Empire (79 page)

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Authors: Professor Michael Hardt,Antonio Negri

Tags: #Philosophy, #Political, #Political Science, #General, #American Government

sevelt’s imperialist campaigns, and particularly with the project to build

the Panama Canal.

25. For the long history ofU.S. military interventions in Latin America and particularly in Central America, see Ivan Musicant,
The Banana Wars: A

History of United States Military Intervention in Latin America
(New York: Macmillan, 1990); Noam Chomsky,
Turning the Tide: U.S. Intervention in

Central America and the Struggle for Peace
(Boston: South End Press, 1985); Saul Landau,
The Dangerous Doctrine: National Security and U.S. Foreign
Policy
(Boulder: Westview Press, 1988).

26. William Chafe poses 1968 as a shift of regime in the United States from the perspective ofa social historian: ‘‘Any historian who uses the word

‘watershed’ to describe a given moment runs the risk ofoversimplifying

the complexity ofthe historical process. However, ifthe word is em-

ployed to signify a turning point that marks the end to domination by

one constellation offorces and the beginning ofdomination by another,

it seems appropriate as a description ofwhat took place in America in

1968.’’ William Chafe,
The Unfinished Journey: America since World War II
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 378. Chafe captures precisely

what we mean by a shift in the constitutional regime, that is, the end of

domination by one constellation offorces and the beginning ofdomina-

tion by another. For Chafe’s analysis ofthe republican spirit ofthe move-

ments, see pp. 302–342.

444

N O T E S T O P A G E S 1 8 3 – 1 9 0

2 . 6 I M P E R I A L S O V E R E I G N T Y

1. Immanuel Kant, ‘‘An Answer to the Question: ‘What Is Enlightenment?’ ’

in
Political Writings,
ed. Hans Reiss, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 54–60.

2. Michel Foucault, ‘‘What Is Enlightenment,’’ in
Ethics: Subjectivity and
Truth,
vol. 1 of
The Essential Works of Foucault 1954–1984,
ed. Paul Rabinow (New York: New Press, 1997), pp. 303–319.

3. Ibid., p. 315.

4. On the relationship between modern metaphysics and political theory, see Antonio Negri,
The Savage Anomaly,
trans. Michael Hardt (Minneapolis: University ofMinnesota Press, 1991).

5. We find versions ofthis spatial configuration ofinside and outside among many ofthe contemporary philosophers we most admire—even writers

such as Foucault and Blanchot who move away from the dialectic, and

even Derrida, who dwells on that margin between inside and outside

that is the most ambiguous and most murky point ofmodern thought.

For Foucault and Blanchot, see Foucault’s essay ‘‘Maurice Blanchot: The

Thought from Outside,’’ trans. Brian Massumi, in
Foucault/Blanchot
(New York: Zone Books, 1987). For Derrida, see
Margins of Philosophy,
trans.

Alan Bass (Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 1982).

6. Fredric Jameson,
Postmodernism, Or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism
(Durham: Duke University Press, 1991), p. ix.

7. We are thinking here primarily ofHannah Arendt’s notion ofthe political

articulated in
The Human Condition
(Chicago: University ofChicago

Press, 1958).

8. For Los Angeles, see Mike Davis,
City of Quartz
(London: Verso, 1990), pp. 221–263. For Sa˜o Paulo, see Teresa Caldeira, ‘‘Fortified Enclaves:

The New Urban Segregation,’’
Public Culture,
no. 8 (1996); 303–328.

9. See Guy Debord,
Society of the Spectacle,
trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (New York: Zone Books, 1994).

10. Francis Fukuyama,
The End of History and the Last Man
(New York: Free Press, 1992).

11. ‘‘We have watched the war machine . . . set its sights on a new type of enemy, no longer another State, or even another regime, but ‘l’ennemi

quelconque’ [the whatever enemy].’’ Gilles Deleuze and Feĺix Guattari,

A Thousand Plateaus,
trans. Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), p. 422.

12. There are undoubtedly zones ofdeprivation within the world market

where the flow ofcapital and goods is reduced to a minimum. In some

cases this deprivation is determined by an explicit political decision (as

in the trade sanctions against Iraq), and in other cases it follows from the N O T E S T O P A G E S 1 9 0 – 1 9 9

445

implicit logics ofglobal capital (as in the cycles ofpoverty and starvation in sub-Saharan Africa). In all cases, however, these zones do not constitute an outside to the capitalist market; rather they function within the world

market as the most subordinated rungs ofthe global economic hierarchy.

13. For an excellent explanation ofFoucault’s concept ofthe diagram, see

Gilles Deleuze,
Foucault,
trans. Seań Hand (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988), pp. 34–37.

14. See E

´ tienne Balibar, ‘‘Is There a ‘Neo-Racism’?’’ in E´tienne Balibar

and Immanuel Wallerstein,
Race, Nation, Class
(London: Verso, 1991), pp. 17–28; quotation p. 21. Avery Gordon and Christopher Newfield

identify something very similar as liberal racism, which is characterized

primarily by ‘‘an antiracist attitude that coexists with support for racist outcomes,’’ in ‘‘White Mythologies,’’
Critical Inquiry,
20, no. 4 (Summer 1994), 737–757, quotation p. 737.

15. Balibar, ‘‘Is There a ‘Neo-Racism’?’’ pp. 21–22.

16. See Walter Benn Michaels,
Our America: Nativism, Modernism, and Pluralism
(Durham: Duke University Press, 1995); and ‘‘Race into Culture: A Critical Genealogy ofCultural Identity,’’
Critical Inquiry,
18, no. 4 (Summer 1992), 655–685. Benn Michaels critiques the kind ofracism that

appears in cultural pluralism, but does so in a way that seems to support

a new liberal racism. See Gordon and Newfield’s excellent critique of

his work in ‘‘White Mythologies.’’

17. Deleuze and Guattari,
A Thousand Plateaus,
p. 178.

18. Ibid., p. 209.

19. See Lauren Berlant,
The Queen of America Goes to Washington City: Essays
on Sex and Citizenship
(Durham: Duke University Press, 1997). On her formulation ofthe reactionary reversal ofthe slogan ‘‘The personal is the

political,’’ see pp. 175–180. For her excellent analysis ofthe ‘‘intimate

public sphere,’’ see pp. 2–24.

20. The liberal order ofEmpire achieves the kind of‘‘overlapping consensus’’

proposed by John Rawls in which all are required to set aside their

‘‘comprehensive doctrines’’ in the interests oftolerance. See John Rawls,

Political Liberalism
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1993). For a critical review ofhis book, see Michael Hardt, ‘‘On Political Liberalism,’’

Qui Parle,
7, no. 1 (Fall/Winter 1993), 140–149.

21. On the (re)creation ofethnic identities in China, for example, see Ralph Litzinger, ‘‘Memory Work: Reconstituting the Ethnic in Post-Mao

China,’’
Cultural Anthropology,
13, no. 2 (1998), pp. 224–255.

22. Gilles Deleuze, ‘‘Postscript on Control Societies,’’ in
Negotiations,
trans.

Martin Joughin (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), pp. 177–

182; quotation p. 179.

446

N O T E S T O P A G E S 2 0 0 – 2 1 2

23. See Phillipe Bourgois,
Ethnicity at Work: Divided Labor on a Central American Banana Plantation
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989).

24. See Aristotle,
De generatione et corruptione,
trans. C. J. F. Williams (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982). In general, on the philosophical conceptions ofgeneration and corruption, see Reiner Schu¨rmann,
Des he´ge´monies
briseés
(Mouvezin: T.E.R., 1996).

R E F U S A L

1. See in particular Gilles Deleuze, ‘‘Bartleby, ou la formule,’’ in
Critique
et clinique
(Paris: Minuit, 1993), pp. 89–114; and Giorgio Agamben,

‘‘Bartleby o della contingenza,’’ in
Bartleby: la formula della creazione
(Macerata: Quodlibet, 1993), pp. 47–92.

2. J. M. Coetzee,
The Life and Times of Michael K
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983), p. 151.

3. E

´ tienne de La Boe´tie,
The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary
Servitude,
trans. Harry Kurz (New York: Free Life Editions, 1975), pp. 52–53. In French,
Discours de la servitude volontaire,
in
Oeuvres complètes
(Geneva: Slatkine, 1967), pp. 1–57; quotation p. 14.

I N T E R M E Z Z O : C O U N T E R - E M P I R E

1. Gilles Deleuze and Feĺix Guattari,
Anti-Oedipus,
trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Lane, and Helen Lane (Minneapolis: University ofMinnesota Press,

1983), p. 239.

2. One ofthe best historical accounts ofthe IWW is contained in John Dos

Passos’s enormous novel
USA
(New York: Library ofAmerica, 1996).

See also Joyce Kornbluh, ed.,
Rebel Voices: an I.W.W. Anthology
(Ann Arbor: University ofMichigan Press, 1964).

3. ‘‘It would be possible to write a whole history ofthe inventions made

since 1830 for the sole purpose of providing capital with weapons against

working-class revolt.’’ Karl Marx,
Capital,
trans. Ben Fowkes (New York: Vintage, 1976), 1:563.

4. On the changing relation between labor and value, see Antonio Negri,

‘‘Twenty Theses on Marx,’’ in Saree Makdisi, Cesare Casarino, and Re-

becca Karl, eds.,
Marxism Beyond Marxism
(New York: Routledge, 1996), pp. 149–180; and Antonio Negri, ‘‘Value and Affect,’’
boundary2,
26, no.

2 (Summer 1999).

5. Deleuze and Guattari,
Anti-Oedipus,
p. 29 (translation modified).

6. One ofthe most important novels ofthe Italian Resistance is Elio Vit-

torini’s
Uomini e no
(Men and not men) in which being human means

being against. Nanni Balestrini’s tales about class struggle in Italy in the 1960s and 1970s take up this positive determination ofbeing-against. See

N O T E S T O P A G E S 2 1 2 – 2 1 5

447

in particular
Vogliamo tutto
(Milan: Feltrinelli, 1971); and
The Unseen,
trans. Liz Heron (London: Verso, 1989).

7. Yann Moulier Boutang argues that the Marxian concept ofthe ‘‘industrial

reserve army’’ has proven to be a particularly strong obstacle to our

understanding the power ofthis mobility. In this framework the divisions

and stratifications ofthe labor force in general are understood as predetermined and fixed by the quantitative logic ofdevelopment, that is, by the

productive rationalities ofcapitalist rule. This rigid and univocal command is seen as having such power that all forms of labor power are considered

as being purely and exclusively determined by capital. Even unemployed

populations and migrating populations are seen as springing from and

determined by capital as a ‘‘reserve army.’’ Labor power is deprived of

subjectivity and difference since it is considered completely subject to the iron laws ofcapital. See Yann Moulier Boutang,
De l’esclavage au salariat
(Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1998).

8. Friedrich Nietzsche,
The Will to Power,
trans. Walter Kaufman and R. J.

Hollingdale (New York: Vintage, 1968), p. 465 (no. 868, November

1887–March 1888).

9. We describe exodus as one ofthe motors ofthe collapse ofReal Socialism

in our
Labor of Dionysus
(Minneapolis: University ofMinnesota Press, 1994), pp. 263–269.

10. The first passage is from Walter Benjamin, ‘‘Erfahrung und Armut,’’ in

Gesammelte Schriften,
ed. RolfTiedemann and Hermann Schweppenhaüs-

sen (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1972), vol. 2, pt. 1, pp. 213–219; quotation

p. 215. The second passage is from ‘‘The Destructive Character,’’ in

Reflections,
ed. Peter Demetz (New York: Schocken Books, 1978),

pp. 302–303.

11. On the migrations ofsexuality and sexual perversion, see Franc¸ois Peraldi, ed.,
Polysexuality
(New York: Semiotext(e), 1981); and Sylvère Lotringer,
Overexposed: Treating Sexual Perversion in America
(New York: Pantheon, 1988). Arthur and Marilouise Kroker also emphasize the subversiveness

ofbodies and sexualities that refuse purity and normalization in essays

such as ‘‘The Last Sex: Feminism and Outlaw Bodies,’’ in Arthur and

Marilouise Kroker, eds.,
The Last Sex: Feminism and Outlaw Bodies
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993). Finally, the best source for experiments

ofcorporeal and sexual transformations may be the novels ofKathy Acker;

see, for example,
Empire of the Senseless
(New York: Grove Press, 1988).

12. On posthuman permutations ofthe body, see Judith Halberstam and Ira

Livingston, ‘‘Introduction: Posthuman Bodies,’’ in Judith Halberstam and

Ira Livingston, eds.,
Posthuman Bodies
(Bloomington: Indiana University 448

N O T E S T O P A G E S 2 1 5 – 2 2 1

Press, 1995), pp. 1–19; and Steve Shaviro,
The Cinematic Body
(Minneapolis: University ofMinnesota Press, 1993). For another interesting explo-

ration ofthe potential permutations ofthe human body, see Alphonso

Lingis,
Foreign Bodies
(New York: Routledge, 1994). See also the performance art ofStelarc, such as Stelarc,
Obsolete Body: Suspensions
(Davis, Calif.: J. P. Publications, 1984).

13. The primary texts that serve as the basis for a whole range of work that has been done across the boundaries ofhumans, animals, and machines

are Donna Haraway,
Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of

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