Michael Hardt - Böcker

Each year a new eruption of "leaderless" social movements -- from North Africa and the Middle East to Europe, the Americas, and East Asia -- leaves journalists, political analysts, police forces, and governments disoriented and perplexed. Activists too struggle to understand and evaluate the power and effectiveness of horizontal movements. Why have the movements, which address the needs and desires of so many, not been able to achieve lasting change and create a new, more democratic and just society? Some people assume that if only social movements could find new leaders they would return to their earlier glory. Where, they ask, are the new Martin Luther Kings, Rudi Dutschkes, and Steven Bikos? Although today's leaderless and spontaneous political organizations are not sufficient, a return to traditional, centralized forms of political leadership is neither desirable nor possible. Necessary, instead, as Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri argue, is an inversion of the roles of the multitude and leadership in political organizations. Leaders should be confined to short-term, tactical action, while the multitude drives strategy. In other words, the formulation of long-term goals and objectives must come from the collective, rather than designated figureheads. Drawing on the ideas developed through their well-known Empire trilogy, Hardt and Negri have produced, in Assembly, a timely proposal for how current large-scale, horizontal movements can develop collectively the capacities for political strategy and decision-making to effect lasting and democratic change.

In recent years "leaderless" social movements have proliferated around the globe, from North Africa and the Middle East to Europe, the Americas, and East Asia. Some of these movements have led to impressive gains: the toppling of authoritarian leaders, the furthering of progressive policy, and checks on repressive state forces. They have also been, at times, derided by journalists and political analysts as disorganized and ineffectual, or suppressed by disoriented and perplexed police forces and governments who fail to effectively engage them. Activists, too, struggle to harness the potential of these horizontal movements. Why have the movements, which address the needs and desires of so many, not been able to achieve lasting change and create a new, more democratic and just society? Some people assume that if only social movements could find new leaders they would return to their earlier glory. Where, they ask, are the new Martin Luther Kings, Rudi Dutschkes, and Stephen Bikos? With the rise of right-wing political parties in many countries, the question of how to organize democratically and effectively has become increasingly urgent. Although today's leaderless political organizations are not sufficient, a return to traditional, centralized forms of political leadership is neither desirable nor possible. Instead, as Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri argue, familiar roles must be reversed: leaders should be responsible for short-term, tactical action, but it is the multitude that must drive strategy. In other words, if these new social movements are to achieve meaningful revolution, they must invent effective modes of assembly and decision-making structures that rely on the broadest democratic base. Drawing on ideas developed through their well-known Empire trilogy, Hardt and Negri have produced, in Assembly, a timely proposal for how current large-scale horizontal movements can develop the capacities for political strategy and decision-making to effect lasting and democratic change. We have not yet seen what is possible when the multitude assembles.

A thought-provoking reconsideration of how the revolutionary movements of the 1970s set the mold for today's activism.The 1970s was a decade of "subversives". Faced with various progressive and revolutionary social movements, the forces of order--politicians, law enforcement, journalists, and conservative intellectuals--saw subversives everywhere. From indigenous peasant armies and gay liberation organizations, to anti-nuclear activists and Black liberation militants, subversives challenged authority, laid siege to the established order, and undermined time-honored ways of life. Every corner of the left was fertile ground for subversive elements, which the forces of order had to root out and destroy--a project they pursued with zeal and brutality. In The Subversive Seventies, Michael Hardt sets out to show that popular understandings of the political movements of the seventies--often seen as fractious, violent, and largely unsuccessful--are not just inaccurate, but foreclose valuable lessons for the political struggles of today. While many accounts of the 1970s have been written about the regimes of domination that emerged throughout the decade, Hardt approaches the subversive from the perspectives of those who sought to undermine the base of established authority and transform the fundamental structures of society. In so doing, he provides a novel account of the theoretical and practical projects of liberation that still speak to us today, too many of which have been all but forgotten. Departing from popular and scholarly accounts that focus on the social movements of the 1960s, Hardt argues that the 1970s offers an inspiring and useful guide for contemporary radical political thought and action. Although we can still learn much from the movements of the sixties, that decade's struggles for peace, justice, and freedom fundamentally marked the end of an era. The movements of the seventies, in contrast, responded directly to emerging neoliberal frameworks and other structures of power that continue to rule over us today. They identified and confronted political problems that remain central for us. The 1970s, in this sense, marks the beginning of our time. Looking at a wide range of movements around the globe, from the United States, to Guinea Bissau, South Korea, Chile, Turkey, and Italy, The Subversive Seventies provides a reassessment of the political action of the 1970s that sheds new light not only on our revolutionary past but also on what liberation can be and do today.

This book brings together key essays and excerpts from the broad spectrum of Frederic Jameson's writings, providing an accessible introduction to the intricacies of his thought and uncovering new and exciting aspects of his work.

Imperialism as we knew it may be no more, but Empire is alive and well. It is, as Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri demonstrate in this bold work, the new political order of globalization. It is easy to recognize the contemporary economic, cultural, and legal transformations taking place across the globe but difficult to understand them. Hardt and Negri contend that they should be seen in line with our historical understanding of Empire as a universal order that accepts no boundaries or limits. Their book shows how this emerging Empire is fundamentally different from the imperialism of European dominance and capitalist expansion in previous eras. Rather, today’s Empire draws on elements of U.S. constitutionalism, with its tradition of hybrid identities and expanding frontiers.Empire identifies a radical shift in concepts that form the philosophical basis of modern politics, concepts such as sovereignty, nation, and people. Hardt and Negri link this philosophical transformation to cultural and economic changes in postmodern society—to new forms of racism, new conceptions of identity and difference, new networks of communication and control, and new paths of migration. They also show how the power of transnational corporations and the increasing predominance of postindustrial forms of labor and production help to define the new imperial global order.More than analysis, Empire is also an unabashedly utopian work of political philosophy, a new Communist Manifesto. Looking beyond the regimes of exploitation and control that characterize today’s world order, it seeks an alternative political paradigm—the basis for a truly democratic global society.

When Empire appeared in 2000, it defined the political and economic challenges of the era of globalization and, thrillingly, found in them possibilities for new and more democratic forms of social organization. Now, with Commonwealth, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri conclude the trilogy begun with Empire and continued in Multitude, proposing an ethics of freedom for living in our common world and articulating a possible constitution for our common wealth. Drawing on scenarios from around the globe and elucidating the themes that unite them, Hardt and Negri focus on the logic of institutions and the models of governance adequate to our understanding of a global commonwealth. They argue for the idea of the “common” to replace the opposition of private and public and the politics predicated on that opposition. Ultimately, they articulate the theoretical bases for what they call “governing the revolution.”Though this book functions as an extension and a completion of a sustained line of Hardt and Negri’s thought, it also stands alone and is entirely accessible to readers who are not familiar with the previous works. It is certain to appeal to, challenge, and enrich the thinking of anyone interested in questions of politics and globalization.

In Subversive Spinoza, Antonio Negri spells out the philosophical credo that inspired his radical renewal of Marxism and his compelling analysis of the modern state and the global economy by means of an inspiring reading of the challenging metaphysics of the seventeenth-century Dutch-Jewish philosopher Spinoza. For Negri, Spinoza’s philosophy has never been more relevant than it is today to debates over individuality and community, democracy and resistance, and modernity and postmodernity.This collection of essays extends, clarifies and revises the argument of Negri’s influential 1981 book ‘The Savage Anomaly: The Power of Spinoza’s Metaphysics and Politics’ and links it directly to his recent work on constituent power, time and empire.

“Labor is the living, form-giving fire,” Marx wrote. “It is the transitoriness of things, their temporality, as their transformation by living time.” How is it, then, that labor, with all its life-affirming potential, has become the means of capitalist discipline, exploitation, and domination in modern society? The authors expose and pursue this paradox through a systematic analysis of the role of labor in the processes of capitalist production and in the establishment of capitalist legal and social institutions. Critiquing liberal and socialist notions of labor and institutional reform from a radical democratic perspective, Hardt and Negri challenge the state-form itself.In the twentieth century, labor has become central to the material and formal constitution of the State, as a complex nexus of value and right. And yet, in living labor and social cooperation, which cut across the divisions of workdays and wage relations, the authors identify a total critique of capitalist practice as well, presenting not only the negation of the present social order but also the affirmation of an alternative system of value, norms, and desires. The forms in which this potential is expressed, from the social movements of the 1960s to those of the 1990s, are the “prerequisites of communism” already existing in contemporary society.

The key to understanding Deleuze's complete body of work."A coherent and systematic reading of a philosopher who has consistently courted the incoherent and systematic. What we must avoid are encounters with those who cultivate sad passions (the men of ressentiment in the Nietzschean formulation); and we must increase our power to compose new relationships with compatible bodies with whom we share a common notion. Hardt's exceptional book is one such joyful encounter." -Times Literary Supplement"An excellent book. The project of Gilles Deleuze is to situate Deleuze squarely in the camp of those who seek to deepen and transform our philsophical understanding and political situation. Hardt seems to me to be directly on target." -Substance"Both for its object and its method of study, here is a work that will mark the future of the field of Deleuzian studies." -Eric Alliez, Critique"Hardt's reading of Deleuze is complex and precise. He follows the intricacies of the argument and of the shifting positions with considerable skill, thus providing us with a study not only of the Deleuzian way of doing philosophy, but of Deleuzian reading-of the selectivity of its targets, of its agonistic approach to philosophy, through indirect attack on one main opponent. Reading Hardt reading Deleuze reading, we can understand, for instance, why Deleuze's exposition usually takes the form not of a dialectic but of a correlation, of a system of differences." -Radical Philosophy"How can we forget the dialectic? How an we affirm a constitutive ontology? Through its efforts to respond to these questions, Gilles Deleuze's philosophical apprenticeship presents the Bildungsroman of any contemporary philosophy that wants to break away from the destiny of modernity. Michael Hardt unravels the guiding thread of this philosophy of the future." -Antonio Negri"Hardt's interpretations are exceptionally well-grounded in the history of philosophical discourse, a discourse he exercises with discipline and rare insight. As the only major work on Deleuze in English, this book will undoubtedly set the standard for any future study of one of France's most important thinkers-and it is a very high standard, indeed." -Peggy Kamuf

Over the past several decades, Italian revolutionary politics has offered a model for new forms of political thinking. Radical Thought in Italy continues that tradition by providing an original view of the potential for a radical democratic politics today that speaks not only to the Italian situation but also to a broadly international context. First, the essays settle accounts with the culture of cynicism, opportunism, and fear that has come to permeate the Left. They then proceed to analyze the new difficulties and possibilities opened by current economic conditions and the crisis of the welfare state. Finally, the authors propose a series of new concepts that are helpful in rethinking revolution for our times. Contributors: Giorgio Agamben, U of Verona and Collège Internationale de Philosophie, Paris; Massimo De Carolis, U of Salerno; Alisa Del Re, U of Padua; Augusto Illuminati, U of Urbino; Maurizio Lazzarato; Antonio Negri, U of Paris VIII; Franco Piperno, U of Calabria; Marco Revelli, U of Turin; Rossana Rossanda; Carlo Vercellone; Adelino Zanini. Paolo Virno is the author of several books, including the recently translated A Grammar of the Multitude. Michael Hardt is professor of literature and romance studies at Duke University.

Contributors to this issue approach the October 1917 Russian Revolution and the experiments of the revolutionary period as events that opened new possibilities for politics that remain vital one hundred years later. The essays highlight how those events not only affected Russia and Europe but led to the emergence of a new political image of the world and a profound rethinking of Marxist traditions. This issue globalizes the 1917 revolution, emphasizing its echoes throughout the world and the parallel development of political possibilities beyond Russia. Topics include the Soviets from the revolution to the present, the impact of the revolution in Latin America, the work of the legal theorist Evgeny Pashukanis analyzed through the lens of the revolution, anarchist imaginaries, and the historicizing of communism.Contributors. Giso Amendola, MartÍn Bergel, Kathy Ferguson, Michael Hardt, Wang Hui, Artemy Magun, John MacKay, Sandro Mezzadra, Antonio Negri, Enzo Traverso

First published in 2005. Gilles Deleuze, a major figure in the intellectual history of the late 20th century, inaugurated the radical non-Hegelianism that has marked French intellectual life during the past three decades. Many poststructuralist and postmodernist practices can be traced to Deleuze's 1962 resurrection of Nietzsche against Hegel. Hardt shows how Deleuze's early analysis of Bergson's critique of ontology and determination led him to a conception of a positive movement of differentiation and becoming, which in turn led him to the field of forces, sense, value, and the thematic of power and affirmation in Nietzsche. The theory of power in Nietzsche provided the link for Deleuze to an ethics of active expression in Spinoza. Deleuze's discovery and analysis of Spinoza's cultivation of joy and practice at the center of ontology finally resulted in a complete break from the Hegelian paradigm that had reigned over continental philosophy and history. Michael Hardt is the translator of Antonio Negri's "The Savage Anomaly: The Power of Spinoza's Metaphysics and Politics" (Minnesota, 1990), Giorgio Agamben's "The Coming Community" (Minnesota, 1993), and co-author (with Antonio Negri) of "Labor of Dionysus" (Minnesota).

A militant reading of struggles and developments in Bolivia form a balance sheet of possibility for a Left program in the country, hemisphere, and the world.Bolivia beyond the Impasse sketches the primary characteristics of the current political, social, and economic situation of Bolivia. Longtime militant researchers Michael Hardt and Sandro Mezzadra explain not only how this situation came about but also the obstacles that confront today’s progressive forces and have led to an impasse. Right-wing political and social forces continue to gain strength and constantly hinder or thwart progressive initiatives. Obstacles also arise from within movements, including the vexed question of leadership, which has increasingly surfaced between Evo Morales as leader of the MAS party and Luis Arce as president of the government. Hardt and Mezzadra do not dwell on these obstacles, however, because they also recognize the extraordinary power and innovation that a new phase of political struggle in Bolivia could unleash beyond the impasse. The current situation, they argue, remains open to new political inventions rooted in the wide range of progressive and revolutionary forces both inside and outside the government and the MAS party.