Michael Hardt

the most insightful part is definitely the first, about the primacy/universality of war and its consequences for networked insurgent resistance

the critique of democracy in terms of representation is obvious and also rather weakly presented, since negri still seems a little attached to his own ideal notion of democracy

the articulation of the common, beyond public/private, is extremely vague and poorly done; critically, there is no exploration of the relationship bw production of the truly show more common and the securitized regime under the civil war of empire

and ofc their elaboration of the universal identity of the multitude (and the singularity of its constituents) is somewhat pointless and incoherent show less

On Hardt and Negri

EMPIRE and MULTITUDE, by Hardt and Negri, are frustrating and irritating books. But most critics miss their one great innovation. They have replaced capital and commodity as the key concepts of Marxism and postmarxism. Instead, what is most important for studying social change is the production and reproduction of society itself. The technical term they have invented to try to explain this is bioproduction.

But they do not know what to do with this one great innovation. show more Class analysis may be less useful now than it was for classical Marxism, but we could start by imitating Marx. How would we define classes by their relation to the means of production of society? An elementary beginning would be: the state; non-state persons who control the big institutions; workers who have enough resources so that they can start their own businesses, or join worker coops, if they do not like their bosses; lesser workers; and everyone else.

Something missing? Yes. Women as a class, mothers and other child rearers, but also women as the primary transmitters of the local system of morality. More than all the others, they create society. They are the least appreciated source of future social change.

(I have also posted this at my Academia.edu website. See my LT profile.) show less

On Hardt and Negri

EMPIRE and MULTITUDE, by Hardt and Negri, are frustrating and irritating books. But most critics miss their one great innovation. They have replaced capital and commodity as the key concepts of Marxism and postmarxism. Instead, what is most important for studying social change is the production and reproduction of society itself. The technical term they have invented to try to explain this is bioproduction.

But they do not know what to do with this one great innovation. show more Class analysis may be less useful now than it was for classical Marxism, but we could start by imitating Marx. How would we define classes by their relation to the means of production of society? An elementary beginning would be: the state; non-state persons who control the big institutions; workers who have enough resources so that they can start their own businesses, or join worker coops, if they do not like their bosses; lesser workers; and everyone else.

Something missing? Yes. Women as a class, mothers and other child rearers, but also women as the primary transmitters of the local system of morality. More than all the others, they create society. They are the least appreciated source of future social change.

(I have also posted this at my Academia.edu website. See my LT profile.) show less

A lot more readable than Empire but lacks the almost poetic beauty in philosophical composition that brought Empire together. Largely seems to want to explain, sometimes almost apologize for the first work.