Empire (63 page)

the construction ofvalue takes place
beyond measure.
The contrast

between the immeasurable excesses ofimperial globalization and

the productive activity that is beyond measure must be read from

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the standpoint ofthe subjective activity that creates and re-creates

the world in its entirety.

What we need to highlight at this point, however, is something

more substantial than the simple claim that labor remains the central

constituent foundation of society as capital transforms to its post-

modern stage. Whereas ‘‘outside measure’’ refers to the impossibility

ofpower’s calculating and ordering production at a global level,

‘‘beyond measure’’ refers to the vitality of the productive context,

the expression oflabor as desire, and its capacities to constitute the

biopolitical fabric of Empire from below. Beyond measure refers

to
the new place in the non-place,
the place defined by the productive activity that is autonomous from any external regime of measure.

Beyond measure refers to a
virtuality
that invests the entire biopolitical fabric of imperial globalization.

By the virtual we understand the set ofpowers to act (being,

loving, transforming, creating) that reside in the multitude. We

have already seen how the multitude’s virtual set ofpowers is

constructed by struggles and consolidated in desire. Now we have

to investigate how the virtual can put pressure on the borders of

the possible, and thus touch on the real. The passage from the

virtual through the possible to the real is the fundamental act of

creation.8 Living labor is what constructs the passageway from the

virtual to the real; it is the vehicle ofpossibility. Labor that has

broken open the cages ofeconomic, social, and political discipline

and surpassed every regulative dimension ofmodern capitalism

along with its state-form now appears as general social activity.9

Labor is productive excess with respect to the existing order and

the rules ofits reproduction. This productive excess is at once the

result ofa collective force ofemancipation and the substance ofthe

new social virtuality oflabor’s productive and liberatory capacities.

In the passage to postmodernity, one ofthe primary conditions

oflabor is that it functions outside measure. The temporal regimen-

tation oflabor and all the other economic and/or political measures

that have been imposed on it are blown apart. Today labor is

immediately a social force animated by the powers of knowledge,

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affect, science, and language. Indeed, labor is the productive activity

ofa general intellect and a general body outside measure. Labor

appears simply as the
power to act,
which is at once singular and

universal: singular insofar as labor has become the exclusive domain

ofthe brain and body ofthe multitude; and universal insofar as the

desire that the multitude expresses in the movement from the virtual

to the possible is constantly constituted as a
common thing.
Only

when what is common is formed can production take place and

can general productivity rise. Anything that blocks this power to

act is merely an obstacle to overcome—an obstacle that is eventually

outflanked, weakened, and smashed by the critical powers oflabor

and the everyday passional wisdom of the affects. The power to

act is constituted by labor, intelligence, passion, and affect in one

common place.

This notion oflabor as the common power to act stands in a

contemporaneous, coextensive, and dynamic relationship to the

construction ofcommunity. This relationship is reciprocal such that

on the one hand the singular powers oflabor continuously create

new common constructions, and, on the other hand, what is com-

mon becomes singularized.10 We can thus define the virtual power

oflabor as a power ofself-valorization that exceeds itself, flows

over onto the other, and, through this investment, constitutes an

expansive commonality. The common actions oflabor, intelligence,

passion, and affect configure a
constituent power.

The process we are describing is not merely formal; it is

material, and it is realized on the biopolitical terrain. The virtuality

ofaction and the transformation ofmaterial conditions, which at

times are appropriated by and enrich this power to act, are consti-

tuted in ontological mechanisms or apparatuses beyond measure.

This ontological apparatus beyond measure is an
expansive power,
a power offreedom, ontological construction, and omnilateral dissemination.

This last definition could be considered redundant. Ifthe

power to act constructs value from below, if it transforms value

according to the rhythm ofwhat is common, and ifit appropriates

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constitutively the material conditions ofits own realization, then

it is obvious that in it resides an expansive force beyond measure.

This definition is not redundant, however, but rather adds a new

dimension to the concept insofar as it demonstrates the positive

character ofthe non-place and the irrepressibility ofcommon action

beyond measure. This expansive definition plays an anti-dialectical

role, demonstrating the creativity ofwhat is beyond measure. With

reference to the history of philosophy, we could add, in order to

define the sense ofthis expansive power, that whereas the definitions

ofthe power to act in terms ofthe singular and the common are

Spinozist, this last definition is really a Nietzschean conception.

The omnilateral expansiveness ofthe power to act demonstrates

the ontological basis oftransvaluation, that is, its capacity not only

to destroy the values that descend from the transcendental realm

ofmeasure but also to create new values.11

The ontological terrain ofEmpire, completely plowed and

irrigated by a powerful, self-valorizing, and constituent labor, is

thus planted with a virtuality that seeks to be real. The keys of

possibility, or really ofthe modalities ofbeing that transform the

virtual into reality, reside in this realm beyond measure.

Parasite

One might object at this point that, despite the powers ofthe

multitude, this Empire still exists and commands. We ourselves

have amply described its functioning and highlighted its extreme

violence. With respect to the virtuality ofthe multitude, however,

imperial government appears as an empty shell or a parasite.12 Does

this mean that the investments ofpower that Empire continuously

makes in order to maintain imperial order and the powerlessness

of the multitude really are ineffective? If this were the case, then

the argumentation we have been developing up to this point about

the extrinsic character ofimperial government with respect to the

ontological developments ofthe multitude would be contradictory.

The gap between virtuality and possibility that we think can be

bridged from the standpoint of the action of the multitude is effec-

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tively held open by imperial domination. The two forces seem to

stand in contradiction.

We do not, however, think that this is really a contradiction.

Only in formal logic is contradiction static; contradiction is never

static, however, in material logic (that is, political, historical, and

ontological logic), which poses it on the terrain ofthe possible and

thus on the terrain ofpower. Indeed, the relationship that imperial

government imposes on the virtuality ofthe multitude is simply

a static relationship ofoppression. The investments ofimperial

government are essentially negative, deployed through procedures

intended to order coercively the actions and events that risk descend-

ing into disorder. In all cases the effectiveness of imperial govern-

ment is regulatory and not constituent, not even when its effects

are long-lasting. The redundancies ofimperial command configure

at most the chronicle that records political life, or really the most

feeble and repetitive image ofthe determinations ofbeing.

The royal prerogatives ofimperial government, its monopoly

over the bomb, money, and the communicative ether, are merely

destructive capacities and thus powers ofnegation. The action of

imperial government intervenes in the multitude’s project to suture

together virtuality and possibility only by disrupting it and slowing

it down. In this respect Empire does touch on the course ofhistorical

movement, but it cannot for that reason be defined as a positive

capacity—on the contrary, the legitimacy ofits command is only

increasingly undermined by these movements.

When the action of Empire is effective, this is due not to its

own force but to the fact that it is driven by the rebound from the

resistance ofthe multitude against imperial power. One might say

in this sense that resistance is actually prior to power.13 When

imperial government intervenes, it selects the liberatory impulses

ofthe multitude in order to destroy them, and in return it is driven

forward by resistance. The royal investments of Empire and all its

political initiatives are constructed according to the rhythm ofthe

acts ofresistance that constitute the being ofthe multitude. In

other words, the effectiveness of Empire’s regulatory and repressive

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procedures must finally be traced back to the virtual, constitutive

action ofthe multitude. Empire itselfis not a positive reality. In

the very moment it rises up, it falls. Each imperial action is a rebound

ofthe resistance ofthe multitude that poses a new obstacle for the

multitude to overcome.14

Imperial command produces nothing vital and nothing onto-

logical. From the ontological perspective, imperial command is

purely negative and passive. Certainly power is everywhere, but it

is everywhere because everywhere is in play the nexus between

virtuality and possibility, a nexus that is the sole province ofthe

multitude. Imperial power is the negative residue, the fallback of

the operation ofthe multitude; it is a parasite that draws its vitality

from the multitude’s capacity to create ever new sources of energy

and value. A parasite that saps the strength ofits host, however,

can endanger its own existence. The functioning of imperial power

is ineluctably linked to its decline.

Nomadism and Miscegenation

The ontological fabric of Empire is constructed by the activity

beyond measure ofthe multitude and its virtual powers. These

virtual, constituent powers conflict endlessly with the constituted

power ofEmpire. They are completely positive since their ‘‘being-

against’’ is a ‘‘being-for,’’ in other words, a resistance that becomes

love and community. We are situated precisely at that hinge of

infinite finitude that links together the virtual and the possible,

engaged in the passage from desire to a coming future.15

This ontological relation operates first ofall on space. The

virtuality ofworld space constitutes the first determination ofthe

movements ofthe multitude—a virtuality that must be made real.

Space that merely can be traversed must be transformed into a space

of life; circulation must become freedom. In other words, the

mobile multitude must achieve a global citizenship. The multitude’s

resistance to bondage—the struggle against the slavery ofbelonging

to a nation, an identity, and a people, and thus the desertion from

sovereignty and the limits it places on subjectivity—is entirely

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positive. Nomadism and miscegenation appear here as figures of

virtue, as the first ethical practices on the terrain ofEmpire. From

this perspective the objective space ofcapitalist globalization breaks

down. Only a space that is animated by subjective circulation and

only a space that is defined by the irrepressible movements (legal

or clandestine) ofindividuals and groups can be real. Today’s cele-

brations ofthe local can be regressive and even fascistic when they

oppose circulations and mixture, and thus reinforce the walls of

nation, ethnicity, race, people, and the like. The concept ofthe

local, however, need not be defined by isolation and purity. In

fact, if one breaks down the walls that surround the local (and

thereby separate the concept from race, religion, ethnicity, nation,

and people), one can link it directly to the universal. The concrete

universal is what allows the multitude to pass from place to place

and make its place its own. This is the common place ofnomadism

and miscegenation. Through circulation the common human spe-

cies is composed, a multicolored Orpheus ofinfinite power; through

circulation the human community is constituted. Outside every

Enlightenment cloud or Kantian reverie, the desire ofthe multitude

is not the cosmopolitical state but a common species.16 As in a