Empire (57 page)

Empire are exercised.

In this imperial non-place, in the hybrid space that the constitu-

tional process constructs, we still find the continuous and irrepress-

ible presence ofsubjective movements. Our problematic remains

something like that ofthe mixed constitution, but now it is infused

with the full intensity of the displacements, modulations, and hy-

bridizations involved in the passage to postmodernity. Here the

movement from the social to the political and the juridical that

always defines constituent processes begins to take shape; here the

reciprocal relationships between social and political forces that de-

mand a formal recognition in the constitutional process begin to

emerge; and finally, here the various functions (monarchy, aristoc-

racy, and democracy) measure the force of the subjectivities that

constitute them and attempt to capture segments oftheir constit-

uent processes.

Struggleover theConstitution

Our ultimate objective in this analysis ofthe constitutional processes

and figures ofEmpire is to recognize the terrain on which contesta-

tion and alternatives might emerge. In Empire, as indeed was also

the case in modern and ancient regimes, the constitution itselfis a

site ofstruggle, but today the nature ofthat site and that struggle

is by no means clear. The general outlines oftoday’s imperial

constitution can be conceived in the form of a rhizomatic and

universal communication network in which relations are established

to and from all its points or nodes. Such a network seems paradoxi-

cally to be at once completely open and completely closed to

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struggle and intervention. On the one hand, the network formally

allows all possible subjects in the web ofrelations to be present

simultaneously, but on the other hand, the network itselfis a real

and proper non-place. The struggle over the constitution will have

to be played out on this ambiguous and shifting terrain.

There are three key variables that will define this struggle,

variables that act in the realm between the common and the singular,

between the axiomatic ofcommand and the self-identification of

the subject, and between the production ofsubjectivity by power

and the autonomous resistance ofthe subjects themselves. The

first variable involves the guarantee ofthe network and its general

control, in such a way that (positively) the network can always

function and (negatively) it cannot function against those in power.19

The second variable concerns those who distribute services in the

network and the pretense that these services are remunerated equita-

bly, so that the network can sustain and reproduce a capitalist

economic system and at the same time produce the social and

political segmentation that is proper to it.20 The third variable,

finally, is presented within the network itself. It deals with the

mechanisms by which differences among subjectivities are produced

and with the ways in which these differences are made to function

within the system.

According to these three variables, each subjectivity must be-

come a subject that is ruled in the general networks ofcontrol (in

the early modern sense ofthe one who is subject [
subdictus
] to a

sovereign power), and at the same time each must also be an

independent agent ofproduction and consumption within net-

works. Is this double articulation really possible? Is it possible for

the system to sustain simultaneously political subjection and the

subjectivity ofthe producer/consumer? It does not really seem so.

In effect, the fundamental condition of the existence of the
universal

network,
which is the central hypothesis ofthis constitutional framework, is that it be
hybrid,
and that is, for our purposes, that the political subject be fleeting and passive, while the producing and

consuming agent is present and active. This means that, far from

M I X E D C O N S T I T U T I O N

321

being a simple repetition ofa traditional equilibrium, the formation

ofthe new mixed constitution leads to a fundamental disequilibrium

among the established actors and thus to a new social dynamic that

liberates the producing and consuming subject from (or at least

makes ambiguous its position within) the mechanisms ofpolitical

subjection. Here is where the primary site ofstruggle seems to

emerge, on the terrain ofthe production and regulation ofsubjec-

tivity.

Is this really the situation that will result from the capitalist

transformation ofthe mode ofproduction, the cultural develop-

ments ofpostmodernism, and the processes ofpolitical constitution

ofEmpire? We are certainly not yet in the position to come to

that conclusion. We can see, nonetheless, that in this new situation

the strategy ofequilibrated and regulated participation, which the

liberal and imperial mixed constitutions have always followed, is

confronted by new difficulties and by the strong expression of

autonomy by the individual and collective productive subjectivities

involved in the process. On the terrain ofthe production and

regulation ofsubjectivity, and in the disjunction between the politi-

cal subject and the economic subject, it seems that we can identify

a real field ofstruggle in which all the gambits ofthe constitution

and the equilibria among forces can be reopened—a true and proper

situation ofcrisis and maybe eventually ofrevolution.

Spectacleof theConstitution

The open field ofstruggle that seems to appear from this analysis,

however, quickly disappears when we consider the new mechanisms

by which these hybrid networks ofparticipation are manipulated

from above.21 In effect, the glue that holds together the diverse

functions and bodies of the hybrid constitution is what Guy Debord

called the spectacle, an integrated and diffuse apparatus of images

and ideas that produces and regulates public discourse and opinion.22

In the society ofthe spectacle, what was once imagined as the public

sphere, the open terrain ofpolitical exchange and participation,

completely evaporates. The spectacle destroys any collective form of

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sociality—individualizing social actors in their separate automobiles

and in front of separate video screens—and at the same time imposes

a new mass sociality, a new uniformity of action and thought.

On this spectacular terrain, traditional forms of struggle over the

constitution become inconceivable.

The common conception that the media (and television in

particular) have destroyed politics is false only to the extent that it

seems based on an idealized notion ofwhat democratic political

discourse, exchange, and participation consisted ofin the era prior

to this media age. The difference of the contemporary manipulation

of politics by the media is not really a difference of nature but a

difference of degree. In other words, there have certainly existed

previously numerous mechanisms for shaping public opinion and

public perception ofsociety, but contemporary media provide enor-

mously more powerful instruments for these tasks. As Debord says,

in the society ofthe spectacle only what appears exists, and the

major media have something approaching a monopoly over what

appears to the general population. This law ofthe spectacle clearly

reigns in the realm ofmedia-driven electoral politics, an art of

manipulation perhaps developed first in the United States but now

spread throughout the world. The discourse ofelectoral seasons

focuses almost exclusively on how candidates appear, on the timing

and circulation ofimages. The major media networks conduct a

sort ofsecond-order spectacle that reflects on (and undoubtedly

shapes in part) the spectacle mounted by the candidates and their

political parties. Even the old calls for a focus less on image and

more on issues and substance in political campaigns that we heard

not so long ago seem hopelessly naive today. Similarly, the notions

that politicians function as celebrities and that political campaigns

operate on the logic ofadvertising—hypotheses that seemed radical

and scandalous thirty years ago—are today taken for granted. Politi-

cal discourse is an articulated sales pitch, and political participation

is reduced to selecting among consumable images.

When we say that the spectacle involves the
media manipulation

ofpublic opinion and political action, we do not mean to suggest

M I X E D C O N S T I T U T I O N

323

that there is a little man behind the curtain, a great Wizard ofOz

who controls all that is seen, thought, and done. There is no single

locus ofcontrol that dictates the spectacle. The spectacle, however,

generally functions
as if
there were such a point ofcentral control. As Debord says, the spectacle is both diffuse and integrated. Conspiracy

theories ofgovernmental and extragovernmental plots ofglobal

control, which have certainly proliferated in recent decades, should

thus be recognized as both true and false. As Fredric Jameson

explains wonderfully in the context of contemporary film, conspir-

acy theories are a crude but effective mechanism for approximating

the functioning of the totality.23 The spectacle ofpolitics functions

as if
the media, the military, the government, the transnational

corporations, the global financial institutions, and so forth were all

consciously and explicitly directed by a single power even though

in reality they are not.

The society ofthe spectacle rules by wielding an age-old

weapon. Hobbes recognized long ago that for effective domination

‘‘the Passion to be reckoned upon, is Fear.’’24 For Hobbes, fear is

what binds and ensures social order, and still today fear is the

primary mechanism ofcontrol that fills the society ofthe spectacle.25

Although the spectacle seems to function through desire and plea-

sure (desire for commodities and pleasure of consumption), it really

works through the communication offear—or rather, the spectacle

creates forms of desire and pleasure that are intimately wedded to

fear. In the vernacular of early modern European philosophy, the

communication offear was called
superstition.
And indeed the politics offear has always been spread through a kind ofsuperstition. What

has changed are the forms and mechanisms of the superstitions that

communicate fear.

The spectacle off

ear that holds together the postmodern,

hybrid constitution and the media manipulation ofthe public and

politics certainly takes the ground away from a struggle over the

imperial constitution. It seems as ifthere is no place left to stand,

no weight to any possible resistance, but only an implacable machine

ofpower. It is important to recognize the power ofthe spectacle

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and the impossibility oftraditional forms ofstruggle, but this is not

the end ofthe story. As the old sites and forms ofstruggle decline,

new and more powerful ones arise. The spectacle of imperial order

is not an ironclad world, but actually opens up the real possibility

ofits overturning and new potentials for revolution.

3.6

C A P I T A L I S T S O V E R E I G N T Y ,

O R A D M I N I S T E R I N G T H E G L O B A L

S O C I E T Y O F C O N T R O L

As long as society is founded on money we won’t have enough

ofit.

Leaflet, Paris strike, December 1995

This is the abolition ofthe capitalist mode ofproduction within the

capitalist mode of production itself, and hence a self-abolishing con-

tradiction, which presents itself
prima facie
as a mere point oftransition to a new form of production.

Karl Marx

Capital and sovereignty might well appear to be a contra-

dictory coupling. Modern sovereignty relies fundamentally on the

transcendence
ofthe sovereign—be it the Prince, the state, the

nation, or even the People—over the social plane. Hobbes estab-

lished the spatial metaphor ofsovereignty for all modern political

thought in his unitary Leviathan that rises above and overarches

society and the multitude. The sovereign is the surplus ofpower

that serves to resolve or defer the crisis of modernity. Furthermore,

modern sovereignty operates, as we have seen in detail, through

the creation and maintenance offixed boundaries among territories,

populations, social functions, and so forth. Sovereignty is thus also

a surplus ofcode, an overcoding ofsocial flows and f

unctions.

In other words, sovereignty operates through the striation ofthe

social field.

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Capital, on the contrary, operates on the plane of
immanence,

through relays and networks ofrelationships ofdomination, without

reliance on a transcendent center ofpower. It tends historically to