March 25, 2005
Reading Hardt and Negri's Multitude?
The Political and Social Theory Reading Group at Texas A&M; is taking on Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's Multitude this month. As part of our ongoing experimentation on the Blogora with new ways of discussing books, I will periodically post some comments and questions on Multitude, and I hope others will join in.
A full text of Paolo Virno's Grammar of the Multitude (by one of Negri's associates on the Italian far left) is available here.
I believe the work is of interest for rhetoricians for four reasons:
1. For better or for worse, Hardt and Negri are now the most widely-read Left theorists in the world, so understanding the sources and popularity of their influence is important for those studying the rhetoric of social movements.
2. Building on Potere operaio's concept of the "social" worker from the late 1960's, Hardt and Negri contend, persuasively I think, that contemporary capitalism enlists all of social life--especially communicative labor, the production of affects--in capitalist production and reproduction. The result is that, although the industrial working class remains important, the "multitude" as potential revolutionary subject is much larger in scope than in classical marxism.
3. Their work is an effort to replace previous philosophical foundations of Marxism with post-structuralism--Foucault and Deleuze and Guattari replace Hegel. Here, I believe, is where they go wrong: Hegel was essential to Marx's thought, especially his Logic, and any effort to de-Hegelianize Marx ends up rejecting Marxism itself.
4. And, to invoke the ongoing theme of my own writing, Hardt and Negri continue to disappoint by undertheorizing persuasion.
1. For better or for worse, Hardt and Negri are now the most widely-read Left theorists in the world, so understanding the sources and popularity of their influence is important for those studying the rhetoric of social movements.
2. Building on Potere operaio's concept of the "social" worker from the late 1960's, Hardt and Negri contend, persuasively I think, that contemporary capitalism enlists all of social life--especially communicative labor, the production of affects--in capitalist production and reproduction. The result is that, although the industrial working class remains important, the "multitude" as potential revolutionary subject is much larger in scope than in classical marxism.
3. Their work is an effort to replace previous philosophical foundations of Marxism with post-structuralism--Foucault and Deleuze and Guattari replace Hegel. Here, I believe, is where they go wrong: Hegel was essential to Marx's thought, especially his Logic, and any effort to de-Hegelianize Marx ends up rejecting Marxism itself.
4. And, to invoke the ongoing theme of my own writing, Hardt and Negri continue to disappoint by undertheorizing persuasion.
Posted by jim at March 25, 2005 10:22 PM
Comments
I haven't finished the book yet, and while I have some problems with their arguments in general, I should add to Jim's "why this is of interest" that they offer an interesting account of publics--or, what they call the multitude. My question, as always, is "is this 'democracy'"? Even by their own definition? ("government for all by all") If their best example of the multitude in action is the WTO protests--admittedly an inspiring event of multiple interest groups sharing common ground--was that "democracy"? Did those protest groups get into the WTO and did they get to voice their opinion to decision makers? Did they get to participate as decision makers themselves? Even if we say that they reached the general public with their message, did that general public have any power to act on their message??? I think not. If there is no opportunity to make decisions within the Empire, then how can the Multitude be the answer? Isn't it always about power afterall? I think that their "Empire" represents the classical definition of corruption--it enforces law and order, but is subject to none itself--how do we stop corruption? Historically, hasn't the answer been revolution, not working within the corrupt empire?
Like I said, I haven't finished the book yet, but these are my nagging questions about 2/3s through.
Posted by: jen m at March 26, 2005 10:41 AM
I haven't even started _Multitude_ (since _Empire_ makes me want to toss the book across the room; "new barbarism" my arse!), but your comments about the de-Hegelizing of Marxism are very apt. To combat that move we can enlist Zizek, and should, as the newer and emerging voices in rhetorical studies are very busy zapping mediation . . . Social movement theory can continue to de-Hegelize rhetoric only at the expense of rhetoric (though, I admit I do very much admire the efforts of Ron Greene and others to create visions of rhetoric without dialectics; I simply fear that rhetoric, which I still contend is a logic and phenomenon of mediation, evaporates).
Posted by: Josh Gunn at March 26, 2005 12:29 PM
I like that, Josh: rhetoric as a logic and phenomenon of mediation. Oh, hell, do I finally have to take Zizek seriously (insert smiley face here)?
Posted by: jim at March 26, 2005 11:25 PM
I think, Jen, that H/N would say that all power generates its own resistance, and that the more globalized the power is, the more globalized the possibility of resistance is.
The WTO protests in Seattle might have been exciting to a lot of people, but I'm not sure one can stake revolutionary possibilities on that one action, and there have been mighty few since then.
I believe that we need to be able to "toggle" back and forth from actions by the multitude to more conventional political acts (increasing foreign aid, a la Jeffrey Sachs' new book, promoting the rule of law and fighting torture, making the Bush Administration take the Bill of Rights seriously). It's not a question of either/or (as a certain kind of American radical continues to think).
Posted by: jim at March 26, 2005 11:29 PM
Yes, I agree that theirs is a concept of resistance, which seems to be Foucauldian for them. But, what is resistance to the corruption of Empire? I'm re-reading William Freehling's Road to Disunion right now for my grad seminar and H&N;'s resistance seems an awful lot like slave resistance as F. describes it--when the terror of the despot is so complete both psychologically and physically (H&N;'s biopower) all the oppressed can do is find ways to "bother" The Master. True resistance is futile because the costs are too great and often unthinkable because the conditioning is so complete. Resistance may slow down the wheels of the machine, but does it stop the machine? Does resistance result in freedom? And, when the wheels of the machine are so odious, what would Mario Savio have us do? Throw our bodies against the gears and the levers until the machine breaks. Or, until the machine is accountable to the wishes of the multitude. And, that is the rub for me. How can we make the corrupt, despotic Empire accountable to the multitude? Where is our seat at the table? (and, damn could I use more clichés??)
I'm proud to be an American radical: good company I'm in! But, I'm just asking for what we've been promised: Democracy. I suppose democracy is radical afterall, esp. since we're so far from it now. If H&N; are right about the Empire, then we really have moved so far away from what could be a democratic society, that it is once again a radical, revolutionary struggle.
Posted by: jen m at March 27, 2005 11:19 AM
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