December 23, 2023

"Empire creates a greater potential for revolution than did the modern regimes of power..."

"... because it presents us, alongside the machine of command, with an alternative: the set of all the exploited and the subjugated, a multitude that is directly opposed to Empire, with no mediation between them."

Wrote Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt, quoted in "Antonio Negri, Philosopher Who Wrote a Surprise Best Seller, Dies at 90/He became famous twice: first in 1979, for his imprisonment related to the murder of a former Italian premier, and then 20 years later, for his influential book 'Empire'" (NYT).

“Empire” appeared at the perfect moment, when people were trying to make sense of the worldwide upsurge in protests against central banks, the World Trade Organization and the Group of 8. For a time, any self-respecting graduate student in the humanities had a dog-eared copy on the shelf alongside books like “Das Kapital” and “The Judith Butler Reader.”...

30 comments:

n.n said...

Appreciating the democratic/dictatorial duality in a transnational frame of reference.

narciso said...

Empires except perhaps Xi's are a thing of the past, if you mean our Delian arrangement, that includes NATO and the EU, thats something different,

Readering said...

I remember visiting Italy in 1982 and being surprised at how heavily armed the police were. Looks like this guy was a reason.

hombre said...

'...alongside books like “Das Kapital” and “The Judith Butler Reader.”'

And there you have it! Required reading for "any self-respecting graduate student".

robother said...

The alternative to the machine of command is...the set of exploited and subjugated? How in any sense are those alternatives? Does anyone really imagine that there is no "machine of command" in Hamas, or the VietCong or the Khmer Rouge or the Bolsheviks? God, Arendt was righter than she knew, about the sheer banality of the totalitarian mind. Humanities majors threw out Locke for... Elmer Fudd.

narciso said...

so negri wrote a primer for toppling liberal regimes like gramsci, he was a touch stone of the occupy/antifa/blm movements, of course the Times would celebrate this arsonists,

Quaestor said...

For a time, any self-respecting graduate student in the humanities had a dog-eared copy on the shelf alongside books like “Das Kapital” and “The Judith Butler Reader.”

A span of seconds one assumes. Who wrote this codswallop?

Mr. T. said...

Still waiting for Michael Hardt to apologize for pushing the defamatory conspiracy thepry he signed on to as a member of the Group of 88, that three lacrosse players raped Crystal Mangum- a convincted murderess, child-endangerer, and meth pushing stripper and harlot.

The fact that even after such a purposeful miscarriage of justice as pursued by the Duke faculty by means of academic fraud, someone like Hardt is considered to still have any claim to legitimacy, demonstrates all that is wrong with our broken, corrupt education system.

mezzrow said...

Red diaper babies celebrate each other's births as well as their deaths. He was early to the party in recognizing that the oppressed could do no wrong, even in murder. The Italian government wasn't having it.

He would do better today. It's more his era. Still, we're told that Italy is currently ruled by fascists, aren't we? This guy is trading notes with Gramsci now. He's looking for real estate with an app that combines Dante with Zillow.

gilbar said...

i am blissfully ignorant of whoever this was..
You know who DID write interesting stuff? Thomas Sowell;
of course the volk at the NYT wouldn't want to read HIS stuff; you know? because he wasn't the right type

narciso said...

well he was the godfather to terrorism, against the West, his only quibble about Al Queda was the end goal not the means,

Michael K said...

Nice to know what NYT staffers are reading.

Jupiter said...

That makes a lot of sense. Unless you try to think about it.

William said...

The Times obit mentions that he served a couple of jail terms. It doesn't go into any detail about the substance of his crimes. The obit leaves the impression that he was unjustly jailed for his anti-fascist activities. The obit states that he "neither condemned nor condoned" the crimes of the radical left. Silence is consent only in certain contexts....I guess Negri's luckiest break was that his revolution never happened. He's the kind of decadent artifact that can only prosper in a capitalist society.....I read Trotsky's autobiography. He was a great intellectual. He wrote reams about the true and proper path that The Revolution and Communism should take. Trotsky's great tragedy was that his revolution was successful (and in a large part because of his efforts). Trotsky got a pickax to the skull and his children died in the gulag. If The Revolution had failed, he would undoubtedly have gained tenure at some university and written even more books about the true and proper path that The Revolution should take.

narciso said...

http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=9048

narciso said...

yes trotsky's main quibble was about world revolution versus focusing on one country,

one wonders if kornilov had been succesful, back in July 1917, how the world might have turned out, well probably 100 million lives would have been spared,

rcocean said...

If you read between the lines, he was your typical Leftwing terrorist who was involved in the "Red Brigades" and the murder of several people in the 70s. We get the usual "Gosh, he was really innocent" when in fact he wasn't.

The Frogs let him stay in France as a free man (just like Polanski and Eisenhorn, aka the guy who murdered a girl and stuffed her corpse into a suitcase in his closet).

It reminds me of the Weather Underground terrorists in the USA during the 60s and 70s who somehow ended up as College professors and lawyers, having done little or no jail time for their murders and robberies.

It's always good to have the Rich and Powerful looking after you. This guy lived in Israel as a young man, and was a Spinoza Scholar, so that probably helped too.

Josephbleau said...

I was always curious why the Marxist elements in Italy, of which there are many, did not focus on killing all the capitalistic Cosa Nostra mobsters instead of starting with the supporters of capitalist democratic government. Professional courtesy or funding I suppose.

narciso said...

they as now thought they were fighting the Fascists, which were a minor faction in the political landscape, the core of the Brigatte Curcio and co, thought direct action was really a way to the Revolution, Lenin knew from the experience of the Social Revolutionaries and before that the people's voice, that was only a part of the story,

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

That title quote is so profound, I’m booking the next OceanGate expedition.

chuck said...

The Left's love of war and violence is practically diagnostic. Comfort and prosperity are seldom, if ever, found among their goals.

Narr said...

I spent many years as a graduate student, and didn't need Marx, Butler, Negri, Gramsci, Chomsky or Andre Gunder Frank to 'splain reality for me.

Sean McMeekin's "The Russian Revolution" is as good as his "Stalin's War." He makes clear just how contingent the success of Bolshevik coup was, and how dependent Red victory was on literal German gold that paid their militias; the new Red Army was likewise victorious in the Civil War because the lootable gold of Russia was sent through Swedish and German banks to buy modern weapons and equipment--including from the Brits.

Lenin and Trotsky were the first to realize that the warring empires had provided arms and techniques that merely (as it were) had to be turned against their exploiters in order to achieve the Revolution.

And as it happened the Russian Civil War was FAR more damaging and destructive to Russians and former subject peoples than the German-Russian War had been. It's not even close.

chuck said...

The Left's love of war and violence is practically diagnostic. Comfort and prosperity are seldom, if ever, found among their goals.

narciso said...

yes mcmeekin puts kornilov among other elements in their proper perspective,

rcocean said...

The New York Times and the MSM Never miss a chance to whitewash a communist. I don't know what the obit headline for Stalin was, but let me guess:

"Renowned Soviet leader, known of War leadership and Industrialization of Russia, dies at 74"

Or

"Lenin, Political thinker and Leader, dead at 54".

Josephbleau said...

I hate to say it, and I am sure he was a great man, but Kornilov is the funniest Russian name I have heard. It's gold, Jerry, gold. It is the Russian translation of Kornholio.

Sorry in advance for the adolescent behavior.

narciso said...


Context

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/10/27/lec2-o27.html

narciso said...

Their grubbing for koba was even worse

Dr Weevil said...

Josephbleau (5:35pm):
Kornilov may be the funniest Russian name to those who know Russian, but most English-speakers would find Slutsky (Soviet poet) and Satanovsky (one of Putin's top propagandists right now) even funnier names.

Lloyd W. Robertson said...

The Judean rebels in Life of Brian: What has the Roman Empire ever done for us? Eventually they reluctantly agree to roads, laws, etc. But they may still be rebels. The fact of many winners in an Empire draws attention to the losers. They convince themselves that they have been wronged, and group action is necessary. Revolutions don't start with the poorest of the poor, in isolated areas, but with people who live close to the privileged and want more privilege.