Antonio Negri and “Empire”
Den italienske politiske filosof og aktivist Antonio Negri (1.8.1933-16.12.2023) har sammen med amerikaneren Michael Hardt skrevet bogen Empire. Den udkom i foråret 2000 i hardback og i 2001 i paperback (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press) – og ligger også online på Libcom.org.
Forlaget kalder bogen for “et nyt Kommunistisk Manifest”, og den har fået en omfattende mediedækning, og er blevet solgt i store oplag. Det er usædvanligt, når man betænker, at den er skrevet af to erklærede socialister, er på små 500 sider, og er ret tung læsning med meget filosofisk og historisk stof.
Her har vi samlet et udvalg af omtaler, interviews, anmelderartikler, tekster af og om Antonio Negri og baggrundsmateriale om den italienske venstrefløj i 1970’erne.
Bogen udkom på dansk på Informations Forlag 24. oktober 2003 (med titlen Imperiet).
Bjarne A. Frandsen
Januar 2002
Revideret januar 2024
Nekrologer/Obituaries:
Gert Sørensen: Nekrolog over Toni Negri – arbejdermagt og ekskluderende venstreopposition (Solidaritet.dk, 15. jan. 2024)
“Den italienske filosof og politiske aktivist Toni Negri døde kort før jul. Han tilbragte mange år i Paris i eksil fra det italienske retsvæsen, som anklagede ham for at være bagmand til politisk terrorisme. Men han var også intellektuel bagmand til det 21. århundredes antiglobaliserings-bevægelser.”
Alex Callinicos: Remembering Toni Negri, 1933-2023 (Socialist Worker, 18. dec. 2023)
“Toni Negri’s ideas came out of workers’ and students’ struggles in the 1960s and 70s—and their failure to break through.”
Toni Negri was a reader and continuer of Karl Marx, in an astonishing combination of literality and freedom (Verso/Blog, 17 January 2024). “Étienne Balibar praises the work of his friend the Italian thinker Antonio Negri, who died on 16 December. Negri theorised creative resistance and new forms of revolt in the face of globalised capitalism.”
Artikler på dansk (og norsk og svensk)
Artikler på dansk (og norsk og svensk)
Arbejderhistorie
Mikkel Bolt: Tilbage til Fremtiden: en note om den italienske autonomibevægelse i anledning af ‘Empire’ (pdf) (nr.1, 2002, s.53-65). Scroll ned.
“Michael Hardt og Antonio Negris bog Empire sætter dagsordenen indenfor det akademiske og intellektuelle politiske miljø i USA og England med sin besnærende blanding af (post)kommunistisk retorik og spinozistisk universalhistorie.”
For en forkortet udgave, se tidsskriftet Solidaritet nedenfor.
Mikkel Bolt: Kommunismen er nu! (pdf) (nr.3, 1999, s.78-81). Anmeldelse af tidligere bog af Negri/Hardt (Labor of Dionysus, 1994).
Berlingske Tidende
Bent Blüdnikow: Nye revolutionære drømme om Utopia (24. okt. 2003)
“Enhver revolutionær kamp skal have sin dunkle og sandsynligvis ulæste klassiker, og Negri og Hardt har leveret den ny bibel. Da universiteterne aldrig for alvor har foretaget en selvransagelse, der kunne advare og oplyse den ny generation om det intellektuelle amokløb, der greb deres ansatte og studerende i 1970erne og 1980erne, er det nu næsten umuligt for dem at advare mod dette nye revolutionære hjernespind. Der er ikke muligt at give minusstjerner for skadelig litteratur, så vi må nøjes med nul.”
Clarte
Mikael Nyberg: Kalkonmarxismen (nr.2, 2002)
“En postmodern marxism har äntrat scenen, hyllad av både New York Times och autonoma aktivister. Mikael Nyberg granskar dess visioner av arbetslivet och dess kritik av nationalstaten.” På forfatterens site, Mikaelnyberg.nu, kan artiklen læses med noter.
Dagbladet Arbejderen (p.t. ikke online)
Karen Sunds og Hans Chr. Andersen: “Imperialismen og Imperiet” (17. dec. 2003, s.6-8)
“Er imperialismen afløst af en global overstatslig magt? Det hævder de to forfattere Hardt og Negri i deres bog ‘Imperiet’, der nu er udkommet på dansk. Bogen kaldes af nogle det 21. århundredes svar på Det Kommunistiske Manifest.”
“Italien i 1960’erne” (17. dec. 2003, s.8)
“Antonio Negris opfattelser hænger snævert sammen med 70’ernes Italien.”
Distinktion : Tidsskrift for Samfundsteori
Temanummer om Empire (nr.6, 2003; online på Internet Archive).
Fronesis
Temanummer Kapitalism med bla. uddrag af Empire, samt interview med Antonio Negri (nr.6-7, 2001, s. 11-63)
(Kun Introduktionen er online: Emma Lennartsson och Magnus Wennerhag: Ett system utan utmanare? (pdf) (s.11-21)
Gaia (p.t. ikke online)
Lasse Wamsler og Anna Storr-Hansen: Imperiet (nr.50, efterår 2005)
“‘Det nye kommunistiske manifest’, ‘globaliseringsbevægelsens bibel’ eller ‘en omgang uforståeligt vrøvl’ – meget er blevet sagt om Antonio Negris og Michael Hardts ‘Imperiet’, siden den udkom for fem år siden.”
Michael Hardt: Det nye samfund i det gamles skal (nr.50, efterår 2005)
“Et sammendrag af Michael Hardts besøg i Medborgerhuset Blågården i København, den 20. august. Her fortalte han om deres seneste værk ‘Multitude’, som kredser om modstanden i det globale magtsystem; særligt denne ‘multitudes’ (mangfoldigheds) kamp for at virkeliggøre globalt demokrati.”
Boris Kagarlitskij: En sort kat i mørke (nr.50, efterår 2005)
“Imperiet, den populære bog af Michael Hardt og Antonio Negri, er endelig kommet på russisk. Den første udgivelse af værket fremkaldte et ordentligt chok, da det er sjældent, at et værk inden for revolutionær teori bliver en kommerciel bestseller … Problemet er, at de teorier som Hardt og Negri tager udgangspunkt i, er fundamentalt forkerte, selv i empirisk forstand.”
Torkil Lausen: Arbejderklassen eller mangfoldigheden? Hvem kan og vil forandre verden? (nr.43, vinter 2003, s.10-15)
“I Negris og Harts bog ‘Empire’ introduceres begrebet ‘the multitude’, her oversat som mangfoldigheden. Negri og Hart ser mangfoldigheden som den kraft, der kan gennemføre en radikal forandring af verdensordenen. Men hvad er denne mangfoldighed for en størrelse? Hvordan adskiller den sig fra arbejderklassen, der ellers traditionelt er udset til dette job?”
Irene Clausen og Mario Radi: Ikke alt er ved det gamle, men imperialisme er imperialisme (nr.42, efterår 2003, s.16-17)
“I Gaia nr.41 … kan man læse artiklen ‘Globaliseringsbevægelsen og krigen’ … Artiklen handler bl.a. om den meget omtalte bog ‘Empire’, om krigen i Irak og antiglobaliserings-bevægelsen. Denne artikel er en kritik af bogen ‘Empire’, som ser ud til at blive den nye bibel i globaliseringsbevægelsen, herunder Globale Rødder.”
Pelle Dragsted og Janne Tynell: Globaliseringsbevægelsen og krigen: spørgsmål og udfordringer (nr.41, sommer 2003, s.20-24)
“Empire er blevet kritiseret for at mudre og forvirre, mere end at skærpe analysen, men vi mener, at de nye kategorier er nødvendige for at forstå den aktuelle udvikling i den globale kapitalisme.”
Torkil Lauesen: Fra imperialisme til Imperiet (nr.36, forår 2002, s.26-35)
“Imperialismen findes måske ikke mere, i stedet hersker Imperiet. Michael Hardt og Antonio Negri foreslår i deres bog Empire, at de økonomiske, politiske, militære og kulturelle forandringer af verden skal fortås som skabelsen af et Imperium: et altomfattende globalt politisk system, der består af en række nationale og transnationale og overnationale institutioner forenet under en logik: den globaliserede kapitalisme.”
GRUS
Mikkel Bolt: Integreret verdenskapitalisme (nr.62, 2000, s.22-43)
Anmelderartikel af tidligere bog af Negri/Hardt (Labor of Dionysus, 1994)
“I den følgende tekst argumenteres … for relevancen af Toni Negris analyser af den seneste fase af kapitalistisk civilisation: den integrerede verdenskapitalisme … Negris analyser … udfoldes på baggrund af en forestilling om arbejderklassen som motoren bag udviklingerne i kapitalens institutioner …”
Information
Peter Nielsen: Frontkæmperne er blevet bagtroppen (18. sept. 2009)
“Med WTO-topmødet i Seattle i 1999 blev aktivismen global, men Michael Hardt og Antonio Negris første bog ‘Empire’ kom for sent til helt at indfange virkeligheden. Nu udkommer de med Commonwealth, der igen prøver at sætte teori og begreber på venstrefløjens sociale kampe, der er i konstant forandring.”
Carsten Jensen: Skyggernes imperie (24. okt. 2003)
“En af de seneste års mest omdiskuterede bøger, der forsøger at overbevise om, at der findes et imperie, der kontrollerer verden under én herredømmelogik, foreligger nu endelig på dansk.”
Martin Burcharth: Sværmeriet for politisk vold (18. juni 2003)
“Den globaliseringsfjendtlige bevægelse har fået en teoretiker – Antonio Negri. Hvem er han? I en nyligt udkommet ABC om hans liv og politiske filosofi svarer italieneren på brandaktuelle spørgsmål.”
Rune Lykkeberg: Slaveriet ophørte fordi (30. sept. 2002)
“Michael Hardt, forfatteren til bogen som er blevet kaldt det nye kommunistiske manifest, om verden efter 11. september, kapitalismens kapitulation og den ny imperialisme.”
Rune Lykkeberg: Romerrige uden Rom og kejser (27. sept. 2002)
“Den venlige amerikaner Michael Hardt forklarede på et Luftskibsmøde, at vi nu befinder os i en permanent krigstilstand.”
Bjarke Møller: Globaliseringen er positiv (21. juli 2001)
“Michael Hardt, forfatter til bestsellerbog, der sammenlignes med det kommunistiske manifest, advarer aktivisterne i Genova mod at ødelægge debatten om globaliseringen.”
Bjarke Møller: Imperiet bredder sig som en steppebrand (21. juli 2001)
“Globaliseringen er et nyt imperium. Men det er ikke USA’s imperialisme, for imperiet har intet hoved og intet vinterpalads. Det siger Michael Hardt, der er medforfatter til en bog, der kan blive en bibel for aktivisterne i Genova.”
Andreas Wester Hansen: Informationssamfundets socialisme (15. jan. 2001)
“I en tid, hvor informations-kapitalismen går sejrsgang verden over, er der mere end nogensinde tidligere brug for kritiske røster, der forstår de nye teknologier, men samtidig ikke bare lader stå til.” Anmeldelse af Michael Hardt og Antonio Negris bog Empire.
Kritisk Debat (p.t. ikke online)
‘Kampen er ikke spontan : vi er nødt til at organisere os’. Patricia Gainza interviewer Michael Hardt (15. marts 2006)
“Dette interview blev lavet i Montevideo i december 2005 i forbindelse med den turné, hvor bogen ‘Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire’ blev præsenteret.”
Christian Ydesen: Suverænitetens overgange (15. okt. 2005)
“Formålet med denne artikel er at rejse en kritisk diskussion af suverænitetens overgange i en globaliseret verden med udgangspunkt i Antonio Negris og Michael Hardts optik, som den kommer til udtryk i deres navnkundige værk ‘Empire’ fra 2000.”
Leksikon for det 21. århundrede
Biografi: Negri, Antonio (Toni Negri)
For bredere baggrund om den italienske venstrefløj 1968-1980, se artiklen Italien + afsnittet om Italien i Den autonome bevægelse i Europa.
Modkraft.dk
Pil Christensen og Peter Nielsen og Lars Poulsen: Det er ikke kun kapitalismens krise (Kontradoxa, 14. dec. 2012)
“Følgende tekst er et let redigeret uddrag fra bogen Magt og modstand: en introduktion til Michael Hardt og Antonio Negris tænkning (Frydenlund, 2012, 152 sider).”
Kim Ingemann: Så vågn dog op, venstrefløj! (14. dec. 2012)
“Venstrefløjen savner visioner og forstår ikke fuldt ud den nuværende kapitalisme. Det mener Pil Christensen og Peter Nielsen, som har udgivet en introduktion til Antonio Negri og Michael Hardts tænkning.”
Kåre Blinkenberg: Hardt og Negri genopstår (Kontradoxa, 14. dec. 2012)
“‘Magt og modstand’, introduktionen til venstrefløjstænkerne Michael Hardt og Antonio Negri, kan med lidt held genoplive en række vigtige debatter i Danmark om, hvordan vi skaber reel politisk forandring.”
Pil Christensen: Magt og Modstand (Blog, 10. dec. 2012). Med debat efter artiklen.
Peter Nielsen: Guide til Imperiet (Kontradoxa, 13. dec. 2008)
“Ny Negri-bog rummer vigtige præciseringer og guldkorn for folk med særlig interesse for Negri og Hardts arbejde, men fungerer ikke særlig godt som guide til Imperiet.”
Eline Lønnå og Ali Esbati: Byen er fremtidens kampplads (Kontradoxa, 13. okt. 2008)
“Kampen mod nyliberalismen flytter ud i byrummet, hvor fælles værdier skabes og ejes, hævder Antonio Negri og Michael Hardt i deres kommende bog.”
Joseph Choonara: Imperiet bygget på flyvesand (26. juli 2006)
“Negris teori bygger på italiensk politik, amerikansk økonomi, fransk filosofi – og selvmodsigelser.” Artiklen er tidligere bragt i Solidaritet (nr.2, maj 2006, s.21-27).
Michael Hardt og Antonio Negri: Vi har brug for et globalt Magna Carta (Kontradoxa, 1. maj 2004)
“Det bliver i stigende grad klart, at en unilateral eller ‘monarkisk’ organisering af den globale orden, som centrerer sig om USA’s militære, politiske og økonomiske diktater, hverken er ønskværdig eller holdbar.”
Toni Negri: De fattige er fjenden (Kontradoxa, 31. marts 2004)
“Den nye fleksible arbejder er vanskelig og farlig for det bestående, som de fattige var det i det tidlige moderne samfund. Her funderer Negri over udviklingen fra de farlige klasser til den farlige mængde.”
Michael Hardt: Vore tåbelige ledere (Kontradoxa, 21. jan. 2003)
“De globale eliter må erkende, at USA-imperialisme ikke er i deres interesse.”
Adam Arvidson: Kapitalismen efter det moderne samfund (Kontradoxa, 1. okt. 2002)
“I Empire ser vi en læsning af Marx og den marxistiske tradition, som er tilpasset vor tid, skriver sociologen Adam Arvidson i en introduktion til Michael Hardt og Antonio Negris bog …”
Empire – en ny verdensorden uden grænser (Opslag ved Autonomi-kollektivet, 28. sept. 2002). Interview med Hardt og Negri, omtaler og links til anmeldelser, bogen online mv.
“Vi synes, at Empire starter en nødvendig og interessant diskurs om fremtidige venstrefløjsstrategier, om magtteknikker og modstandspraktikker. Samtidig er vi dog skeptiske overfor og uenige med dele af Toni Negris/Michael Hardts interessante værk. Ikke mindst fordi vi, i modsætning til Empires forfattere, anser USA (og EU-blokken) som verdens økonomiske og politiske imperialistiske magtstrukturer.”
Politiken
Marcus Rubin: Hydra uden hoved (1. nov. 2003)
“Begavet, berømt, men ultimativt uforløst forsøg på et kommunistisk manifest for det 21. århundrede.”
Lars Bang Larsen: Et nyt kommunistisk manifest er skrevet (20. okt. 2001)
“Ifølge Michael Hardt og Antonio Negri foregår den seneste kapitalistiske fase på celleniveau. Vi må igennem den for at nedbryde den, siger de. Men er der grund til optimisme?”
Nyhedsmagasinet Ræson
Faktisk vil jeg ha’ vi allesammen skal være rige: Marx, Foucault, Amerika, Europa, globalisering, demokrati […]. Interview med Michael Hardt (18. feb. 2004)
“I et stort interview med Ræson diskuterer Michael Hardt sin kontroversielle bog ‘Empire’ i lyset af verdensbegivenhederne siden den udkom i 2000.”
Röda Rummet
Charles Post: Ãr imperialismteorin utspelad? (pdf) (nr.3, 2002, s.5-8)
“Ibland utges böcker som försöker se de stora sammanhangen i kapitalismens utveckling. För några år sidan var det Manuel Castells bok om nätverkssamhället. Nu er det dags igen. Michael hardt och Toni Negris Empire har vakt internationell uppmärksamhet. Charles Post har läst den och är kritisk.”
Røde Fane
John Bellamy Foster: Sosialisme eller barbari (nr.2, 2002, s.31-34)
“En ny bok av Michael Hardt og Antonio Negri, med tittelen Empire, kan stå som eksempel på en stadig mer populær mote i venstresidas behandling av globaliseringa – en mote som er like tiltrekkende for herskerne, om vi skal dømme etter hvilken oppmerksomhet den har fått i massemedia … Dens påstand er at verdensmarkedet under innflytelse av informasjonsrevolusjonen blir globalisert hinsides nasjonalstatenes evne til å påvirke det … Plassen tillater meg ikke her å gå inn på alle aspekter ved denne argumentasjonen. Jeg vil heller kommentere bare ett spørsmål: påstanden om at imperialismen er forsvunnet.”
Socialistisk Arbejderavis
Martin Bagge Johansen: Manifest for det 21. århundrede? (nr.221, 12. nov. 2003, s.9)
“Mikael Hardt og Antonio Negris bog ‘Empire’ er i oktober udkommet på dansk. Da bogen kom for tre år siden, blev den betegnet som ‘nutidens Kommunistiske Manifest’. Men kan disse værker sammenlignes? Hvilken betydning har bogen ‘Empire’ haft for den antikapitalistiske bevægelse?”
Socialistisk Information
Daniel Bensaid: Imperiet: kapitalismens sidste stadion? (nr.171, dec. 2002, s.23-24)
“Det intellektuelle murstensværk ‘Empire’, som snart udkommer på dansk, er blevet udråbt som ‘det nye kommunistiske manifest’. Ifølge Daniel Bensaid, fransk filosof og revolutionær socialist, kasserer den uden konkret analyse begreber som imperialisme, klasse og folk til fordel for forhastede og luftige konklusioner.”
Solidaritet
Joseph Choonara: Imperiet bygget på flyvesand (nr.2, maj 2006, s.21-27)
“De seneste par år har ikke været gode ved Antonio Negri. Imperiet, hans mest berømte bog, lavet i samarbejde med Michael Hardt, bebudede imperialismens død … Tryksværten var knap nok tør før begivenhederne den 11. september fandt sted og en ny cyklus af imperialistiske krige tog sin begyndelse. Da deres andet store fælles værk, Multitude, blev offentliggjort i 2004, var de to forfattere blevet tvunget til at finde plads til invasionerne af Afghanistan og Irak i deres teori.” Artiklen er online på Lars Henrik Carlskovs blog.
Mikkel Bolt: Baggrunden for Empire (nr.3, sept. 2002, s.9-15; online på Internet Archive)
“Med bogen Empire har en kommunistisk kritik af kapitalismen og den nuværende indretning af samfundet igen har fået vind i sejlene. Bogens forfattere Michael Hardt og Toni Negri præsenterer en svimlende og radikal kritik af globaliseringens politiske form og viser at i takt med voksende afhængighed skabes hidtil usete muligheder for kommunisme … Forestillingen om arbejderklassen som autonom og ‘oprindelig’ modstand blev udviklet i Autonomia-bevægelsen i Italien i 1960erne og 1970erne …” En længere udgave af artiklen er tidligere bragt i Arbejderhistorie (nr.1, 2002, s.53-65).
Sam Ashman: Nutidens kommunistiske manifest? (nr.3, sept. 2001, s.30-31; online på Internet Archive)
“Forfatterne opridser et meget dramatisk og dystert billede – som taget ud af en science fiction-roman. De beskriver ganske vist en undertrykkende og destruktiv verden, men bogen er alligevel frustrende læsning på grund af fraværet af en konkret analyse … alle argumenterne er meget abstrakte og generelle, og der er ingen diskussion af, hvem der hersker og hvordan.”
Artiklen er oversat fra Socialist Worker (nr.1760, 4. august 2001).
Yelah
Andrew Flood: Har kejsaren några kläder? (19. marts 2002; online på Internet Archive)
“Empire, som publicerades 2000, skapade en häftig debatt inom vänsterakademiska cirklar som ibland till och med spillde över i den liberala pressen. Detta borde uppenbarligen behaga författarna, Antonio Negri, en av den italienske autonoma marxismens huvudteoretiker och Michael Hardt, en tidigare rätt okänd professor i litteratur. Det är tydligt att de ser Empire som starten på ett projekt jämförbart med Karl Marx’s Das Kapital.”
For en engelsk udgave, se The Struggle Site nedenfor.
Jan Sjunnesson: Autonomi/a : Castoriadis-Negri (1. feb. 1997; online på Internet Archive)
“Att realisera människors frihetslängtan är ingen teoretisk fråga, utan ett praktiskt och politiskt projekt. Den nyligen bortgångne grekisk-franske tänkaren Cornelius Castoriadis (1922-1997) och den nyligen fängslade Antonio Negri (1933-) insåg detta väl.”
Articles in English
Against the Current
Charlie Post: A critical look at Empire (nr.99, juli-aug. 2002)
“Empire is a paradox. An overly long (478 pages with notes and index), often abstruse intellectual exercise, this book would appear to be a work destined to obscurity – to be read, at best, by small groups of left-wing intellectuals ensconced in academia. Yet Empire has attracted enormous attention …”
Capital & Class
Paul Thompson: Foundation and Empire: a critique of Hardt and Negri (pdf) (nr.86, sommer 2005, s.99-134)
“In this article, Thompson complements recent critiques of Hardt
and Negri’s Empire using the tools of labour process theory to critique the political economy of Empire, and to note its unfortunate similarities to conventional theories of the knowledge economy.”
Finn Bowring: From the mass worker to the multitude: a theoritical contextualisation of Hardt and Negri’s Empire (pdf) (nr.83, sommer 2004, s.101-132)
“Heralded, with no apparent irony, as The Communist Manifesto for our time, the dense but elliptical Empire has achieved almost iconic status among Left academics and activists since it was published in 2000. This essay shifts the focus from the text itself to the Italian Marxist tradition of autonomia from which Negri’s thinking has evolved.”
Class against Class
Her er artikler af diverse venstrekommunister, bla. Toni Negri.
Common Dreams News Center
Michael Hardt/Antonio Negri: What the protesters in Genoa want (20. juli 2001).
“We see seeds of that future already in the sea of faces that stretches from the streets of Seattle to those of Genoa. One of the most remarkable characteristics of these movements is their diversity: trade unionists together with ecologists together with priests and communists. We are beginning to see emerge a multitude that is not defined by any single identity, but can discover commonality in its multiplicity.”
Cultural Logic
Ronaldo Munck: Review (vol.2-3, nr.2, forår 2000)
“Certain books are opportune because of their theme, their timing or their potential political impact. Empire is just such a text. It is a pleasure to see Antonio Negri back in full flow (albeit from a Roman prison) and in partnership with Michael Hardt, a literati from Duke University. Between them they have crafted a profound and most readable text which will surely be influential.”
Debating Empire
Edited by Gopal Balakrishnan (Verso, 2003, 172 s.)
“The book includes contributions by Stanley Aronowitz, Giovanni Arrighi, Timothy Brennan, Malcolm Bull, Alex Callinicos, Sam Gindin, Tom Mertes, Leo Panitch, Michael Rustin, Sanjay Seth, Charles Tilly, and Ellen Meiksins Wood.”
Empire and Imperialism: A critical reading of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri
By Atilio A. Boron (Zed Books, 2005, 141 s.)
“The author argues that Hardt and Negri”˜s concept of ”˜imperialism without an address”˜, though well intentioned, ignores most of the fundamental parameters of imperialism. The nation state, far from weakening, remains a crucial agent of capitalism, deploying a large arsenal of economic weaponry to protect and extend its position and actively promoting globalization in its own interests.”
Estrategia Internacional/International Strategy
Juan Chingo and Aldo Santos: Toni Negri in the face of the US’s warmongering. Is it the ’empire’ or else imperialism? (nr.19, jan. 2003)
“Can we say that S11 has completely confirmed that the ‘Empire’ has already climaxed? Furthermore, is the imperialist reaction unleashed by the American government at odds with the ‘imperial tendency’? A correct answer to these questions is a key issue, since they should enable us to raise a correct policy to fight back Bush’s offensive.”
Juan Chingo/Gustavo Dunga: Empire or imperialism? (nr.17, april 2001)
“Building on a logic of an unreal subject (the multitude) that bears no correspondence at all with an empirically-set subject, they proceed to blur the objective positions of the different exploited classes within the capitalist mode of production, the centrality of the proletariat in particular as the social subject of the socialist revolution.”
Fifth International
Rodney Edvinsson and Kenneth Harvey: Beyond imperialism?: a journey through Empire (nr.2, 2004; online at Internet Archive)
“The twenty-first century has not been kind to this book. It was published in 2000, a little before George W. Bush’s hijacking of the US presidential election allowed the incoming oil and defence industry plutocracy to embark on a domestic and foreign policy agenda which has comprehensively shredded Empire’s central thesis.”
Generation Online
Translations samler en række engelssprogede artikler af Antonio Negri, mens sektionen Reference (people): Antonio Negri udover artikler af Negri også har anmeldelser af bogen.
Guardian Unlimited Observer
Ed Vulliamy: Empire hits back – The Observer profile: Michael Hardt (15. juli 2001) + uddrag fra bogen.
Historical Materialism
David Camfield: The multitude and the kangaroo: a critique of Hardt and Negri’s theory of immaterial labour (pdf) (vol.15, nr.2, 2007, s.21-52)
“This article concludes that this dimension of Hardt and Negri’s thought is profoundly fl awed, that immaterial labour cannot play the role they wish to assign it in their theory, and that this failure suggests the importance of a diff erent method of developing theory from that employed by Hardt and Negri, along with so many other contemporary writers.”
Maria Turchetto: The Empire strikes back: on Hardt and Negri (pdf) (vol.11, nr.1, 2003, s.23-36)
“Empire bears no resemblance to Capital: leaving aside its size,
it is a lightweight cultural production, inside which readers can ‘navigate’ with a certain degree of freedom.”
Giovanni Arrighi: Lineages of Empire (pdf) (vol.10, nr.3, 2002, s.3-16)
“Most problems arise from Hardt and Negri’s heavy reliance on metaphors and theories and systematic avoidance of empirical evidence. While many readers will undoubtedly be taken in by the erudition deployed throughout the book, more sceptical readers will be put off by statements of fact unbacked by empirical evidence or, worse still, easily falsifiable on the basis of widely available evidence.”
Peter Green: The passage from imperialism to empire: a commentary on Empire (vol.10, nr.1, 2002, s.29-77)
“The formation of capitalism, as Marx emphasised, went hand in hand with the creation of a world market. Capital has always resisted confinement within national boundaries, and, in that sense at least, there is nothing new about globalisation. Yet it is a fallacy to leap from that truth to the conclusion that all we are witnessing today is simply an echo of the past, or just another phase in a long history of systematic cycles of internationalisation and national hegemony.”
John Holloway: Going in the wrong direction; or, Mephistopheles; not Saint Francis of Assisi (vol.10, nr.1, 2002, s.79-91)
“Toni Negri’s work is enormously attractive, not only for its own merits, but because it responds to a desperate need. We are all looking for a way forward. The old state-centred model of revolution has failed catastrophically, reformism becomes more and more corrupt and barren, yet revolutionary change is more urgent than ever. Negri refuses to give up thinking and rethinking revolution: that is the great attraction of his work. The problem is that Negri leads us in the wrong direction.”
Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin: Gems and baubles in Empire (vol.10, nr.2, s.17-43)
“Only the most ungenerous of reviewers could fail to admire the ambitious scope of their attempt to integrate history, philosophy, sociology, culture, and economics with a politics from below. And, yet, the end result is a most frustrating book: full of promise but also of inconsistencies, self-contradictions, flights of exaggeration, and gaps in logic.”
In Defence of Marxism
Pietro Di Nardo: The Empire does not exist: a critique of Toni Negri’s ideas (16. jan. 2003)
“The ideas of Toni Negri, as expressed in his book Empire (co-written with Michael Hardt) have become quite fashionable among those tendencies that wish to deny the essence of Marxism while at the same disguising themselves in the clothing of Marxism. We are publishing a review and critique of the book by Pietro Di Nardo from Naples, Italy. He points out the contradictions in Negri’s thinking and maintains that Marxism is as valid as ever.”
International Socialism
Joseph Choonara: Empire built on shifting sand (nr.109, vinter 2006, s.143-152)
“The last few years have not been kind to Antonio Negri. Empire, his most famous book, produced in collaboration with Michael Hardt, heralded the death of imperialism … The ink had barely dried before the events of 11 September 2001 and the beginning of a new cycle of imperialist wars. By the time their second major collaboration, Multitude, was published in 2004 the authors were forced to find a place for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq within their theory.” Artiklen findes også på dansk, se Modkraft.dk ovenfor.
Joseph Choonara: Marx or the multitude? (nr.105, vinter 2005, s.176-180)
“Hardt and Negri’s new book Multitude continues where Empire left off, tracing the development of the multitude … the concept of multitude is more than a metaphor for the movement. It is a fundamental attack on idea of the working class as an agent for change, and upon the need for political organisations to fight for a strategy to overthrow our rulers.”
August Nimtz: Class struggle under ‘Empire’: in defence of Marx and Engels (nr.96, efterår 2002, s.47-70)
“Marx account of socialist organisation and its role in the class struggle is given a brilliant outline by August Nimtz in a piece that is simultaneously a critique of Toni Negri and Michael Hardt’s Empire. Nimtz draws on his pioneering work in his recent book, Marx and Engels : their contribution to the democratic breakthrough.”
Alex Callinicos: Toni Negri in perspective (nr.92, efterår 2001, s.33-61)
“Alex Callinicos develops a critique of Toni Negri, the theorist of autonomism and the figure to whom many of the Black Bloc anarchists look for inspiration. He argues that Negri’s theory is an impoverished body of ideas as incapable of providing intellectuals guidance to the new movement as the the Black Bloc is of providing practical guidance.”
Jack Fuller: The new workerism: the politics of the Italian autonomists (1980) (nr.92, autumn 2001, s.63-76)
“Jack Fuller’s dissection of the previous phase of autonomist activity was first published in International Socialism in the spring of 1980. We reproduce it here since none of the warnings that it issues about the illusions of autonomism have lost their relevance.”
International Socialist Review
Tom Lewis: Empire strikes out (nr.24, juli-aug. 2002)
“Hardt and Negri stress that Empire is a work of philosophy. As such, the book aims to abstract from the swirl of daily life and singular events a general picture of the social processes that have spawned the contemporary world order: the global market, global circuits of production, and a new structure of political sovereignty. Unfortunately, Empire’s map of global space profoundly distorts the world as it is today.”
International Viewpoint
Charlie Post: Empire and revolution (nr.341, juni 2002)
“Empire is a paradox. An overly long (478 pages with notes and index), often abstruse intellectual exercise, this book would appear to be a work destined to obscrurity – to be read, at best, by small groups of left-wing intellectuals ensconed in academia. Yet Empire has attracted enormeous attention, not only in the academy, but also in the mainstream press and among anti-capitalist and global justice activists in both North America and Europe.” Artiklen er også bragt i det amerikanske tidsskrift Against the Current (nr.99, juli-aug. 2002) under titlen: A critical look at ‘Empire’.
Left Business Observer
Doug Henwood: Blows against the Empire (nr.96, feb. 2001)
“We hear a lot about globalization these days, but its meaning is often taken to be self-evident; as is its value (good if you’re orthodox, but if you’re rebel). That’s neither intellectually nor politically satisfying. Now, with Empire, we have an attempt to think freshly about the world we live in, and the possibilities for making it better. There’s a lot wrong with the book, but it’s an excellent starting place.”
Libcom.org
Libertarian Communist Library: Negri, Antonio
Bogen Empire online og artikler af og interviews med Negri.
Logos
Kurt Jacobsen: Empire (vol.1, nr.4, efterår 2002; online at Internet Archive)
“Empire is the silliest ‘serious’ book I have ever had the misfortune to read all the way through since the late Allan Bloom’s ultra-dyspeptic right wing bestseller The Closing of The American Mind. I suppose now as then a lot of half-educated, overly earnest readers will dip into the profoundly numbing prose and emerge shivering and feverish, feeling like reborn, fully cultivated and thoroughly hip human beings. All one need do for redemption is wade resolutely through a woefully obscurantist four hundred plus page pseudo-philosophical obstacle course bristling with sub-Althusserian jargon; although poor demented Athusser, unlike Hardt and Negri, occasionally had brilliant things to say.”
London Review of Books
Tom Nairn: Make for the boondocks (vol.27, nr.9, 5. maj 2005)
“While Empire made some readers think of Virgil and Rome, in Multitude the defining shift is more restricted: the postmodern has become the premodern. The philosophy of Spinoza has replaced both Marxism and capitalist neo-liberalism. While affected timelessness is inherent in the Hardt-Negri rhetoric – hence their over-easy references to antiquity or the Middle Ages – the centre of gravity in this book is firmly in the later 17th century.”
Marxists Internet Archive
Michael Hardt and Chris Harman: Harman-Hardt debate: the working class or the multitude?
“This debate was organised by Globalise Resistance on 25 January 2003 at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre Brazil in front of about 300 people. The two main speakers spoke for 21 minutes each, and there were then some 22 contributions from the floor – one of the highest degrees of participation at any meeting at the forum.”
Millennium: Journal of International Studies
Alex Callinicos: The actuality of imperialism (vol.31, nr.2, 2002, s.319-326)
“Hardt and Negri’s Empire is to be welcomed for, among other things, introducing a distinctive Marxist voice into the debate about globalisation, but it is seriously weakened by its claim that interstate conflict is being supplanted by the impersonal, decentered network of empire … the world of imperialism, as it was portrayed by Lenin and Bukharin during the First World War – an anarchic struggle of unequal rivals – still exists, with the United States as the first among unequals.”
Martin Shaw: Post-imperial and quasi-imperial: state and empire in the global era (vol.31, nr.2, 2002, s.327-336)
“The paper argues that we must take seriously the ‘post-imperial’ character of the contemporary American and Western powers …”
R.B.J. Walker: On the immanence/imminence of Empire (vol.31, nr.2, 2002, s.337-345)
“Hardt and Negri’s Empire is at once a creative and provocative intervention into debates about the character and possibility of contemporary political life as well as a source of considerable irrititation and disappointment.”
Tarak Barkawi/Mark Laffey: Retrieving the imperial: Empire and international relations (vol.31, nr.1, 2002, s.109-127)
“This essays uses Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s Empire, one of the most widely read accounts of international politics in the recent years, as a vehicle to rethink international relations’ engagement with the notion of empire.”
Artiklerne er ikke online.
Monthly Review
Samir Amin: Contra Hardt and Negri (vol.66, nr.6, nov. 2014)
“This critique was inspired by Amin’s reading of the massive tome by left theorists Michael hardt and Antonio Negri: Hardt and Negri loftily ignore the concrete analysis of these situations, which have been the subject of many important works. Their naive view of globalization is the one served up by the dominant discourse. The only sources of information and inspiration to which Hardt and Negri refer are drawn from Foreign Policy magazine, through which the Washington establishment sells its goods and which they eagerly consume.”
Samir Amin: Empire and Multitude (vol.57, nr.6, nov. 2005)
“Beyond the two theses of Empire (‘imperialism is outmoded’) and Multitude (‘the individual has become the subject of history’), Hardt and Negri’s discourse exhibits a tone of resignation. There is no alternative to submission to the exigencies of the current phase of capitalist development. One will only be able to combat its damaging consequences by becoming integrated into it. This is the discourse of our moment of defeat, a moment that has not yet been surpassed. This is the discourse of social democracy won over to liberalism, of pro-Europeans won over to Atlanticism.”
Bashir Abu-Manneh: The illusions of Empire (vol.56, nr.2, juni 2004)
“My aim is twofold: first, to examine the validity of the conceptual and theoretical apparatus advanced in Empire; and, second, to contribute to the understanding of the politics and ideology of contemporary global capitalism. As I will argue below, the defining issue of the debate surrounding Empire is whether capitalism has now entered into a ‘post-imperialist’ stage, as Hardt and Negri argue, or whether it has consolidated a new phase of imperialism.”
John Bellamy Foster: Imperialism and “Empire” (vol.53, nr.7, dec. 2001).
“A growing fashion on the left in the treatment of globalization; one equally attractive to ruling circles judging by the attention given it by the mass media; is exemplified by a new book by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, entitled Empire … Its thesis is that the world market under the influence of the information revolution is globalizing beyond the capacity of nation states to affect it … Space does not allow me to deal with all aspects of this argument here. Rather I will comment on just one issue: the supposed disappearance of imperialism”.
Artiklen findes også på norsk, se Røde Fane ovenfor.
Mute Magazine
Steve Wright: Reality check: are we living in an immaterial world? (vol.2, nr.1, nov. 2005)
“Immaterial Labour is seen by (post)Marxists and capitalists alike as the motor of the new economy. Steve Wright recovers Marx’s theory of value from critics such as Antonio Negri to ask whether it is as ‘immeasurably’ productive as is claimed?”
New Left Review
Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt: Empire, twenty years on (nr.120, nov.-dec. 2019)
“Today globalization is once again a central issue, but now commentators across the political spectrum are conducting its postmortem … Despite such prognostications, both wishful and anguished, globalization is not dead or even in decline, but simply less easily legible.”
Malcolm Bull: The limits of Multitude (nr.35, sept-okt. 2005)
“What, if any, agencies of political change exist today – and how should they be conceived? Tracing the long tradition of contrasts between a ‘people’ and a ‘multitude’, Malcolm Bull argues that the differing resolutions of them by Hobbes and Spinoza have descended to the twenty-first century, issuing into a contemporary stand-off between market globalization and populist reactions to it.”
Gopal Balakrishnan: Hardt and Negri’s Empire/Virgilian visions (nr.5, sept.-okt. 2000, s.142-148)
“Empire bravely upholds the possibility of a utopian manifesto for these times [the expansive republicanism of the US Constitution], in which the desire for another world buried or scattered in social experience could find an authentic language and point of concentration. But to be politically effective, any such reclamation must take stock of the remorseless realities of this one, without recourse to theoretical ecstasy”.
Socialism Today
Per Olsson: Not the Communist Manifesto (nr.62, feb. 2002)
“This 500-page is neither a Communist Manifesto for the 21st century nor a piece of work which seriosly analyses global capitalism and its contradictions. The authors promise much more than they deliver and, while sometimes claiming to follow the footsteps of Karl Marx, they end up losing touch with reality.”
Socialist Outlook
Karen O’Toole: The picklock that opens all doors (nr.2, vinter 2003; online at Internet Archive)
“Of all intellectuals within the anti-capitalist movement, the ideas of Italian autonomist Antonio Negri have the widest influence. But are they the theoretical weapons needed to overthrow capitalism?”
Socialist Review
Alex Callinicos: Commonwealth (nr.345, marts 2010; online at Internet Archive). Review of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s book (Harvard University Press, 2009)
“Commonwealth‘s heart is definitely in the right place. But it hugely underestimates the extent to which the logic of capital still rules the world – and therefore the effort of critical thinking and political organisation that will be required to break its hold.”
Socialist Worker
Jonathan Maunder: Negri’s autonomist ideas misses the need for a strategy (nr.2177, 14 nov. 2009)
“The first column in our new series on radical thinkers today looks at the ideas of Antonio Negri.”
Solidarity
Alan Johnson: Negri, democracy and the legacy of Stalinism (vol.3, nr.44, 22. jan. 2004)
“Hardt and Negri’s best-selling book, ‘Empire’ (and Negri’s ‘Insurgencies’) are systematically hostile to democratic politics and to democratic authority, both in the capitalist present and the post-Empire future. They are typical of a far left that, though not Stalinist, still lacks a certain structure of feeling and response concerning liberty and democracy that the Stalinist experience should have given it.”
Martin Thomas: Autonomist Marxism: three themes, three critiques (vol.3, nr.43, 8. jan. 2004)
“A critical survey of ‘autonomist’ Marxism, from its origins in Italian ‘operaismo’ in the 1960s through to the writings today of Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt.”
Spartacist
The senile dementia of Post-Marxism: Empire, Multitude and the ‘Death of Communism’ (nr.59, forår 2006, s.19-33)
“In Empire and Multitude, Hardt and Negri seemed to synthesize the ideas of a layer of ‘post-Marxist’ intellectuals who maintain that the structure and functioning of world capitalism has changed fundamentally over the past few decades … But far from proposing anything new, Hardt and Negri offer up an amalgam of anarchistic lifestyle radicalism and utopian reformism reminiscent of the ‘counterculture’ trend in the 1960s New Left.”
States of emergency: Cultures of Revolt in Italy from 1968 to 1978
By Robert Lumley (Verso, 1990, 396 s.; online at Libcom.org)
“The complete text of the definitive book on the mass social movements in Italy in the 1960s and 70s in which author Robert Lumley traces their development, growth then recuperation and decline.”
Storming Heaven: Class Composition and Struggle in Italian Autonomist Marxism
By Steve Wright (Pluto Press, 2002, 257 s.; online at Libcom.org)
“Storming Heaven is the first comprehensive survey of Italian autonomist theory, from its origins in the anti-stalinist and workerist left of the 1950s to its heyday twenty years later. … Offering a critical and historical exploration of the tendency’s emergence in postwar Italy, it moves beyond the crisis of traditional analytical frameworks on the left, and assesses the strengths and limitations of autonomist marxism as first developed by Antonio Negri, Mario Tronti, Sergio Bologna and others.”
The Struggle Site
Andrew Flood: Is the emperor wearing clothes?: a review of Negri and Hardt’s Empire from an anarchist perspective (marts 2002)
“A criticism that has to be made right from the start is that this is not an easy book to read; in fact large sections of it are almost unintelligible. Empire is written in an elitist academic style that is almost designed to be understood only by the qualified few … For those with limited time just read the preface, intermezzo and the last chapter which will give you about 80% of the ideas in 12% of the pages! In general Empire at first appears to be stuffed full of new ideas but then on reflection you get the ideas that the ‘Emperor has no clothes’.”
For en svensk udgave, se Yelah ovenfor.
The Unrepentant Marxist
Louis Proyect: The Hardt-Negri declaration (17. maj 2012)
“I detect a positive evolution in their thinking – especially a willingness to reconsider the merits of state power, albeit in a highly qualified manner.”
Louis Proyect: Once again on Empire and imperialism (13. juli 2006)
“In the latest issue of the Nation Magazine, Michael Hardt makes a valiant but doomed attempt to rescue his Empire thesis from the dustbin of history.”
Louis Proyect: Hardt-Negri’s ‘Empire’: a marxist critique
“Part of the problem in coming to terms with Empire is the lack of an economic analysis, which is surprising given the self-conscious attempt by the authors to position the book as a Communist Manifesto for the 21st century … Going through the notes of Empire you find abundant references to Baudrillard, Celine, Arendt, Polybius et al, but very few to economic studies. This failure leads the authors to make bald assertions that scream out for verification, but which are not forthcoming.”
The Voice of the Turtle
Symposia: Empire (2002; online at Internet Archive)
“The Turtle is proud to present the third of its annual symposia, on Hardt and Negri’s Empire. As ever, our symposium features a series of riffs, meanderings and critical tangents to the main theme of the book … A more complete introduction to Empire will be posted here soon, but we didn’t want editorial sloth to get in the way of the publication of five fine pieces. For your delight and delectation, then, David Schwam-Baird presents his concerns with Empire‘s fetish of the masses, Dan Moshenberg worries about the silence over gender, Raj Patel wonders why there’s not enough dirty history in Empire, Joe Guinan’s epic essay explores Empire’s advances on Capital, and Martin O’Neill offers an executive summary of sovereignty.”
Weekly Worker
Tobias Abse: Last hurrah of a psychopath (nr.1096, 3. marts 2016). Review of Toni Negri, Storia di un comunista (Milan, 2015, 608 s.)
“Toni Negri’s 608-page autobiography is a predictably strange, and in places virtually unreadable, document … With any luck this rambling and frequently unreadable tome will make no more converts to autonomism.”
What Next!: Marxist Discussion Journal
Tobias Abse: The professor in the Balaclava: Toni Negri and autonomist politics (nr.22, 2002)
“One of the strangest media events of 2001 from a left wing perpective was the cult status accorded to the book Empire, and the consequent return to public prominence of the more well-known of its two authors, Antoni Negri – or Toni Negri as he used to be known to his followers on the Italian far left. The book does contain an astonishing range of references, and it would be easy to be intimidated by Negri’s real or apparrant learning into a respectful silence or a gushing reverence. For those of us only too aware of the kind of confused ideas swirling around in the heads of protestors like Carlo Giuliani and not wishing to see more youngsters dying at the hands of the security forces on Italy’s streets over the next few years, this is not a responsible option.”
Mike Rooke: A new Communist Manifesto? (nr.21, 2001)
“So while Empire is, on the one hand, a visionary celebration of the rebellion of marginalized groups, on the other it remains silent on the question of how the constituent power of the proletariat/multitude (equated with communism) might be brought about … An overly academic and ultimately pretentious intellectual style serves as a cover for the absence of strategic, programmatic thinking, in particular the question of the relationship between revolutionaries and organisations of popular struggle. That the insights, and the breadth of scholarship it displays, are impressive, does not excuse this lack.”
Workers Liberty
Martin Thomas: Two critiques: ‘Empire’ and ‘new imperialism’ (nr.2, dec. 2002, s.27-56)
“This article discusses the issues round ‘globalisation’ by way of two critiques, of Negri-Hardt and of the ‘new imperialism’ theory of John Rees, Alex Callinicos and other writers associated with the British SWP.”
Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia
