-how much have you all actually read in terms of theory,etc?
i mean,have you all immersed yourself in it for years and read numerous lengthy tracts by the various people being discussed,that explain what nopomo and the like are?

this book is a doozy. not at all dull though, i didn't think. is josh still here? probably not :(

i think i finally understand (and maybe even like!) the term deterritorialisation. h&n argue pretty well that the nation-state as once was 'supreme and sovereign' went through a changing hinge when kelsen's baby ws born (the u.n.; haha i liked this bit in the book it felt like they wr poking fun at his self-fulfilled grundnorm theory) - because sovereignty annexed to that could not be understood as operating on a purely territorial basis (the u.n. as such didn't have a territory or a bounds) - it's how they get from u.n. to Empire tht is tricky and fascinating and i don't really understand it.

the u.n.'s inadequacies were as much propulsion as its adequacies - wtf?!

yeh not anti-american in the usual dickhead way! great! obv ppl have argued long that we can understand the current world in terms of america being *the* imperialist force! which h&n show as wrong by saying that each nation-state is not even sovereign WITHIN its OWN boundaries.

still digesting this; but it reads like fun! 'fun'!

yeah wtf is up w. the biopolitix section - tht does need a re-reading.

haha koritfw

b. de sousa santos, 'towards a new legal common sense' 2nd edn. (the edn. is very important cs it's almost a NEW book entire);

k. marx, 'the german ideology' (extracts of this essay) & 'on the jewish question' (part 1)

s. marx, 'empire's law' (an essay on westlaw i think; which is from the winter 2003 edn. of the indiana journal of global legal theory)

m. weber, obv!, 'economy & society' (esp. the stuff on bureaucracy)

habermas, 'the theory of communicative action' (the stuff on lifeworld and system)

foucault's 'governmentality' essay.

n. luhmann, 'law as a social system' (mmm systems theory mmm)

h&n, 'empire' !!!

some stuff on risk society: u. beck, 'risk society'.

this *is* quite a stuff list bt i like most of it. i might be in trouble w. mark s now fr recommending this stuff ha

apologies fr being presumptuous; you might have obviously read half this stuff already.

(throw in this too, just to bait the pinefox: slavoj zizek 'what can lenin tell us about freedom?' i thk this is already up on the web, googlable.)

what did you make of the race section mark s? (it's in the section: pp. 183-204)

i still like this book a lot.

http://www.zaratustra.it/empire.htm

or, download:

http://www.angelfire.com/cantina/negri/

I'm still reading: I want to say one or two things so far but I won't till I finish.

but sure, it's a bit intemperately broad if you like. it's continental shit!

<3 analytic shit more and more imo.

less creepily crypto-hegelian-stalinist.

Late to post, but here's my review of Multitude:

http://www.citypages.com/2004-10-27/books/the-empire-strikes-back/

the reality of the soviet experience didn't have much if anything to do with the "international workers' movement" of course but i'm sure it was perceived as something like that by a lot of governments at the time.

Been thinking of picking this up again, given events in the Middle East.

Anyone read the two sequels?

there was a second sequel?

dollar dollar bills yall

hope i dont have to read the first two to know what's going on

anyone read the FOURTH book? it's called ASSEMBLY and i bought it today. after i'm gonna reread empire and see what's what

also im gonna read it on the train with like a really serious face and sometimes i'll nod appreciatively and others i'll just chuckle to myself

Antonio Negri (1933-2023) pic.twitter.com/iOaa3zDSpy

— Daniel Zamora Vargas (@DanielZamoraV) December 16, 2023

blimey i was excited by this book -- y tho?

i would have to re-read it to recapture that i think

empire, i mean -- i never read any of the sequels (chapterhouse of empire, god emperor of empire)

still a solid and important book imo, 9/10ths of the critiques are from running dogs

Negri and Hardt wrote a followup essay in NLR in 2019 that’s well worth reading and quite jargon free

https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii120/articles/empire-twenty-years-on

that's a nice read, thanks for sharing

Yup. Thanks, that's some read.

Thinking how much of the piece I can map to the odd twitter thread over the years.

When I read Empire I struggled quite a bit. But I wonder if I would sail through it now because I've basically read a lot of Marxist discourse via tweets.