Politics of the Many: Contemporary Radical Thought and the Crisis of Agency 9781350105645, 9781350105676, 9781350105638

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POLITICS OF THE MANY

Also Available from Bloomsbury The Primacy of Resistance: Power, Opposition and Becoming, Marco Checchi The Withholding Power: An Essay on Political Theology, Massimo Cacciari The Ethics of Resistance: Tyranny of the Absolute, Drew M. Dalton Resistance, Revolution and Fascism: Zapatismo and Assemblage Politics, Anthony Faramelli

POLITICS OF THE MANY

Contemporary Radical Thought and the Crisis of Agency

Edited by Rebecca Carson, Benjamin Halligan, Alexei Penzin and Stefano Pippa

BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA 29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2022 Copyright © Rebecca Carson, Benjamin Halligan, Alexei Penzin, Stefano Pippa and Contributors, 2022 Rebecca Carson, Benjamin Halligan, Alexei Penzin and Stefano Pippa have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Editors of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. x constitute an extension of this copyright page. Cover design by Charlotte Daniels Cover image © Tamás Dósa-Papp, Tamás Emodi-Kiss, Kata György, Csaba Horváth, i-ypszilon group All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-1-3501-0564-5 ePDF: 978-1-3501-0563-8 eBook: 978-1-3501-0566-9 Typeset by Integra Software Solutions Pvt. Ltd. To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

CONTENTS Contributorsvii Acknowledgementsx Introduction: Tarrying with the Many: Against the Few, Beyond the One Rebecca Carson, Benjamin Halligan, Alexei Penzin and Stefano Pippa1 Part I THE ONE, THE MANY AND THE MULTITUDE Chapter 1 Bonds and Dispersion: Prometheus Dividual Gerald Raunig25 Chapter 2 The Centaur and the Multitude: From Machiavelli to Contemporary Italian Political Thought Dario Gentili35 Chapter 3 Flipping Your Schmitt: Human Nature and the Democracy of the Multitude Paul Mazzocchi49 Chapter 4 Unbuild the Party: Multitude and Autonomia Luhuna Carvalho63 Part II TOWARDS A POLITICS OF THE MANY Chapter 5 Crowds and Publics Jodi Dean81 Chapter 6 Class Composition and the (Non)emergence of the Multitude Stevphen Shukaitis103

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Chapter 7 Multitude Void: The Regal Mode of Imperial Legitimation Benjamin Halligan115 Chapter 8 The Gilets Jaunes as Unintentional Vanguard Marc James Léger133 Part III THE MANY UNDER CAPITAL Chapter 9 The Necropolitics of Reproduction: Black Feminism, Mothers and the Death Drive Carina Brand153 Chapter 10 Insomnia@work: Between Neo-workerism and Psychoanalysis Lorenzo Chiesa171 Chapter 11 The Marxism of Post-Marxism: Political Subjectivity and the Monetary Link between Italian Operaismo and Capital Logic Rebecca Carson185 Chapter 12 ‘Il Faut Continuer’: Always-on Capitalism and Subjectivity Alexei Penzin

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Index230

CONTRIBUTORS Carina Brand is Senior Lecturer in Visual Art and Contextual Studies at De Montfort University, where she researches interdisciplinary Marxist and Feminist readings of art and culture. Her chapter ‘Feeding Like A Parasite: Extraction and Science Fiction in Capitalist Dystopia’ appeared in Economic Science Fictions (2018). Her current research explores the relationships between the rise of capitalism, gender and the unconscious. A monograph on the work of Stuart Brisley is forthcoming. Rebecca Carson is Lecturer in Critical and Historical Studies at the Royal College of Art, London, where she researches Marx and Philosophy. Her chapter ‘Money as Money: Suzanne de Brunhoff ’s Marxist Monetary Theory’ appeared in Marx Inattuale, Edizioni Efesto (2019) and her article ‘Fictitious Capital and the Reemergence of Personal Forms of Domination’ in Continental Thought & Theory (2017). Her current research looks at Marx’s philosophical use of the term ‘life’ in relation to Hegelian philosophy, in order to understand differentiated forms of subjection within the expanded reproduction of capital. Luhuna Carvalho received his PhD from the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy (CRMEP) at Kingston University in 2021. Carvalho’s research proposes a new interpretation of the Italian social movements Operaismo and Autonomia. His chapter Rude Life will appear in the forthcoming La Rivoluzione in Esilio. Scritti su Mario Tronti (Quodlibet, 2021). Lorenzo Chiesa is Lecturer in Philosophy at Newcastle University. He was previously Professor of Modern European Thought at the University of Kent, where he founded and directed the Centre for Critical Thought. His books include: The Not-Two (2016); The Virtual Point of Freedom (2016); Italian Thought Today (2014); Lacan and Philosophy (2014); The Italian Difference (2009, with Alberto Toscano) and Subjectivity and Otherness (2007). His works have been translated into numerous languages. Jodi Dean teaches Political Theory in upstate New York. She is the author or editor of thirteen books, including: Comrade: An Essay on Political Belonging (2019); Crowds and Party (2016); The Communist Horizon (2012); Blog Theory: Feedback and Capture in the Circuits of Drive (2010) and Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies: Communicative Capitalism and Left Politics (2009). With Paul A. Passvant she co-edited Empire’s New Clothes: Reading Hardt and Negri (2003).

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Dario Gentili is Associate Professor of Moral Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy, Communication and Performing Arts at Roma Tre University (Italy). His monographs include: Il tempo della storia. Le tesi Sul concetto di storia di Walter Benjamin (2002, 2019); Italian Theory. Dall’operaismo alla biopolitica (2012); Topografie politiche. Spazio urbano, cittadinanza, confini in Walter Benjamin e Jacques Derrida (2009) and The Age of Precarity: Endless Crisis As an Art of Government (2021). He has co-edited (with Elettra Stimilli and Glenda Garelli) Italian Critical Thought: Genealogies and Categories (2018). Benjamin Halligan is the Director of the Doctoral College of the University of Wolverhampton. His publications include Desires for Reality: Radicalism and Revolution in Western European Film (2016) and Michael Reeves (2003) and the coedited collections: Stories We Could Tell: Putting Words to American Popular Music, by David Sanjek (2018); The Arena Concert: Music, Media and Mass Entertainment (2015); The Music Documentary: Acid Rock to Electropop (2013); Resonances: Noise and Contemporary Music (2013); Reverberations: The Philosophy, Aesthetics and Politics of Noise (2012) and Mark E. Smith and The Fall: Art, Music, Politics (2010). The monograph Hotbeds of Licentiousness: The British Glamour Film and the Permissive Society and the co-edited collection Diva: Feminism and Fierceness from Pop to Hip-Hop are forthcoming. Marc James Léger is an independent scholar based in Montréal. He is editor of several books, including The Idea of the Avant Garde – And What It Means Today, Volumes 1 & 2 (2014, 2019) and Zapantera Negra: An Artistic Encounter Between Black Panthers and Zapatistas (co-edited with David Tomas, 2016), as well as author of Brave New Avant Garde (2012), Drive in Cinema (2015), Don’t Network: The Avant Garde after Networks (2018) and Vanguardia: Socially Engaged Art and Theory (2019). Paul Mazzocchi is Adjunct Instructor at York University (Toronto, Canada). He is the co-editor of Thinking Radical Democracy: The Return to Politics in Postwar France. His work has appeared in Utopian Studies, Theory & Event, Constellations and Critical Horizons. His current research explores democracy and utopia in the work of Miguel Abensour. Alexei Penzin is Reader in Philosophy and Art Theory at the University of Wolverhampton, and Associated Research Fellow at the Institute of Philosophy of Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow. He has published numerous articles in such journals as Rethinking Marxism, Mediations, South Atlantic Quarterly, Crisis and Critique, e-flux, as well as in many edited collections. His essay Rex Exsomnis was part of the dOCUMENTA13 series (2012). Penzin edited and authored an afterword for the Russian translation of The Grammar of Multitude by Paolo Virno (2013), and co-edited the English translation of the book Art and Production by Boris Arvatov, one of the key theorists of the Soviet Avant-garde (2017). He is one of the founding members of the group Chto Delat (‘What is to be done?’),

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an internationally recognized collective of artists, writers and academics. Penzin is also a member of editorial boards of the journal Stasis (Saint-Petersburg) and the Moscow Art Magazine. Currently, he is preparing a monograph on sleep and capitalist modernity for Bloomsbury Academic. Stefano Pippa is Research Fellow in Political Philosophy at the University of Milano-Bicocca (Italy). He received his PhD in 2016 from the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy (CRMEP), Kingston University, UK. His research interests focus on the thought of Louis Althusser, post-Althusserianism, and contemporary critical theory. He has published articles in journals such as Radical Philosophy, Rethinking Marxism and Stasis, and his monograph Althusser and Contingency was published in 2019. Gerald Raunig works at the Zurich University of the Arts as Professor of Philosophy, and at the European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies (eipcp), where he is one of the editors of the multilingual publishing platform transversal texts (transversal.at). His books have been translated into English, Serbian, Spanish, Slovenian, Russian, Italian, Dutch and Turkish. Publications include: DIVIDUUM: Machinic Capitalism and Molecular Revolution (2016); Factories of Knowledge, Industries of Creativity (2013); A Thousand Machines: A Concise Philosophy of the Machine as Social Movement (2010) and Art and Revolution: Transversal Activism in the Long Twentieth Century (2007). Raunig lives and works in Málaga, Zurich and Vienna. Stevphen Shukaitis is Reader in Culture & Organization at the University of Essex, Centre for Work, Organization and Society, and a member of the Autonomedia editorial collective. Since 2009 he has coordinated and edited Minor Compositions: http://www.minorcompositions.info. He is the author of: Imaginal Machines: Autonomy & Self-Organization in the Revolutions of Everyday Day (2009); The Composition of Movements to Come: Aesthetics and Cultural Labour After the Avant-Garde (2016); Combination Acts. Notes on Collective Practice in the Undercommons (2019), and editor (with Erika Biddle and David Graeber) of Constituent Imagination: Militant Investigations//Collective Theorization (AK Press, 2007). His research focuses on the emergence of collective imagination in social movements and the changing compositions of cultural and artistic labour.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The co-editors wish to thank: the University of Wolverhampton research groups Art, Philosophy and Social Practice, and the Centre for Film, Media, Discourse and Culture, and the university’s Doctoral College; the convenors and participants of the Birkbeck Institute for Humanities conference On the Idea of Communism, of 2009; the convenors and participants of C17: The Rome Conference on Communism, of 2017; the ‘Chto Delat’ collective; Daisy Edwards, Lucy Russell and Liza Thompson at Bloomsbury Academic, and Frankie Mace; Étienne Balibar; Peter Bratsis; Joe Darlington; Roland Glasser; Mark Herbst; John Roberts; Imre Szeman. Jodi Dean’s essay first appeared in the journal Stasis (5:1, 2017), and is reproduced with kind permission of the author and journal editors. For the cover image, the co-editors acknowledge the generosity of the i-ypszilon group, and extend their thanks for use to Tamás Dósa-Papp, Tamás Emodi-Kiss, Kata György, Csaba Horváth.

I N T R O DU C T IO N : T A R RY I N G W I T H T H E M A N Y : A G A I N ST T H E F EW , B EYO N D T H E O N E Rebecca Carson, Benjamin Halligan, Alexei Penzin and Stefano Pippa

1 As the title of this book suggests, this collection deals with the question of ‘the Many’ as a form of political agency, starting from recent philosophical and political debates on the left.1 Drawing on these debates, the book chapters claim their own interventions, proposals and genealogies. The figure of the Many refers to various collective forms of political agency: crowd, class, the people and what in the tradition of Italian post-Operaismo has been named ‘multitude’. The Many also points to the use of the term in recent leftist politics, such as – for now, formerly – Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party’s slogan: ‘For the Many, not the Few’. This slogan has a noble literary lineage, as borrowed from the 1819 poem The Masque of Anarchy by Percy Bysshe Shelley. The poem is a commemoration of the Peterloo Massacre, which occurred in Manchester in the same year: cavalry dispersed a crowd of protesters of around 60,000, killing and injuring the people who demanded a reform of parliamentary representation. The famous fragment of the poem immediately resonates with many other past and future struggles: Rise, like lions after slumber In unvanquishable number! Shake your chains to earth like dew Which in sleep had fallen on you: Ye are many – they are few! The poem’s interpretations and uses have a long historical trajectory in diverse political and cultural contexts – for example, as recited by students at the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, and by protesters in Tahrir Square during the Egyptian revolution of 2011.2 In the time of Shelley’s poem, the categories of class or crowd had only been emerging in political discourse, or, as ‘multitudes’, had been long excluded from the dominant tradition in political philosophy in favour of other concepts, such

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as ‘the people’ (in the sense of a national body politic). As in the early nineteenth century, today we have a similar indeterminacy in that none of these concepts can claim full hegemony, neither in theory nor in radical political practice. ‘Class’ has been, and remains, a key category of radical left theory and politics, but after the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in 1991, and global transformation of many traditional communist or social-democratic parties, this category has been confronted with many challenges, part of which came from leftist theorists and philosophers themselves.3 From the 1990s onwards, many theorists began to propose new categories which would supplement the notion of class, such as ‘multitude’, as in the works by Antonio Negri, Michael Hardt and Paolo Virno, or attempted to rethink, in a radical way, categories which had not been previously marked as part of Marxist language, such as Jacques Rancière or Ernesto Laclau’s insistence on the category of ‘people’.4 After global mass protests in the late 2000s and the early 2010s, the category of ‘crowd’, coupled with rethinking the concept of the Party, has become significant for some radical theorists.5 Today we find ourselves at a crossroad with many possible paths beckoning through glimpses of new collective political formations that could potentially emerge from the current global crisis, as marked by rampant neoliberal policies, austerity, collapse of healthcare and reactionary far-right populism. In this context, the Many, as opposed to ‘the Few’ (the ruling classes, the global capitalist elites), seems to be relevant as an umbrella term for a broad spectrum of current struggles and debates about the forms of collective political subjectivity. From a philosophical perspective, the stubborn Many look beyond the power of ‘the One’, whatever shape the One takes: the monarch, the sovereign, the State or the neoliberal subject. The insistence on the Many as a general form of emancipatory subjectivity has critical implications for those fractions of the Left today that want to resuscitate the One as a key figure of political agency, using the obvious contrast with the political and philosophical discourse of previous decades, praising multiplicity and difference.6 To rethink the question of the One can be indeed necessary in the times of neoliberal erosion, and the decline of the welfare state, and lack of organization in radical movements. However, since Marx, who in his On the Jewish Question famously observed the split between the political form of the State and the substance of civil society in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, this social substance has been conceived as being rooted in the Many, not in the One. The Many cannot be erased for the sake of the One: this is an assumption shared by the editors and contributors of this book. Without drawing on banalities of the mainstream liberal discourse of political ‘pluralism’ and ‘anti-totalitarianism’, this assumption finds its inspiration in traditions of the oppressed whose struggles have always drawn on the dynamics of accumulating powers of the growing Many, as perfectly exemplified in Shelley’s poem. The authors and editors of this collection address the question of the Many in the view of what we call ‘the crisis of agency’. By political agency we mean an emergence of a revolutionary political agent that has the potential for changing the world through collective practices, challenging its social and economic inequalities, exploitation and oppression, and creating new institutions and forms of life. The crisis of agency refers to a political blockage that emerged in recent

Introduction

3

decades despite so many recent struggles, movements, new or radicalized left parties, from the movement of Seattle (started in 1991), the Occupy Movement, the Arab Spring, through to the defeats of Syriza and Corbyn’s Labour in more recent years. The enormous political potential created by the glaring social inequalities and absurdities of neoliberal capitalism has been consistently prevented from morphing into constituent acts that would bring real change, i.e. establish a new institutional, social and economic order. There have been ongoing discussions of this crisis, mentioning factors such as the long-term after-effects of the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, the fragmentation of the industrial working class, identity politics, culture wars, the growing precarization of labour, a revival of the old tunes of anti-immigrant nationalism and xenophobia and the rise of new rightwing populism.7 At the same time, more recent arguments have been advanced by authors who locate the crisis of agency at both the social and psychic levels, seeing it as caused by constant cognitive and informational overload, burnout and ‘impotence’ generated through technological infrastructures and accelerations of contemporary capitalism.8 As the reader will see, a number of authors in this collection confront the ‘crisis of agency’ through critical engagement with the concept of ‘multitude’. To anyone acquainted with the radical literature of the past two decades, this will not come as a surprise, given the impact that Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s trilogy of Empire, Multitude and Commonwealth has had on political debates, being subject over the years to both enthusiastic praise and violent critiques from many theoretical and political angles.9 Undeniably, their concept of ‘multitude’ represented, at the turn of the millennium, one of the most substantive attempts to rethink revolutionary subjectivity in the context of a new globalized worldorder – and one that explicitly drew on the concept of the Many in order to subvert the modern metaphysical hierarchy of the One, in the wake of the ‘savage anomaly’ constituted by Spinoza’s ontology of immanence.10 As will be apparent, the contributions to this collection that deal with this issue are far from apologetic. Rather, the opposite is true: their engagement with ‘multitude’ is, indeed, critical, if by this term we understand the attempt to situate thought in the space of problems made visible by a concept, and even (or above all) in its impasses and shortcomings. Undeniably, one of these problems was precisely related to the question of ‘agency’ and the political efficacy of the ‘multitude’, which in turn points to the theoretical problem of how a thinking of pure multiplicity can adequately sustain a project of political agency that is not confined to momentary eruption of protests. With respect to this, ‘multitude’ arguably inherits – and at the same time exacerbates – the same theoretical difficulties as the concept of class. The distinction between the philosophical concept of class (as proletariat, a ‘transcendental’ agent of the revolutionary agency) and the empirical-sociological definition of class (such as industrial or post-industrial working class) is well known. Similarly, one must discuss ‘multitude’ both as a bold philosophical concept (launched in early modernity in the debate of Spinoza and Hobbes) and in the dispersed, uncertain empirical appearances of new forms of labour and political subjectivity. In today’s discussions, which reflect both political and theoretical ‘crises of agency’ (as well as aspirations for an emergent agency of the current broader crisis of capitalism itself),

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this distinction risks turning into a separation or rupture between the empirical and conceptual aspects of the collective political subjects. Meanwhile, and more generally, the very epistemological framework of this distinction is defined by the same quasi-political logic of the relations between a unified theoretical concept and the empirical ‘manifold’ it aims to cover (or, as Adorno would say, over which it tries to establish its domination). Noticeably, the critical discussion of these politicoepistemic relations within post–Second World War continental philosophy runs in parallel with the political debates on class and other forms of collective agency – through the works of Adorno, Althusser, Foucault and Deleuze – and as developed between the poles of a new ‘empiricism’ that defended ‘singularities’ from being subsumed by the concept (and its normalizing or totalizing logic), and a paradoxical reinvention of the very concept that is thought as being a singularity itself. When this epistemological critique turns back to the political realm, it tends to lead to a radical and voluntarist nominalism: the empirical reality of class or ‘multitude’ does not preexist its political articulation effectuated through various hegemonic strategies. An opposing – realist, rather than nominalist – pole in these debates draws on empirical analyses of transformations within capitalism that create conditions of possibility for the new formations of the Many. However, after all the critical work done, the relations between the conceptual and empirical sides of class (or ‘multitude’) remain ‘denaturalized’ and problematic, and in need of further debate. In this respect, Hardt and Negri’s work can be taken as exemplary of at least some of the issues that any theorization committed to the Many may face. The problem of thinking of a ‘politics of the Many’ was inscribed from the outset as a theoretical problem in their work on ‘multitude’. This was not just in the obvious sense that the concept was meant to ‘resolve’, on a theoretical level, the problem of subjectivity, re-crystallizing it around a thinking of constitutive multiplicity in a moment when the paradigm of ‘class’ seemed to be no longer viable. (And this was in keeping, in this respect, with other similar attempts carried out since the mid1980s, such as Laclau and Mouffe’s notion of hegemony, or even Badiou’s postCartesian subject, up to more recent attempts such as Jodi Dean’s re-reading of the ‘crowd’, as exemplified in her contribution to this collection.) Rather, embracing the concept of the Many seemed to produce immediately an almost aporetical reversal into its opposite, which manifested itself in the need to articulate conceptually the relationship between multiplicity at the level of the ontic (the ‘there is’ of the different and non-totalizable fronts of the various struggles) and their ‘comingtogether’ as an agent at a political level. In Empire, and other subsequent works, such a ‘coming-together’ of the Many was often perceived as under the form of a ‘subject’ endowed with a telos.11 That is to say, this occurred in a form that it is very hard to see as anything other than still inextricably linked, for historical and philosophical reasons, to the very figure of the One. In a different fashion, and using a different jargon, this was the problem Althusser had warned about in his 1972 Reply to John Lewis, when he opposed ‘masses’ to ‘subject’. Althusser argued that the former – which alone ‘make history’, as he cautioned in his rather dogmatic defence of Marxism-Leninism – can never really be thought of as possessing the transcendental unity of the latter.12

Introduction

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Perhaps there is no more evident symptom of the theoretical difficulty encountered by Hardt and Negri, in their attempt to conceptualize the political ‘passage à l’acte’ of the ‘multitude’ than their resorting to the figure of ‘consciousness’. Is there, one can ask, a more explicit figure of the One in Modern philosophy? Their use of ‘consciousness’ to explain the ‘emergence’ (or ‘(non) emergence’ – a theme that is explored in depth by Stevphen Shukaitis’s chapter in this book) of the multitude as a political ‘subject’13 – was even accompanied by a somewhat surprising rehabilitation of the old Hegelo-Luckàcsian dialectic of the ‘in-itself ’ and ‘for-itself ’.14 Perhaps in response to criticisms, for Assembly, Hardt and Negri maintain that their previous use of Luckàcsian concepts was only for ‘pedagogical reasons’, thereby arguing that it should not be taken seriously.15 However theoretically dubious this argument may be (is not the dismissal of those concepts as a ‘mere’ pedagogical stratagem, which carries with it the assumption of a ‘master’ position towards the ‘masses’ to be taken as a confession to a genuine problem?), its theoretical upshot is a new elaboration of a rather different model to think through the political agency of the Many. In their most recent article, Hardt and Negri propose a return to the concept of class, albeit one that takes stock of its passage through the ‘dispersion’ embodied by multitude (which they sum up in the formula ‘C–M–C’); that is, a ‘class prime’ that possesses an internal unity made up of differences. As they write, the ‘multitudinous class’ requires ‘an internal articulation of different subjectivities – working class, racial class, sex class – in struggle. Intersectional analyses commonly address the need for articulation between subordinated subjectivities in terms of solidarity and coalition […] What is needed [instead] are internal bonds of solidarity’.16 If anything, this model abandons the figure of ‘consciousness’ and the old dialectic ‘in/for-itself ’ and proposes an alternative way to think of the unity that the Many will require if they are to achieve political effectiveness. However, in such a highly abstract and formalist model (which, arguably, shares more than something with Ernesto Laclau’s notion of ‘articulation’), the problem of the One is simply displaced onto another level, that of the ‘subjectivities’ out of which the ‘multitudinous class’ is made. But beyond the specific issues related to this model, it can ultimately serve as an indicator of the actuality of the problems that surround both a theory and a politics of the Many, thus posing the need for a collective discussion about it as a pressing political and theoretical task. Only such a discussion – which must go hand in hand with the conceptualization and critique of new modes of extraction of value from the Many – can provide the backdrop against which the ‘crisis of agency’ can be adequately addressed.

2 Of course, the development of these concerns does not come out of purely theoretical quibbles: it represents the theoretical side of a deep practical transformation of the dynamic and functioning of capitalism itself as well as of the life of the Many, simultaneously subsumed to it and resisting its capture. Using an old-fashioned

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schema, but one which has not lost anything of its cogency, one could say that the changes within the capitalist mode of production, both at the level of internal transformation and at the level of its geographical/geopolitical extension and hegemony, had altered the way in which value was produced. This alteration had generated an unprecedented social and economic landscape that could be grasped only by introducing new categories. Concepts such as post-Fordism (broadly understood as the decline of the rigid, disciplinary and unified paradigm of massscale industrial production), and the emergence of a new ‘production in dispersion’ (as Gerald Raunig puts it in this volume), or the ideas of new forms of labour and class composition, contribute to the theoretical discussion of the Many, making it more concrete and specific by emphasizing the overall social model that supports infrastructural mutations of late capitalism. The profound changes brought about by the shift towards a post-Fordist paradigm since the end of the Cold War were indeed accompanied, with glaring evidence, by a new hegemonic social and cultural model that would increasingly allow space for cultural difference rather than homogenization, varying in different geographic zones. Post-Fordist models of work freed segments of workers from the office and allowed them to become their own bosses. This model of work remained, and remains, the pole of the aspirational, rather than a majority, experience – and with influxes of migrant workers allotted to hard labour in the most precarious positions, and frequently exposed to growing xenophobia. Culturally, the management of lifestyles, sexual mores and preferences has been aligned with a post-moral secularism, opening up new consumer markets. This dynamic was increasingly recalibrated by feminist aspirations along consumer lines, across these years, too.17 The frontiers of an aspirational ‘freedom’ that enhanced the post-Fordist model were often individualized: one’s citizen’s rights, a safe ‘zone’ in which one could thrive, respect for one’s beliefs and customs, the right to assume that one will not be sexually harassed or assaulted, the privileging of subjective impressions in professional interactions – giving individual offence legal traction.18 In this way, once collective endeavours, such as 1970s cultures of feminist activism and solidarity, were transformed into narratives of individual empowerment (measured in personal achievement and exemplar status), and a collective levelling of the playing field was lost. And also lost in this paradigm shift was a close solidarity with the oppressed, often ‘other-ed’ in a classic colonial way, as denizens of the Global South. Solidarity was now invariably channelled into neoliberal modes of intervention through the co-opting of grass root strategies. For example: ‘rainbow revolutions’; ‘outsider’ millionaire philanthropists offsetting ethical condemnations with donations;19 people’s protests as invited by and allied to International Monetary Fund reformism (or even lent cautious state support, as with traditions of utilizing popular culture to mobilize sentiment in the name of causes);20 green capitalism and ‘greenwashing’, and identity politics calibrations to ‘liberal interventionism’ in the name of gifting ‘freedom’ rather than human rights to oppressed victims abroad (such as Afghani women subject to Taliban rule). All of this has been bolstered by social media networks and networking: a

Introduction

7

virtual collectivity, into a new Many, whose efficacy remains a matter of debate. Such activism even then looped back into the exemplar workplace as a means to achieve, statistically at least, equality or equal representation across gender, sexual orientation and ethnic minority groups. In this moment, class composition began to slightly shift. The professionals of the white-collar office needed a rejuvenating measure of blue-collar workers from the factory floors, and the factory floors needed (or were less inclined to pay for) fewer blue collars. Grey-collar workers (that is, semi-legal or illegal workers) – often for reasons of plausible denial, found at the end of a chain of outsourcing and sub-outsourcing (and so without the benefits and safety afforded to their blue counterparts) – lowered overheads. This allowed the factory to undercut competitors, or even just remain in business. The same logic applied to whitecollar workers too: an exodus from the 9–5 drudgery of the office to the social- and sugar-infused coffee houses, shirt-to-T-shirt ‘no collar workers’, exemplifying the ‘emancipation’ of the post-Fordist model. Certainly, in the blue and grey areas, labour continued as before – albeit for an ever-diminishing number of jobs: those jobs that could not be shifted to cheaper labour zones abroad (for example, assembling sandwiches or preparing meals for a distant restaurant’s microwave or, via an army of the elderly struggling to eat and remain warm on meagre pensions, the stacking of supermarket shelves through all hours of the night). And ‘pinkcollar’ labour, making up those in the caring professions, typically still associated with ‘women’s work’, was further burdened with the cost of the withdrawal of the state from protection of the most vulnerable in society. Forms of unpaid domestic labour persisted unabated, also mostly from women workers: the unreconstructed nature of that which Kathi Weeks considers under the rubric of the ‘social factory’.21 During the mismanagement of the Covid-19 pandemic from 2019/20, this tendency of pink-collar labour to alleviate the withdrawal of state protection became one of trying to ensure the very persistence of life itself, for frail or elderly family and friends, rather than just struggling to live without hunger and cold, and with some dignity. New forms of digitally enabled, entrepreneurial-flavoured, asset-stripping arose. The worker could use their car to become a taxi driver, or their spare room to become a proxy motel manager, or their body to become an online sex worker – either for moreish compliments to a salary or, for the ‘working poor’, essential compensation for an inadequate or dramatically uncertain ‘zero hour’ contract income. And into this sartorial spectrum, we must also slot those for whom ‘iron collar’ might as well be the descriptor: the document-less (‘sans-papiers’) immigrants and asylum seekers held in camps as the post-2000 ‘cornerstone of European migratory policy’: making for ‘[a] Europe of camps … [c]amps for foreigners, both in the heart of Europe and at its borders’.22 These shifts have been articulated through a number of new cultural or countercultural practices. By the late 1970s, through the vectors of punk and squatting, radical refusal extended to revised coordinates of family and social life. The experience of squatting radically revised notions of a nuclear, heterosexual family; pre-AIDS queer cultures, particularly in Berlin, New York and San

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Politics of the Many

Francisco, also forged experimental lifestyles that were dramatically unmoored from former understandings of almost all styles of living, and engendered their own anarchic subjectivities.23 In the post-socialist ‘East’ these tendencies have been present mostly in metropolitan areas, whilst peripheries spiralled down into poverty and abandonment after years of ‘market transition’ and ‘shock therapy’ in the 1990s. Some geographic zones entered into a neocolonial dependency on financial and infrastructural aid from the EU and the United States, while others developed their own local versions of capitalism, based on extraction and export of natural resources, or international traffic of cheap migrant labour. But even though postFordism has not been hegemonic in this area, and its cultural consequences have been less present, the same forms of labour and social conditions that primarily characterize this model have been proliferating in the former socialist ‘East’, such as a partial deindustrialization, growing service sectors, communicative and digital platform-based labour, and the exploitation of unprotected migrants’ work, as well as a growing precarity to work and a dismantling of the last remnants of the socialist welfare.24 Later, these conditions led to the emergence of reactionary and conservative political regimes that launched ‘culture wars’ and geopolitical struggles with recently idealized ‘democratic West’. By the turn of the millennium, internationalization and direct politicization swept many radical positions into one front against globalization – identified as the marketization of the world. Just as anti-nuclear campaigns of the 1980s had proclaimed that nuclear fallout did not respect national borders, so too antiglobalization campaigners understood that capitalism was a force that transcended the nation state and, like radiation, its effects were not circumscribed within the locales of its cause. Contemporary global capitalism required a ‘friction-free’ space, with bullish neoliberals picking up the mantle from Cold War Warriors when it came to decentring institutions, opening up, deregulating and ‘glocalizing’ new markets. And, within the constellation of these ideas, the welfare state was viewed as black hole: sucking in resources, and so the primary disabler, and hence enemy, of such progress.25 This was the unstoppable process that, as Gentili observes in this volume, Pier Paolo Pasolini had identified as a rapacious ‘neo-capitalism’, giving rise to a subgenre of critical theory, around the oft-quoted maxim that it was easier to imagine the end of the world, from an ecological or cosmic disaster, than it was to imagine the end of capitalism. Mark Fisher termed this, in psychosocial terms, the regime of ‘capitalist realism’.26 In this vast context, it was difficult to consider the idea of the Many as divorced from the continuation of traditions of radical refusal, in the anti-globalization/ alter-globalization protests of the 1990s and 2000s. The brutal responses to the protestors from increasingly militarized police forces (as in Genoa, in 2001), often operating under the suspension of legal norms (in states of ‘permanent exception’ finessed via obscure information regarding pending terrorist attacks), prompted a rethinking of activist strategies. Digital technology-enabled, centre-less networks evolved, as did multifarious and protean protests or (as Léger argues in this

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volume) seemingly leaderless protests – sometimes, for the news reporter, with a bewildering array of different political positions. It is difficult to sum up, in the space at our disposal here, the intense narrative of various protests, riots and movements that have broken out since mid-2000s, after the decline of alter-globalization protests – let alone to analyse their implications for the theoretical discussion about collective political agency today. However, one can say that, in their being still predicated, directly or indirectly, on general political condition of resistance to various aspects of global neoliberal capitalism and its variants, these movements have emphasized several specific issues. First, the post-2008 crisis of austerity, implemented through the mechanisms of financialization, debt and surveillance, conditioning the life of 99 per cent for the sake of the profits of the few (or 1 per cent), and in sparked the international Occupy movement in 2011. Second, and earlier in the same year, the Arab Spring and other, globally distributed protests and revolutions stood up to the authoritarian elites’ usurpation and abuse of power; and with this, third, spreading to anti-Donald Trump protests in the United States. Fourth, the climate emergency movement has gained substantial traction after pending ecological disaster became a scientific mantra in the 2010s, culminating in Extinction Rebellion activism in 2019, and other like-minded radical protests. Fifth, the feminist movement (such as MeToo, and more radical Marxist-feminist currents) and, sixth, anti-racist struggles of Black Lives Matter (from Ferguson in 2014 to Minneapolis and the rest of the United States and the globe in 2020) have been, arguably, the most vibrant in the recent decade. Given this proliferation of massive protest energies in last two decades, where then is the ‘crisis of agency’? Have we not been witnessing a massive outburst of agency in and through the (many) crises of a supposedly exhausted neoliberal model? As often noted, the current neoliberal model has been plunged into deep crisis, caused by its own hyper-exploitative policies, the resultant rampant inequality, the enslavement by debt, mass dispossession and despair. How can this be any kind of platform for stable or ‘sustainable’ economic and political forms? The crux seems to be that, despite the energies of spontaneous mass protests, so far the ‘agency of crisis’ has not been able to engender forms of political organization that would be able to shift the situation to a scale comparable to the revolutionary experiments of the twentieth century. Of course, each protest and each moment of the cycle of struggles mentioned above are specific to a certain time and place, and need to be grasped in its historical, social and political singularity – something which, for obvious reasons, we cannot even begin to do in this Introduction. However, what we can do is to recall that, mutatis mutandis, our situation is the same as the scenario faced by the revolutionaries of the past, who were always faced with precarious relations between necessity and contingency, openings and closures, failures and achievements. When, several years after October 1917, Lenin reflected on that overwhelming event, his main question was: why did the revolution, based on many historical contingencies and always near-to-failure, become victorious? Lenin considered that the victorious character of the revolution

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had been unprecedented within the existing records of all previous socialist revolutions and uprisings, which failed to ‘last’ – such as, most dramatically, the Paris Commune.27 Lenin’s answer was very clear, with respect to the conjuncture of the early twentieth century. The revolution won and was able to introduce a new, relatively endurable social order because a radical party that consisted of disciplined, theoretically advanced, highly practically skilled, internationally linked and self-sacrificial revolutionaries had been built in the decades preceding the revolution, thus shaping a subject capable of a victorious agency. Of course, in our reactionary post-1991 conjuncture, we need new answers – and, so far, the finding of these new answers has been a conundrum for the majority of radical political and theoretical projects. This conundrum seems to be a challenge for our contemporary times: how to create the possibility – not just for any ‘agency’ but for an agency capable of victory – of generating a social and political force that could establish new and just social and political forms capable of duration?28 Given the contemporary political and theoretical landscape, this question can be translated perhaps into the problem of a critical manoeuvring – for which we can suggest only preliminary orientations – between today’s accepted theoretical models. To begin with, one needs to take a respectful, but critical, distance from the already deflating philosophical and political logic of disruptive and novel – but ephemeral – revolutionary Event and its amorphous, rare and short-lived Subject. This is in order to approach, again, the logic of form and structure – together, possibly, with the related concept of ‘masses’ seen as the Many, and not as a transcendental One. At the same time, the anticipated continuity of a durable social form should not be ‘frozen’, in the sense of stabilized in an apologetic and non-critical way, but seen as a living and vibrant achievement of past and present struggles. In his famous reading of Hegel’s Phenomenology, Alexander Kojève made a subtle, but systematic, distinction between ‘achievement’ (résultat) and ‘success’ (succès). ‘Achievement’ is understood as a real change in the world in terms of the emergence of something new that is capable of duration, while ‘success’ is understood as an ephemeral media resonance, such as in terms of fame, visibility and recognition.29 It seems that recent left politics have partly been captured by today’s hegemonic model, through aspiration for a miraculous electoral or media ‘success’ (with consequent dramatic and painful failures, as with – in the 2010s – Syriza in Greece, Corbyn’s Labour Party, or the ups and downs of Bernie Sanders) rather than looking at and testing reality in terms of possible entry points for an ‘achievement’: a real change. However, by sharpening the focus of our political optics in this way, we should also see and so resist the familiar temptation to present the existing continuity of struggles as, already, an ‘achievement’ – in a Deleuzian fashion. That is, this temptation is to view radical protest movements, independent of their ability to result in any substantial change, as a desired plane of revolutionary immanence, which already exists in the here and now. As the political experiences of last decades teach us, this plane is precarious and easily absorbable by the logic of capital, in a similar manner as the model of the Event.30 We do not yet know what specific shapes these theoretical and political manoeuvrings, seeking the achievement of durable non-capitalist social forms, are

Introduction

11

able to take. It is clear, however, that neither the logic of the Event nor the logic of immanent ‘process’ and movement is able to lead us out of the prolonged political crisis of agency. Evidently, the overcoming of this crisis is an enormous problem that cannot be resolved ‘in one go’ but requires multiple efforts, as found in the chapters of this book: all these contributions are inspired by a quest to reposition and reshape our theoretical and political perspectives.

3 Our contributors consider the various forms of the Many as a starting point, in the context of contemporary capitalism, and the crises noted above, and explore its meanings, practices, evolutions, negations and ambiguities. The first section, ‘The One, the Many and the Multitude’ presents theoretical elaborations around these three categories of philosophical and political thought. The subsequent section, ‘Towards a Politics of the Many’, theorizes current situations and cases of radical or reactionary politics, with the underlying ‘crisis of agency’. The third and final section, ‘The Many under Capital’, focuses on specific social and economic conditions of contemporary capitalism that, as the authors and editors of this book hypothesize, inform the current political predicament. Gerald Raunig and Dario Gentili’s chapters, in different ways, set the scene for the debates and problematizations of the Many. The first section opens with Gerald Raunig’s chapter, a spin-off from his recent book Dividuum. As a whole, this book traces a genealogy of European thinking about multiplicity, division and ‘dividuality’ (‘Dividualität’), starting from late Antiquity’s atomism and Medieval theology, and advances the concept of ‘dividuum’ as a tool for analysis of contemporary ‘machinic capitalism’.31 In the chapter presented here, Raunig extracts from Plato’s dialogues three modes of parting (‘Teilen’) in ancient thought, and these three modes are now applied to thinking about the social and political world, as ‘partition’, ‘participation’ and ‘division’. Raunig identifies in the latter the figure that exposes the configuration of ‘agrioi’, ‘wild’, undomesticated, ungovernable elements of the polis. Raunig links his reflections on division and dividuality to contemporary machinic capitalism, defined as ‘production in dispersion’, posing questions about the political organization of the Many that would be situated ‘beyond the alternative of whether the many unfold from “the One” or aspire towards “the One”’. Dario Gentili’s chapter offers insights into genealogy of the Many by discussing the mythic figure of the centaur – an important symbol of multitude. Since early modernity, this figure is present in Machiavelli and Hobbes’s foundational texts on the state, sovereignty and ‘the people’. Half animal and half human, the centaur embodies a conflict between the politics of clashing forces within an untamed multitude, and the governance by the law that subsumes it to the form of the people-as-nation. A further genealogical sequence runs from Gramsci to post-1968 radical thought in Italy, including the enigmatic re-emergence of the centaur in Pasolini’s film of Medea. This centaur encrypts Pasolini’s reflections on rising neo-capitalism, which neutralizes emancipatory alternatives through

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Politics of the Many

an ‘anthropological mutation’ – i.e. a collapse of animal–human tension, now subsumed to a biopolitical arrangement of capital. The post-Operaist rediscovery of multitude since the 1990s has been justified due to the crisis of the State-Form caused by globalization. However, the neoliberal ‘state of nature’ of ruthless competition makes the multitude susceptible to populist discourses that speculate on the growing nostalgia for the bygone social security of ‘the people’ within the welfare state. In the current crisis of political agency, the centaur becomes a crucial symbol of an emancipatory alternative, rooted both in natural spontaneity and in the rational political organization of the Many. Paul Mazzocchi’s chapter focuses on the way in which Virno’s reflections on ‘multitude’ and ‘exodus’ can counter certain interpretations of the multitude as a subjectivity endowed with a ‘natural unity’ that would entail the ‘end of politics’ (as is the case for, notably, Mouffe). Mazzocchi argues that Virno’s unconventional reading of Schmitt allows for the conceptualization of a politics that, entailing the establishment of links of solidarity and friendship, enables the formation of bonds that exceed the statist logic and render possible the formation of new institutions open to incessant innovation. Countering certain explicit formulations of Hardt and Negri, Mazzocchi shows how Virno’s work allows us to pose the problem of devising institutions adequate to the multitude, understood as an open-ended process of individuation and singularization. For him, ‘multitude’ constitutes a ‘being-together’, always in excess of itself, capable of taking into account the ambivalent nature of human beings. Looking at the organizational structure of moments within cycles of struggle of the last few decades, the fourth chapter, written by Luhuna Carvalho, follows the conceptual legacy of Italian Operismo and the subsequent Autonomia movement, in their conceptualization of political strategy from the point of view of the ‘multitude’ as understood through the work of Negri. Locating the continuity between disparate social movements in strategy and tactics, the author claims that, though these movements have a shared basis in autonomous political apparatuses, the very strategies that might structurally reflect the multitude in their implicit internal differentiation have come to inherently refuse their own actualization. Carvalho argues that this observation contrasts with the conceptual continuity of Negri’s use of the term ‘multitude’, where the multiplicity internal to tactics within struggle is made meaningful only when conceptually relying on the subsequent creation of autonomous political institutions that challenge sovereign forms. In this way, Carvalho points out that if the concept itself requires an actualization (or at least the intention of actualization), then on the basis of actual political practice, where the question of actualization is starkly absent, the concept no longer suffices to articulate political experience in the present. Taking as its point of departure a different tradition, Jodi Dean’s chapter, ‘Crowds and Publics’, opens the second section by turning to the concept of ‘crowd’ as a new, key figure for a politics of the Many. Starting with an original and suggestive recuperation of Le Bon’s classical work, she proposes a new interpretation of the concept of ‘crowd’ that is less concerned with the role of the leader – as is customary in the more traditional readings of Le Bon, which began with Freud – than it is

Introduction

13

focused on the affective intensity of the ‘crowd’ as a ‘provisional collective being’. Criticizing the various ways in which the concept has been (mis)appropriated and enlisted in contemporary communicative capitalism (‘crowd-funding’ being perhaps the prime example), and arguing against the multifaceted ‘public sphere’ reduction of politics to conflict-free negotiations, the author aims to establish the concept of ‘crowd’ as a crucial concept for capturing the disruptive dynamics of political openings. The force of the ‘crowd’, argues Dean, lies in its being the condition of possibility of the emergence of a subject: ‘the Real that incites the political subject’ by forcing a gap in the present dominant order. Stevphen Shukaitis’s contribution addresses the problem of the ‘(non) emergence’ of the ‘multitude’ and offers conceptual tools to address such a problem. Arguing that too much emphasis has been put on class composition, the chapter suggests that in order to confront the pervasive ‘possessive individualism’ affecting even the most apparently ‘revolutionary’ subjectivities, it is urgent to analyse the way in which the (non)emergence of the multitude qua revolutionary subject is hindered by the constant ‘labour of decomposition’. This means, for the author, looking at the way in which new forms of labour are integrated back into disciplinary practices of control and segmentation. In his analyses, Shukaitis hints at a possible method to develop a new conceptualization of class decomposition by turning, in an original way, to the idea of the ‘non-contemporaneity’ of the multitude developed by the Italian philosopher Vittorio Morfino. For Shukaitis, this concept can serve as a potential starting point for analysing the different temporalities of the revolutionary subject itself. Benjamin Halligan’s chapter ‘Multitude Void’ explores the modes of legitimation of monarchical rule in the early-twenty-first-century UK. By carefully tracing a subtle morphing, orchestrated by the montage and commentary of television discourse, of a diverse crowd into unified ‘people’ who effectively endorse the legitimacy of regal power during royal events, Halligan claims there is a ‘voiding’ of the Many brought about by media techniques of representation and legitimization of the royal power. Drawing on Kantorowicz’s theory, introduced in The King’s Two Bodies (one mortal, one eternal – the latter representing and securing the continuity of power), this chapter argues that the surviving monarchy of the early twenty-first century uses a similar discourse, now shaped with the techniques of representations of the passive and so ‘voided’ masses in the media spectacle. Halligan’s analysis of television coverage in the course of royal events (such as the funerals of the Queen Mother and Princess Diana) shows how this process entails a sophisticated, and even fearful, denial of the sense of ‘multitude’. Next, the study turns to a recent and unavoidable manifestation of mass protest – the Gilets Jaunes (the ‘Yellow Vests’), which Marc James Léger identifies as an ‘unintentional vanguard’. Events subsequent to the emergence of this movement, in France, in the autumn of 2018, suggest that this taking to the streets re-energized a post-Occupy sensibility. In Léger’s forensic analysis, the movement is logically read in respect to multitude, as leaderless and horizontalist. And so the movement befuddled commentators who, in seeking to comprehend a cluster of related reasons for the protests, illustrated the limitations

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Politics of the Many

of bourgeois democratic paradigms, in terms of the state reading, and managing, such convulsions. To identify this mass as ‘post-ideological’ and ‘post-political’ – for the wrong reasons, or even the right ones – suggests, as Léger concludes, the germination of new forms of protest, new sensibilities, a new communalism and forms of opposition that grow out of a rejection of previous, and politer, modes of voicing dissatisfaction. While previous sections theorized the Many from the point of view of European Marxist (particularly, but not exclusively, autonomist-inflected) traditions and contemporary debates, the third section, ‘The Many under Capital’, turns to thinking through more diverse traditions and problems. Drawing on Achille Mbembe’s theory of ‘necropolitics’ as well as Black feminism, Carina Brand’s chapter, ‘The Necropolitics of Reproduction: Black Feminism, Mothers and the Death Drive’, opens this last section. Brand focuses on the impact necropolitics has on the reproduction of gendered hierarchies, analysing it from the standpoint of the social reproduction of capital (or the reproduction of life within capitalism) as the crucial biopolitical apparatus of power determining capitalist social relations. Brand asserts that the works of Angela Davis, bell hooks, Hortense Spillers, as well as that of fiction authors such as Toni Morrison, Gayl Jones and Octavia Butler together make up the early theories of the necropolitical. This claim is developed through Brand’s reflections on the way in which reproduction is understood by these authors as structured by forms of violence that are ultimately necropolitical in quality. In this way, Brand allows us to interpret the body of women of colour as the norm of the necropolitical and, consequently, she argues that the necropolitical is an essential reproductive apparatus internal to capitalism, determining the life of the Many under capital. In response to the failures of the political possibility of the Many in practice, value form theoretical (‘Marxist’) readings of capitalism have become more and more present as a way to understand the workings of capitalism. However, it is also widely claimed that this body of literature, in its heavy focus on abstract forms, fails to adequately think through collective political subjectivity, practice and politics, if at all. In her chapter, Rebecca Carson claims that although these traditions contain different understandings of subjectivity and subjection, with a detailed reading of the inner workings of the money form we can reconstruct a link between these two sides (where we find both the abstract self-movement of the value form and a quasi-independent form of political subject). What this chapter claims is that it is with the consolidation of both traditions on the basis of a reinterpretation of money, that we might come much closer to an adequate analysis of the complexity of differentiated modes of subjection and subjectivation under capital, and therefore the experience of the Many living under capital. Lorenzo Chiesa’s chapter, ‘Insomnia@Work: Between Neo-Workerism and Psychoanalysis’, reflects on conditions of contemporary capitalism under which the boundaries between work and ‘free time’ have been diffused, dramatically changing our lives. In testing the most extreme case of putting insomnia to work, Chiesa’s chapter criticizes the simplification of psychoanalytic theory in Jonathan

Introduction

15

Crary’s 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep. Chiesa argues that the linkage of insomnia to a productive value in a capitalist context can be found in Freud’s concept of ‘Traumarbeit’, which presents dreams as a form of ‘work’ on residual mnemonic traces of daily life. Dreaming becomes a form of immaterial ‘work’ that can be potentially included in our advanced capitalist process of generating and capturing value. This chapter concludes with the provocative hypothesis of an ‘advent of the sleepless worker’ that is critically related to the ‘Agambenian’ assumptions associating sleep with a peaceful passivity or messianic ‘inoperativity’ that is the last bastion against pervading captures of capitalist valorization. Finally, in the concluding chapter of the book, Alexei Penzin explores a specific condition of late capitalism – that is, the almost uninterrupted continuity of its operation. This condition imposes new frameworks of exploitation, exceeding the limits established in the workers’ struggles of industrial eras, and can be seen as a part of the contemporary ‘crisis of agency’. While criticizing the prevailing eclectic approaches to 24/7 condition in today’s critical theory, Penzin argues that a systematic theoretical genealogy of this condition has to do with the tendencies emphasized in Marx’s concept of capital, and the modern philosophical discourse that associates the subject with constant activity. First, the chapter rereads the post-Kojèvian philosophical debates about the ‘end of history’ that it interprets as a historical inauguration of ‘continuity without telos’. Then it delves into the Grundrisse, where Marx discusses the continuity of capitalist production as its necessary condition. For its next step, the chapter makes an excursion into Marxist readings of seventeenth-century philosophy, to trace the model of incessant activity of the subject in early modern debates. By way of conclusion, the chapter looks at the radical political struggles that implicitly or explicitly address the continuity of capitalist value-metamorphosis and, ultimately, express an alternative ontological continuity of the Many.

[4] Postscript: The Pandemic and the Many While completing this book in the first half of 2020, we were faced with the unprecedented outbreak of a global pandemic. The impulse seems almost unavoidable – given the scale of the looming transformations to society, and the fact that the editors are based in two of the most badly affected European countries (the UK and Italy) – to conclude this Introduction with a sharing of several brief remarks about the implications of this far-reaching event for the Many and the ‘crisis of agency’, as aligned with ideas and insights developed within this collection. The pandemic brought about massive and, at times, shocking political and social changes and challenges to a previous ‘normal’ course of life, through the introduction of new emergency measures: ‘social distancing’ and nationwide lockdowns. These measures put one fraction of labour into unemployment and desperate precarity, as in the service and entertainment industries, and for various forms of casualized labour, as well as cultural and academic workers on renewable contracts. And another fraction, now termed ‘key workers’, were shifted into the

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Politics of the Many

proximity of danger of infection, from an unknown and potentially lethal virus. The rest confronted the prospect of a devastating economic crisis. Many philosophers, social scientists and political commentators provided – sometimes too hastily – running commentaries on the unfolding crisis.32 The common concern in approaching the existential, philosophical and political aspects of the crisis was the implications of the new emergency measures. In, for example, new limitations of the basic rights of movement and public gatherings, the very mechanism of protest and expression of disagreement has seemingly been outlawed. At the same time, to sustain capitalist political-economic continuity (that question of continuity, as explored in Penzin’s contribution to this book), many neoliberal governments in Europe found themselves forced to undertake or at least promise the temporary measures that have always been associated with ‘far’ left politics, such as nationalizations of key industries, mortgage holidays, rents suspensions and providing a kind of temporary basic income for the most affected fractions of labour, effective upon request. In conjunction with this, and despite appearances, one comes to think how artificial and ‘unnatural’ (in whatever sense) contemporary capitalism is in itself, if some of such fundamental and major aspects can be ‘cancelled’ so quickly, and so readily. The pandemic affected the very paradigm of continuous activity and its social nature. The pandemic crisis created an enormous panic, not only as it posed a real threat to individual lives, but also because it effectively targets the very principle of continuity as capitalist valuemetamorphosis. What this breakdown in capital’s continuity and subsequent implementation of faux-socialist policies have revealed is that, in times of crisis, socialism, in whatever reluctant forms, becomes necessary as a means of societal survival.33 In this way, the role of the nation state, and residual central welfare arrangements, has come to be perceived as crucial in those circumstances. This led some left observers to place their aspirations into a longer-term projection, beyond the current pandemic, of assuming a coming resurgence of socialist politics. The administration of faux-socialist policies on the basis of a preoccupation with questions of survival led some thinkers to become preoccupied with these new forms of biopolitical control which reduce social and human life to the ‘bare life’ of medically objectified healthy bodies. And that this dystopian arrangement can potentially continue, after the pandemic, so as to become instrumental to the functioning of populist authoritarian governments. At the same time, proponents of state socialism gained optimism that the very same tendency could, as now nakedly exposed, result in cracks to the dominant neoliberal paradigm.34 This aspect of the pandemic seems to be the expansion of the One and the diminishment of the space of the Many. So what happens with the Many – with the right or even ability to protest, to resist, to challenge the authorities that impose the state of exception across the planet? An immediate answer seems steeped in pessimism as politics is fundamentally a public action; the global regimes of ‘house arrest’ and ‘social distancing’ now block this. Comments in the aforementioned New Left Review response advance this line: ‘popular political participation is limited, perforce, by the necessities of social distancing, which in separating

Introduction

17

people inevitably curtail the chances of collective action’.35 And that central agency has been returned to the State: ‘the political agencies taking charge, one by one, are nation-states, summoned back from the secondary status to which laissezfaire ideology had consigned them – and now resuming, as if in war time, their foundational responsibility for public safety.’36 It seems that with the exception of various and proliferating local mutual aid groups, one can hardly see any further political expressions of the Many at all. However, there is another, and more promising, tendency, and one which may be able to unfold into the future. Recently, Judith Butler made an arresting point, in an online discussion, opposing the common view that the pandemic lockdown suspends political action based on corporeal solidarity and collective performance.37 Butler hailed counter-illustrative examples of distanced forms of political action that do not imply corporeal co-presence in the streets. These forms of radical politics existed long before the epidemics, such as in international campaigns of solidarity, or help for imprisoned activists. Further to Butler’s point, one could mention many more forms of radical politics emerging during the pandemic, and all of them coming from the spontaneous inventions of many people. The document ‘Methods of Dissent & Collective Action Under COVID’, compiled by anonymous activists, registers and provides reports concerning 140 such methods. These include rent strikes, walkouts, ‘immigration detention protest’, ‘protest on bikes’, ‘socially distant protests (standing apart)’, ‘protest from home, porch, or balcony (speak, chant, or hold a sign)’, ‘homeless families occupying vacant homes in response to orders to ‘stay at home’, ‘personless protests: signs with faces and messages planted in place of people’, ‘intellectuals developing & circulating post-COVID manifestos’, ‘online rallies held on Zoom and Facebook Live’, ‘zoom-bombing’, ‘social media storm’ and so on.38 This somewhat Borgesian list itself speaks of inspiration and political hope, introducing us to various forms of inventive human activities that are able to be powerful vehicles for struggles – even in the most constrained and immobilized conditions of ‘house arrest’. Such an explosive proliferation of new political ideas and modes of activism constitute a promising glimpse into the future, beyond the current crisis, and dawning formations of the Many endowed with the agency to change the world.

Notes 1

2

By our use of the term ‘left’, we broadly refer to debates that took place within the parliamentary left (i.e. formal political parties or their fractions, which may retain a sense of a former socialist or communist identity even in the midst of an embrace of neoliberal positions) and grassroots and radical leftist movements, as well as discussions that have characterized recent developments in critical theory and political philosophy. We have capitalized ‘the Many’ and ‘the One’ throughout this discussion to denote our references to collective form (the Many) and unifying form (the One) respectively. See Anoosh Chakelian, ‘“Rise like lions after slumber”: Why do Jeremy Corbyn and co keep reciting a 19th century poem?’ New Statesman (27 June 2017): https://www.

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4 5 6

7 8

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Politics of the Many newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2017/06/rise-lions-after-slumber-why-do-jeremycorbyn-and-co-keep-reciting-19th-century. For a good reconstruction of the debates on class in the 1980–90s, see Erik Olin Wright, Understanding Class (London: Verso, 2015). For a recent original genealogy of class as a concept, informed by Michel Foucault’s perspectives on biopolitics and Walter Benjamin’s insights on dialectics of class and masses, see Andrea Cavalletti, Class, trans. Elisa Fiaccadori, ed. Alberto Toscano (London, New York and Calcutta: Seagull Press, 2019). And see also: Étienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein, Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities (London, New York: Verso, 1991). Alain Badiou, Pierre Bourdieu, Judith Butler, George Didi-Huberman, Sadri Khiari and Jacques Rancière, What Is a People? (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016); Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason (London: Verso, 2005). See Jodi Dean, in this volume, but also her Crowds and Party (London: Verso, 2018). For example, in the last years, Slavoj Žižek discusses ‘bureaucratic socialism’ positively, and the need for a bureaucratic State. See Slavoj Žižek, ‘A plea for bureaucratic socialism [video]’, lecture delivered at Círculo de Bellas Artes, Madrid, Spain (28 June 2017): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OYSMWJafAI. For an investigation of the figure of the One in its relation to politics, see also Artemy Magun, ed., Politics of the One: Concepts of the One and the Many in Contemporary Thought (London: Bloomsbury, 2012). This debate was already occurring in the 1980s. See for example, Stuart Hall, The Hard Road to Renewal: Thatcherism and the Crisis of the Left (London: Verso, 1988). See Zygmunt Bauman and Carlo Bordoni, State of Crisis (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2014), Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015) and Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi, Futurability: The Age of Impotence and Horizon of Possibility (London: Verso, 2019). However, Virno’s influential Grammar of the Multitude theorized the Many from different philosophical positions, which led the author to a problematization of relations between ‘human nature’, post-Fordist labour, and new institutions; Paolo Virno, A Grammar of the Multitude: For An Analysis of Contemporary Forms of Life, trans Isabella Bertoletti, James Cascaito and Andrea Casson (New York: Semiotext(e), 2004). Antonio Negri, The Savage Anomaly: The Power of Spinoza’s Metaphysics and Politics, trans. Michael Hardt (Minneapolis; Oxford: University of Minnesota Press, 1991). Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), 395. Now in Louis Althusser, On Ideology (London: Verso, 2009), 79–80. Hardt and Negri, Empire, 399. See Žižek’s criticism of this point in Slavoj Žižek, In Defence of Lost Causes (London: Verso, 2008), 353. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Assembly (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 65. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, ‘Empire, Twenty Years On’, New Left Review 120 (November-December 2019): 89. See discussions in: Stacy Gillis, Gillian Howie and Rebecca Munford, eds. Third Wave Feminism: A Critical Exploration, Expanded Second Edition (London: Palgrave Macmillan, [2004] 2007); Rosalind Gill and Christina Scharff, eds. New Femininities: Postfeminism, Neoliberalism, and Subjectivity (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). The lightening-rod text in relation to feminism and consumerism

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19 20

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25 26 27 28

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has been Catherine Hakim, Honey Money: The Power of Erotic Capital (London: Penguin, 2011). As Laclau and Mouffe argued, ‘[i]nsofar as of the two great themes of the democratic imaginary – equality and liberty – it was that of equality which was traditionally predominant, the demands for autonomy bestow an increasingly central role upon liberty. For this reason many of these forms of resistance are made manifest not in the form of collective struggles, but through an increasingly affirmed individualism’ (Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics (London: Verso, 2001), 164). See Anand Giridharadas, Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2018). See, for example, Socialist Equality Party, ‘ “Live 8” – a political fraud on behalf of imperialism’, World Socialist Website (1 July 2005): https://www.wsws.org/en/ articles/2005/07/live-j01.html. On the direct link of the Live 8 campaign with IMF policy: Andrew Walker, ‘Did Live 8 and G8 Help Cut Africa’s Debt Burden?’ (10 July 2015): https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33388990. Kathi Weeks, The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics and Postwork Imaginaries (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2011), 120–3. Achille Mbembe, Necropolitics, trans. Steven Corcoran (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2019), 99, 102. See also Razac on the nets and fences, and razor- and barbed wire that await immigrants on the coasts of ‘fortress Europe’: Olivier Razac, Barbed Wire: A Political History, trans. Jonathan Kneight (New York: The New Press, 2002), 99–114. On these subcultures, see Edmund White, States of Desire (New York: Dutton, 1980), and Patrick Moore, Beyond Shame: Reclaiming the Abandoned History of Radical Gay Sexuality (Boston: Beacon Press, 2004). See Boris Buden, ‘Children of Post-Communism’, in Welcome to the Desert of PostSocialism: Radical Politics after Yugoslavia, ed. Srećko Horvat and Igor Štiks (London: Verso, 2015), 123–39, and Ilya Budraitskis and Alexei Penzin, ‘The Catastrophes of “Real Capitalism”’, in Post-post-Soviet? Art, Politics and Society in Russia at the Turn of the Decade, ed. Marta Dziewanska, Ekaterina Degot and Ilya Budraitskis (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2013), 41–53. See Hardt and Negri, Empire, 296. This reading of the welfare state would come to characterize the development of the philosophical and ideological basis of Thatcherism in the 1970s, under the guidance of thinkers such as Sir Keith Joseph. Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? (Winchester: Zero Books, 2010). See Vladimir Lenin, ‘Left-Wing’ Communism: an Infantile Disorder (Detroit, Michigan: Marxian Education Society, 1921). In his Machiavelli and Us, written in the seventies, Althusser reflected precisely on the political problem of the ‘beginning from nothing:’ how can the Prince transform the ‘contingency of the beginning’ into something that can last? Louis Althusser, Machiavelli and Us, trans. Gregory Elliot (London: Verso, 1999). This distinction is noted by Boris Groys in his article ‘Photographer as a Sage’, published in After History: Alexandre Kojève as a Photographer (Utrecht: BAK, 2012), 33–47. Kojève presents this distinction at work by opposing the true revolutionary to the success striving one: ‘[o]nly the Revolutionary who manages to maintain or reestablish the historical tradition, by preserving in a positive memory the given present which he himself has relegated to the past by his negation, succeeds in

20

30 31 32

33

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35 36 37 38

Politics of the Many creating a new historical World capable of existing’; Alexander Kojéve, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989), 233 (Kojéve’s italics). For early and penetrating criticism, see Slavoj Žižek, Organs Without Bodies: On Deleuze and Consequences (New York and London: Routledge, 2004). Gerald Raunig, Dividuum: Machinic Capitalism and Molecular Revolution (South Pasadena, California: Semiotext(e), 2016). For early debates, see European Journal of Psychoanalysis, ‘Coronavirus and Philosophers: M. Foucault, G. Agamben, J. L. Nancy, R. Esposito, S. Benvenuto, D. Dwivedi, S. Mohan, R. Ronchi, M. de Carolis’, European Journal of Psychoanalysis (March-April 2020): http://www.journal-psychoanalysis.eu/coronavirus-and-ph ilosophers/?fbclid=IwAR30OSsvKbVs01ionosGKJaOU950M-zLYjlbHMW212_ NO1v3wqzRUwZfhJk; and see too the March-April issue of New Left Review, cited elsewhere in this Introduction, with eight authors considering the ‘Planetary Pandemic.’ Slavoj Žižek was able to publish a short book by April 2020, which prompted some commentators to joke that his commentary was faster than the speed of the pandemic’s spread; Slavoj Žižek, Pandemic! Covid-19 Shakes the World (New York and London: OR Books, 2020). More precisely: societal survival as being concerned with the reproduction of social life as a whole, excluding concerns for the individual lives of those who are excluded from these policies in various ways, on the basis of the restrictions internal to the administration and circulation of resources. Žižek claimed the potential re-emergence of a ‘strong State’ as ‘needed in times of epidemics since large-scale measures like quarantines have to be performed with military discipline’, and a forced ‘reinvention of communism’ after pandemics as the only alternative to the looming barbarity; Žižek, Pandemic! 10. Giorgio Agamben issued a series of shorter pieces online, in which he expressed concern about the ramifications of the pandemic state of exception, also echoed in the European Journal of Psychoanalysis, ‘Coronavirus and Philosophers’ collective, cited elsewhere in this Introduction. Mario Sergio Conti, ‘Pandemonium in Brazil’, New Left Review 122 (March-April 2020): 48. Conti comments in relation to Brazil. New Left Review editors, ‘A Planetary Pandemic’, New Left Review 122 (March-April 2020): 5–6. The corporeal solidarity and collective performance have been a topic of Judith Butler’s recent Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015). See Anonymous, ‘Methods of Dissent & Collective Action Under COVID’, https:// docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/179hz-OKrfcAr3O0xi_Bfz9yQcK917fbLzUSxPZ3o_4/edit#gid=0. (We note that some of the methods listed in the documents are used by many political forces, and are now then exclusive to the radical Left.)

References Anonymous. ‘Methods of Dissent & Collective Action Under COVID’. https://docs. google.com/spreadsheets/d/179hz-OKrfcAr3O0xi_Bfz9yQcK917fbLz-USxPZ3o_4/ edit#gid=0.

Introduction

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Althusser, Louis. Machiavelli and Us. Translated by Gregory Elliot. London: Verso, 1999. Althusser, Louis. On Ideology. London: Verso, 2009. Badiou, Alain Badiou, Pierre Bourdieu, Judith Butler, George Didi-Huberman, Sadri Khiari and Jacques Rancière, What Is a People? New York: Columbia University Press, 2016. Bauman, Zygmunt and Carlo Bordoni. State of Crisis. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2014. Berardi, Franco‘Bifo’ Futurability: The Age of Impotence and Horizon of Possibility. London: Verso, 2019. Buden, Boris. ‘Children of Post-Communism’. In Welcome to the Desert of Post-Socialism: Radical Politics after Yugoslavia, edited by Srećko Horvat and Igor Štiks, 123–39. London: Verso, 2015. Budraitskis, Ilya and Alexei Penzin. ‘The Catastrophes of “Real Capitalism”’. In Post-postSoviet? Art, Politics and Society in Russia at the Turn of the Decade, edited by Marta Dziewanska, Ekaterina Degot and Ilya Budraitskis, 41–53. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2013. Butler, Judith. Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015. Cavalletti, Andrea. Class. Translated by Elisa Fiaccadori, edited by Alberto Toscano. London, New York and Calcutta: Seagull Press, 2019. Chakelian, Anoosh. ‘“Rise like lions after slumber”: Why do Jeremy Corbyn and co keep reciting a 19th century poem?’ New Statesman (27 June 2017): https://www. newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2017/06/rise-lions-after-slumber-why-do-jeremycorbyn-and-co-keep-reciting-19th-century. Conti, Mario Sergio. ‘Pandemonium in Brazil’, New Left Review 122 (March-April 2020): 43–8 Dean, Jodi. Crowds and Party. London: Verso, 2018. European Journal of Psychoanalysis. ‘Coronavirus and Philosophers: M. Foucault, G. Agamben, J. L. Nancy, R. Esposito, S. Benvenuto, D. Dwivedi, S. Mohan, R. Ronchi, M. de Carolis’. European Journal of Psychoanalysis (March-April 2020): http://www. journal-psychoanalysis.eu/coronavirus-and-philosophers/?fbclid=IwAR30OSsvKbVs0 1ionosGKJaOU950M-zLYjlbHMW212_NO1v3wqzRUwZfhJk. Fisher, Mark. Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? Winchester, Zero Books, 2010. Gill, Rosalind and Christina Scharff, eds. New Femininities: Postfeminism, Neoliberalism, and Subjectivity. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Gillis, Stacy, Gillian Howie and Rebecca Munford, eds. Third Wave Feminism: A Critical Exploration, Expanded Second Edition. London: Palgrave Macmillan, [2004] 2007. Giridharadas, Anand. Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2018. Groys, Boris. After History: Alexandre Kojève as a Photographer. Utrecht: BAK, 2012. Hall, Stuart. The Hard Road to Renewal: Thatcherism and the Crisis of the Left. London: Verso, 1988. Hakim, Catherine. Honey Money: The Power of Erotic Capital. London: Penguin, 2011. Han, Byung-Chul. The Burnout Society. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015. Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000. Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. Assembly. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. ‘Empire, Twenty Years On’, New Left Review 120 (November-December 2019): 67–92.

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Kojéve, Alexander. Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989. Laclau, Ernesto. On Populist Reason. London: Verso, 2005. Laclau Ernesto and Chantal Mouffe. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. London: Verso, 2001. Lenin, Vladimir. ‘Left-Wing’ Communism: An Infantile Disorder. Detroit, Michigan: Marxian Education Society, 1921. Magun, Artemy, ed. Politics of the One: Concepts of the One and the Many in Contemporary Thought. London: Bloomsbury, 2012. Mbembe, Achille. Necropolitics. Translated by Steven Corcoran. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2019. Moore, Patrick. Beyond Shame: Reclaiming the Abandoned History of Radical Gay Sexuality. Boston: Beacon Press, 2004. Negri, Antonio. The Savage Anomaly: The Power of Spinoza’s Metaphysics and Politics. Translated by Michael Hardt. Minneapolis; Oxford: University of Minnesota Press, 1991. New Left Review editors. ‘A Planetary Pandemic’. New Left Review 122 (March-April 2020): 5–6 Plato. The Dialogues of Plato: Vol. 4. Translated by R. E. Allen. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997. Raunig, Gerald. Dividuum: Machinic Capitalism and Molecular Revolution. South Pasadena, California: Semiotext(e), 2016. Razac, Olivier. Barbed Wire: A Political History. Translated by Jonathan Kneight. New York: The New Press, 2002. Socialist Equality Party. ‘“Live 8” – a political fraud on behalf of imperialism’. World Socialist Website (1 July 2005). https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2005/07/live-j01.html. Virno, Paolo. A Grammar of the Multitude: For An Analysis of Contemporary Forms of Life. Translated by Isabella Bertoletti, James Cascaito and Andrea Casson. New York: Semiotext(e), 2004. Walker, Andrew. ‘Did Live 8 and G8 Help Cut Africa’s Debt Burden?’ BBC News (10 July 2015): https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33388990. Weeks, Kathi. The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics and Postwork Imaginaries. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2011. White, Edmund. States of Desire. New York: Dutton, 1980. Wright, Erik Olin. Understanding Class. London: Verso, 2015. Žižek, Slavoj. Organs Without Bodies: On Deleuze and Consequences. New York and London: Routledge, 2004. Žižek, Slavoj. In Defence of Lost Causes. London: Verso, 2008. Žižek, Slavoj. ‘A plea for bureaucratic socialism [video]’. Lecture delivered at Círculo de Bellas Artes, Madrid, Spain (28 June 2017):https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=2OYSMWJafAI. Žižek, Slavoj. Pandemic! Covid-19 Shakes the World. New York and London: OR Books, 2020.

Part I T HE O NE, T HE M ANY AND T HE M ULTITUDE

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Chapter 1 B O N D S A N D D I SP E R SIO N : P R OM E T H E U S D I V I D UA L Gerald Raunig

A programmatic paper for the project ‘Unleashing Prometheus’ states: ‘For today it is urgent to again rethink the future: to make the forces of production meaningful and just for all, to grasp technology and knowledge as the springboard for societal emancipation. To unleash the forces of production means: Unleashing Prometheus!’1 For me, these formulations raise a series of questions. Is it necessary to rethink the future or is it, in a Benjaminian turn, more a matter of thinking the present as expanded, as present becoming in its splintery relationship with the slivers of a past – not of the winners, but a shattered past of the oppressed? Is it in machinic capitalism still opportune to ‘unleash Prometheus’, and what form of un/leashing is involved here? If contemporary modes of production tend towards dispersion, what kind of specific form of tie binds us together? Has the machinic Zeus perhaps lost his interest in Prometheus, as well as in individual human beings and things? Are his implications perhaps rather dividual? In Plato’s Protagoras the myth of Prometheus, who steals fire for humans, is told in two parts: the first is about the sanction that befalls Prometheus himself, the second about that much larger ‘punishment’ that Zeus imposes on humans in the form of strict, common bonds: And so, inasmuch as he was not absolutely wise, Epimetheus didn’t notice that he had used up all the powers on the [general] lacking reason and that the human race was still left unorganized by him, and he was at a loss of what to do. And while he was at a loss, Prometheus comes to him to examine the distribution, and he sees the other animals [harmoniously] in tune in all [their provisions], but the human [animal] he sees naked and shoeless and without bedding and without weapons. And already the ordained day had come in which it was necessary for humankind also [like the other animals] to go out from the earth to the light. And Prometheus, being at a loss as to what safety he might find for the human being, steals from Hephaestus and Athena technical wisdom along with fire – you see, without fire this possession [of technical

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Politics of the Many wisdom] was to him without practical application [rather] than becoming a useful [possession] – and in this way indeed he makes a gift to humankind. And so in this way humankind had wisdom about the means of living, but it did not have wisdom about polis-craft; you see, [this wisdom] was at Zeus’ [house]; and it was no longer possible for Prometheus to go to the acropolis to the house of Zeus; and besides, Zeus’ guards were fearsome; and to the common house of Athena and Hephaestus, in which the two of them lovingly practiced their technical skills, Prometheus secretly goes, and after stealing Hephaestus’ technical skill of using fire and Athena’s other technical skills, he gives them to humankind, and from this [cause] a human being has an abundant means of living; but later, as it is said, a charge of theft pursued Prometheus on account of Epimetheus.2

So much for the first part of the Protagorean narrative. The sanction for Prometheus will consist of being bound to a rock where an eagle will come every day to eat his perpetually regenerating liver anew. The second part concerns the Platonic version of a ‘gift’, which Zeus gives to the humans to save them from individuation, which is described as problematic. This gift will have far-reaching effects on the history of political philosophy, but also on ideas about political composition and the concatenation of singularities. And since the human animal had a share of what was allotted to the gods, because (alone of animals) he had a kinship with the god, first he established conventions about the gods and undertook to build altars and images of the gods; second, by technical skill he quickly articulated language and names, and he discovered houses and clothes and shoes and bedding and the foods from the earth. Having been thus provided for at the beginning, indeed, humans lived spread out, and there were no poleis. And so they were destroyed by beasts because they were weaker in every way. And while their craftsmanly technical skill was a sufficient help to them for food, for war with beasts it was wanting. You see, they did not yet have a technical skill of polis-craft, of which skill in warring is a part. They kept on seeking, indeed, to gather themselves together and to save themselves [by] building poleis. And so when they were gathered, they were acting unjustly toward one another because they didn’t have the technical skill that concerns the affairs of the polis, so that being scattered again they were destroyed. And so Zeus, fearing for our genus, lest it be destroyed altogether, sends Hermes to bring reverential fear and a sense of what is legally just so that there might be both ordering principles of poleis and the bonds that bring about friendship. And so Hermes therefore asks Zeus in what way he might give a sense of what is legally just and a reverential fear to humans. ‘Should I distribute these in the same way that the technical skills have been distributed? They have been distributed like this: One person who has medical technical skill is sufficient for many lay people, and it’s the same for the other crafts-men. Am I, indeed, to put a sense of what is legally just and a reverential fear into the humans like this, or am I to distribute [them] to all?’

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‘To all,’ said Zeus, ‘and let all have a share. You see, there wouldn’t be a poleis, if few shared in these, as in many other technical skills. And put it down as a convention [established by my command] that [it is incumbent] to kill the one who cannot share in reverential fear and a sense of what is legally just, [killing him as] a plague of the polis.’3

Tough words, and this is not the only place in Plato’s writings where politics not only excludes the individuated, singular incompliants, but also threatens them massively. The three modes of parting are not three successive movements in a linear history or three completely separable circumstances, but rather three aspects of one and the same thing. They can be imagined as overlapping, they can be opposed to one another, they can be jumbled, their sequence can be reversed. The first mode of parting is partition. This is the mode of separation, of striating and notching time and space, of attributing and distributing the parts. In the mode of partition the parts are assigned to the appropriate places, the functional positions, the entitled owners. Partition is the attribution of the parts, which has limitation both as goal and as effect. It starts from a certain order, in which time and space are pre-structured, to newly reproduce order again and again. Implicit and explicit regulations, instructions, laws hold the parts in their position, in their separation and limitation under an autochthonic ‘nomos’. Every territory that comes into view is measured and identified as something to be partitioned. Partition is a distribution of the shares, a distribution according to ownership. The mode of partition is the procedure of counting and measuring, producing equivalence, and quantifiability. It cuts the parts off from everything they are capable of. It inhibits the concatenation of the parts. In partition, being-divided becomes being-unconcatenated, being suspended and yet dependent. The second parting-mode is that of participation. It is the procedure of organic partaking. The whole is its starting point and its goal. Organic partaking means the constant production of a whole. It does not mean tearing apart a whole, tearing it into pieces, parting it into parts independent of one another, but rather entering into a certain social relation of wholeness, being its part and thus reproducing the whole. The parts operate like organs as dependent functions of an organism. That is the organic logic of the whole, the community, the totality. ‘Partem capere’, taking the part, partaking. This sounds like actively taking-shares, even offensively capturing a part. Yet participation is never primary; it follows the whole. And the whole is not to be had. The partaking of participation implies taking and having a part of and after the whole. First there is the whole, a share of which is taken, in order to newly produce it. The part stays related to the whole and governs itself in reference to the whole. Contrary to partition, participation does not operate through separation and classification. The ‘partes’ of participation are linked to one another through their reference to the whole; they require exchange and intercourse with one another under the auspices of the whole, for which they become subservient, compliant. ‘Communio’, holy community. Logic of relating to the whole, constant reference, subordinating the part under the whole.

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Politics of the Many

The third mode of parting is division. Division is not a mathematical operation here, which divides an existing whole into equal parts. It is not delimitation and classification like partition, and it is not participation, not partaking as subserving relationality, as permanent reference to a totality, to an encompassing whole. Instead, division divides and simultaneously consolidates the indeterminatediffuse multiplicity. This multiplicity must be understood neither as a preceding nor as a future whole; it is a field of immanence, in which divisions draw their lines. The parting-mode of division is re-singularization. In dividing it posits a singularity, which detaches itself from the manifold and affirms it at the same time. Division takes its measure from multiplicity; it is a specific measure that engenders singular univocality in multiplicity. Division is the selection of a line; it chooses a line. It is the Platonic procedure of dividing. Plato’s dialogue ‘The Statesman’ is not only a fundamental writing on the ‘politiké techne’, the modes of governing and the constitutional forms of the Greek ‘polis’. It also offers an implicit demonstration and manifold instructions in the Platonic method of division. Division, ‘diairesis’, is not a momentary positing, but rather a long and winding path. Plato’s ‘atrapos’,4 the way, the line, which is to lead to a clear idea of the most suitable statesman, is itself not necessarily straight. In a contorted and sometimes erratic way, the dialogue pursues the question of how, from the multitude of insights and their different fields of applicability, a figure can be chosen which appears to be most suitable for the task, the technique, the art of governing. Even though there are no unified rules for the procedure of division, the ‘Statesman’ provides several explicit guidelines for its application. Dividing serves to distinguish ideas, and that is best done by clearly cutting through (‘témnein’): ‘it is not safe to whittle off shavings; it is safer to proceed by cutting through the middle’.5 A division into humans and animals, for instance, is wrong, or into Hellenes and barbarians, because this does not cover the distinction between species and part.6 A division into as few parts as possible is described as the best division: if bisection is impossible, then the division must be made into a number of parts as near two as possible.7 Further advice regarding good division is not to think of it from the end: ‘Let us, then, not make our division as we did before, with a view to the end, nor in a hurry, with the idea that we may thus reach political science quickly.’8 Division is best carried out with open-ended results and without a perspective of a too narrowly defined ‘telos’, without fear of detours, accepting dead ends, patiently testing further. In terms of open-ended results the strongest image of division in the ‘Statesman’, the process of purifying gold, rather leads in the opposite direction: it is fairly untypical not to have the end in sight when extracting gold. On this Plato says: Why, the refiners first remove earth and stones and all that sort of thing; and after that there remain the precious substances which are mixed with the gold and akin to it and can be removed only by fire – copper and silver and sometimes adamant. These are removed by the difficult processes of smelting and refining, leaving before our eyes what is called unalloyed gold in all its purity.9

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Extracting gold certainly has pure gold in view, so this seems to contradict the methodological demand of not looking at the end and not simply pursuing it in a straight line. Here, however, Plato is aiming at something else. He uses the image of the gradated mixture and separation, con- and disjunction, repeated smelting and refining, mainly to emphasize that the procedure of division is all the more difficult and tedious, the further it has progressed. Related territories, neighbouring zones, similarities require greater efforts of division than the first, rougher distinctions of division. Yet the schema of Platonic division is well rendered in the image of attaining gold: ‘Let us then leave one half and take up the other, and then let us divide that entire half into two parts.’10 Division seems to follow its path as a chain of distinctions, as a multi-stage selection, as far as possible to the end of the ‘atomon eidos’, a no longer separable and divisible concept that has no sub-concepts. Yet this movement of specifying a concept from the greater species to the next smaller one is only superficially at the centre of the Platonic procedure. Through the seemingly rigid chain of distinctions, the multiplicity of possibilities always shines through. When Plato addresses the question of the best herdsman for the herd of human beings in the ‘Statesman’, there is a whole series of candidates to be carefully distinguished: merchants, farmers, food-makers, trainers, physicians, helmsmen, then those hired for wages, heralds, those who deal with divination, priests, finally orators, generals, judges. And this does not exclude the possibility that there may be endlessly many other candidates. It remains open, whether new, surprising candidates may be found beyond the next curve of the line, traversing the identifications of singular occupational groups. Indefinite multiplicity is the precondition and constant companion of division, and heterogenesis is affirmed and re-singularized in the chosen path, in the singular line, no matter how discontinuous it may be. This is not the Aristotelian form of dividing a genus into opposite species. It does not specify, but instead selects against the backdrop of a multitude of selectable lines, which may be chosen from a diffuse multiplicity. Division is neither partition, classification and distribution as domination, nor is it participation, relating the parts to the whole. It is not the dissociation into one or the other species against the backdrop of a given genus. Categories, genera, species are not further distinguished. Dividing rather means selecting a singular line from manifold material. Drawing a line is not an identification. Because it operates in an unlimited field of consistency, the singular division cannot have a unifying effect at all. It tests, it divides, it posits, but it does not close. Nor does it want to be rid of the surroundings of the division, but rather to actualize, newly situate, streak them in the procedure of dividing. The line is a chain of affective-intellectual, socialmachinic positings, of detours, breaks, hesitations, changes of direction, turnings, warps, new connections – it is multiply broken, leaping, hopping, never the shortest path from a to b. The choice of line never erases the multiplicity that it comes from. Dividing means positing one line, no unification, but also no duification. In the Platonic procedure, drawing the line itself is foregrounded, not the duality, not the

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Politics of the Many

ambivalence that emerges through bisection, folding or bifurcation, nor the inbetween of two points. The line is not drawn between two points, but rather, the division affirms the one line of many, producing singular unambiguity. But can it really be said that the choice of line does not erase the multiplicity that it comes from? In the progression of division in the ‘Statesman’, it seems as though this procedure increasingly cuts off parts, eliminates them. For Plato division is undoubtedly (and wholly contrary to the later understanding of ‘divisio’ as classification into conceptual pyramids, especially in the Scholasticism of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries) a moody procedure, unpredictable in its movement, its breaks and leaps. In the context of indecision and an uncertain ending, it is also easy to underscore the incompliancy of Platonic division. And yet with Plato, what is wild is always already on the way to domestication: gold wants to be purified, the most suitable statesman/politikos wants to be finally selected, and the line of flight will have turned into a lineage that has always been certain of its genealogy. In the ‘Statesman’, however, there is a remarkable, slight empowerment to envision the wild, and it appears in the form of a dismissal. It takes us ‘ex negative’ to the traces of a form of subjectivation that Platonic statesmanship does not cover, cannot cover or does not want to cover, a subjectivation that adds something to parting, insofar as parting is thought from the perspective of the end as a whole, falling back into the logic of participation. Here, in this remainder, the division transmutes into a potential of dividuality, which does not need to reduce the line to lineage, but instead turns it into an irregular and overflowing stream, and which must not dispense with concatenation per se. Close to the beginning of the dialogue, following the division into the inanimate and the animate, into the ‘apsychic’ and the ‘empsychic’, statesmanship is attributed to the living, because ‘the science of the king is not, like that of the architect, one which supervises lifeless objects; it is a nobler science, since it exercises its power among living beings and in relation to them alone’.11 The subsequent cut that is relevant for us is intended to divide the animate, the empsychic, the living once again: the care of the ‘politikos’ is not for the breeding and nurture of singulars, but rather the common (‘koinos’) care of creatures in droves (‘agele’).12 The ‘monotrophia’, the ‘feeding of the one’, the care of a specific life, turning to the singular, is expressly not the area of the statesman. In the summarizing preliminary definition as well, this is how the function of the ‘politiké techne’ is described: the art of governing is ‘the art which we said gave its own orders and had to do with living beings, but had charge of them not singly but in common’.13 Whereas governing the common is the realm of statesmanship, the singular life of singularities is beyond its interest. In a further passage, where the topic is taken up again, the argument gains clarity in our sense, as the division into community and singulars is shifted to ‘tithasoi/hémeroi’ (tamed/human beings) and ‘agrioi’ (wild): ‘For if their nature admits of domestication they are called tame; if it does not, they are called wild.’14 This escalation of the classification into commonly (= human) and singly (= wild) living beings indicates a more general governing technique of inclusion and

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exclusion. Here the herd of the tamed is the enclosed, enclosing and bounded totality, the collective subject of statesmanship, and as its consequence the single wild beings, the incompliant, the unteachable are excluded. In this idea of the ‘politikos’, the herd is thus, first of all, not all-embracing and, secondly, not interested in the singulars. It is up to us to reverse the reading of the ungovernable in this conception of statesmanship, to affirm this figure rather than exclude it, and moreover to insist on its immanence: there are ways of living which as ‘agrioi’ elude the statesmanship of the ‘politikos’, do not allow themselves to be tamed, are not compliant with his care. Incompliant, ill-bred, untamed, they do not want to belong to the community of the governed, they want to live under the banner of division as single, divided, separated, not drawing their lines in the enclosed and enclosing terrain of the herd, but rather in the field of immanence of multiplicity, right through the participative compliance of the parts and their partitive striation. This ‘wildness’ is not grounded on a relation of inside and outside. The incompliance of the ‘wild ones’, the sheer possibility of not complying, also reverberates in the terrain of the community. And the fact that these non-compliants live as singulars, but not unified, communalized, herded, does not necessarily discredit every possibility of their concatenation. According to another tale, after centuries of anguish Prometheus is freed by Heracles. But he has to forever wear a band of stone. In machinic capitalism, even this foot shackle becomes invisible, and nevertheless people in machinic subservience shackle themselves in voluntary obedience, even without Zeus’ command. Spread, dispersion, dissipation already exist quite obviously in the contemporary modes of production of machinic capitalism, in current modes of living, in current modes of subjectivation. The multitude has become the technical composition of post-Fordist production, not only in the proximate sense of individual production in dispersion, but also in new forms, for example, of global homeworking, whether ‘material’ or ‘immaterial’. The Marxian allotment farmers as potatoes in a potato sack give a good impression of the monadic techniques of production.15 But the machinic production monads today do not go without communication, nor are they incapable of communicating, just because they are dispersed. On the contrary, they must share themselves in order to survive. The idea of dispersed production is also too static, as long as it is only seen in terms of an international division of labour and the distribution of production locations across the planet. At the same time, and alongside this, there is a tendency, only apparently contradictory, of increasing place-less and nomadic production. This is the case not only for actors of global (financial) management, but also for a continuum that includes project-based work and labour migration as much as extreme conditions of flight from slavery, violence, war, and from forms of radical exploitation. Dispersion and absolute deterritorialization of cooperation remain but unconnected fragments of an interpretation of contemporary production, so long as the perspective is limited to individuals and their communication. It is not

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individual actors and their cooperation that stand at the centre of these modes of production, but more and more the abstract-dividual lines that traverse the individuals. Dividuality implies dividedness, but neither in relation to individual parts nor to an imagined whole of their community. It is not the separatedness of the whole single things, but rather a distribution, spread, dispersion, that extends all the way through various single things. The dividual emerges in drawing the abstract line that traverses and concatenates the concrete single things. The line is abstract to the extent that it tears the subsistential territories and particles away from the individual-holistic concretion and connects them at the same time. The separated, subsistential components of the dividual, distributed across various individuals, assemble along the abstract-dividual line. In this multifaceted rising tide of dividualism between new forms of machinic (self-) subjugation and the search for suitable weapons, the problem of concatenation appears all the more urgent. Whereas the components of parting through division and the dividual may be sufficiently conceptualized, there is something missing on the other side, on the side of articulation and organization, the ‘political composition’ of the multitude. Which -with- for the many? Which form, which ‘co-formity’ can the dis-/association of singularities assume, which -with- that is not binding bond, community, ‘communitas’? How can such a kind of co-formity be envisioned, without deriving it from or melting it into one, beyond the alternative of whether the many unfold from the one or aspire towards the one under the banner ‘e pluribus unum’, in an eternal tape of referring the one to the many and of the many to the one? What terminology is suitable for a specific form of dis-/association, which insists on the component of the singular, the affirmative mode of separating and parting and the components of the composition, the concatenation, the -with-? How can transversal forms of the dis-/ association of singularities be imagined and conceptualized, without individually stratifying and/or totalizing singularities? How can this dis-/association elude the sad figures of self-division, separation, sacrifice, debt, diminution? How can dis-/ association happen without being degraded into a smoothing lubricant for the transformations of machinic-capitalist modes of production, without accelerating exploitation, domination and subjugation?

Notes 1

This article was translated from the German by Kelly Mulvaney. See ‘Prometheus entfesseln!’, via http://www.ringlokschuppen.ruhr/en/produktionen/ spielzeit-2014-2015/lesungen-diskussionen-14-15/prometheus-entfesseln. 2 Plato, Protagoras: Translation, Commentary, and Appendices. trans. and ed. James A. Arieti and Roger M. Barrus (Plymouth, UK: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010), Prt. 321b-322b. 3 Plato. Protagoras, Prt. 322a–322e. 4 For Plato’s ‘Statesman’ (trans. Harold N. Fowler), see Plato, Jeffrey Henderson, ed. Plato VIII (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1964), Plt. 258c.

1. Bonds and Dispersion 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

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Plato, ‘Statesman’, Plt. 262b. Plato, ‘Statesman’, Plt. 262–3. Plato, ‘Statesman’, Plt. 287c. Plato, ‘Statesman’, Plt. 264b; translation edited by the author. Plato, ‘Statesman’, Plt. 303e. Plato, ‘Statesman’, Plt. 261c. Plato, ‘Statesman’, Plt. 261c. Plato, ‘Statesman’, Plt. 261d. Plato, ‘Statesman’, Plt. 275c. Plato, ‘Statesman’, Plt. 264a. See Chapter 7 of Karl Marx, and Daniel De Leon, ed. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (Singapore: Origami Books, [1869] 2018).

References Marx, Karl and Daniel de Leon, ed. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Singapore: Origami Books, [1869] 2018. Plato. Protagoras: Translation, Commentary, and Appendices. Translated and edited by James A. Arieti and Roger M. Barrus. Plymouth, UK: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010. Plato and Jeffrey Henderons, ed. Plato VIII. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1964.

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Chapter 2 T H E C E N TAU R A N D T H E M U LT I T U D E : F R OM M AC H IAV E L L I T O C O N T E M P O R A RY I TA L IA N P O L I T IC A L T HOU G H T Dario Gentili

The figure of the centaur has been a recurring reference in Italian political thought since early Modernity. It is repeatedly called upon to embody the state of crisis that exists in the passage between the collapse of an old political system and the formation of a new one. It is thus no coincidence that the same thinkers who made reference to the centaur also make reference to the multitude, for the latter also appears in a state of crisis, when an old political subject has already disintegrated but before a new one has yet taken form. My aim is to analyse the relationship between the centaur and the multitude, from its first appearance in Italian political thought to the present day.

Early Modernity: Machiavelli The centaur is a popular figure in Greek mythological thought. Although centaurs were often considered ruthless and prone to drink, one centaur, Chiron, clearly stands out as a positive figure in the Greek tradition, so much so that his figure is traced in a constellation.1 His twofold nature, which harmoniously combines conflicting forces, symbolizes the cosmic order. Chiron is seen as wise, kind and erudite: he practises the sciences, is Achilles’ teacher and introduces Asclepius to the art of medicine. And his animal side does not mean he is savage or close to the state of nature. On the contrary, he is more civilized than human beings are. The figure of the centaur features prominently in the work of two of the most influential thinkers of Modernity: Niccolò Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes. At the beginning of the modern period political thought was searching for new political forms in order to escape the crisis of those political forms that had been handed down from antiquity: city and empire. Although there was a century between them, both Machiavelli and Hobbes made reference to the centaur in order to address a fundamental question of early modern political thought: how

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can conflicts that go beyond traditional forms of government be shaped? Whereas for both thinkers the role of the centaur as an icon of political conflict is essential to answering this question, their interpretations of the role of the centaur diverge radically. Machiavelli alludes to Chiron when he mentions the centaur in The Prince (published 1532). He sees Chiron as the ideal preceptor of ancient princes. Addressing ‘the prince’ – the politician of his time – Machiavelli recommends that he learn from the centaur. In order to rule, the prince must act in a way that is both feral and human: Therefore you ought to know that there are two ways to fight: by using laws, and by using force. The former is characteristic of man; the latter, of animals. But frequently the former is inadequate and one must resort to the latter. Consequently a prince must perfect his knowledge of how to use the attributes of both animals and men. Ancient writers have taught princes this use allegorically: they write that Achilles and many other ancient princes were brought up by the centaur Chiron, who was to nurture and instruct them. Having a teacher who is half animal and half man can only mean that a prince must know how to use both natures; he who has the one without the other is not likely to survive.2

Unlike traditions of political thought before and after him, Machiavelli argued that the good prince does not repress his animal nature. The exercise of force is as necessary as respect for the law. Politics could not be reduced to government by means of laws, because politics is essentially a ‘fight’. There is no difference between conquering and maintaining power; in both cases the prince needs force. In the state, the prince does not aim to resolve conflicts but instead continues to fight using the force of law. Likewise, people who are governed by the law do not give up force once and for all, and might one day take power. Machiavelli argues that the prince must preserve his animal side, because force is inherent in the state’s laws. By the same token, the multitude – if considered as the animal side of human beings that also makes them intolerant to the law – always remains latent in the people. In Machiavelli, the notion of the multitude is complex and controversial. And this is also because, like the centaur, the multitude has an ambivalent nature: Machiavelli writes, ‘For on one side there is nothing more formidable than an unshackled multitude without a head, and, on the other side, there is nothing weaker.’3 It is clear that the multitude represents the animal side of the centaur’s body, searching for its human head: a leader. The question that arises here – and which reappears throughout my analysis – is whether the animal side of the multitude can create its own leadership from within itself rather than being subjected to it from outside. Machiavelli holds that when the state is corrupt and its authority is in crisis, the multitude can take political initiative, using its force to subvert the state. Once it has taken power, it is capable of using laws and

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governing itself. So it is also possible for the multitude to take on the qualities of the centaur, just as the good prince does. In Discourses on Livy, Machiavelli argues that once: disgusted by their government, the multitude made for itself a minister of whoever might plan in any mode to offend those governors: and so someone quickly rose up who, with the aid of the multitude, eliminated them. Since the memory of the prince and of the injuries received from him was still fresh, and since they had unmade the state of the few and did not wish to remake that of the prince, they turned to the popular state. They ordered it so that neither the powerful few nor one prince might have any authority in it.4

However, Machiavelli does not think that the multitude’s rule can last for long: its head is too weak to counterbalance and control its animal body. Sooner or later, the multitude needs a head – whether of the prince or of the people – which is able to shackle and govern it. Conflict is not synonymous with war. Machiavelli understands conflict as the element that shapes politics, rather than vice versa. While war disrupts political order, conflict acts as a balancing force, and allows order to endure despite the vagaries of fortune. A political order based on the one without the other – on the human without the animal, on the law without force, on the leader without the multitude – is destined not to survive. This is the message embodied in Chiron: the dualism of conflict is not based on oppositions, but rather on conflicting, if coexisting, forces. Therefore, the political body must not reduce the dualism of the centaur to one side – to the human, the law, the state. In studying the figure of the centaur, it is important to also consider its iconography. Roberto Esposito suggests that Machiavelli’s centaur was depicted in Leonardo Da Vinci’s Battle of Anghiari. It is likely that Machiavelli and Da Vinci met in 1502, while they were in the employ of Cesare Borgia, something which seems to be backed up by the fact that in Leonardo’s Treatise on Painting his recommendations about the depiction of battles resonate with Machiavelli’s idea of conflict. In the light of these factual links, Esposito has ventured that da Vinci’s Battle of Anghiari included a concealed centaur. Although the original has been lost, Esposito notes that in Rubens’s copy of the work, the knight on the left-hand side bears physical similarity to a centaur. Animal and human sides seem fused in this horseman. Esposito writes that ‘it is difficult not to think of the Machiavellian centaur’5 when faced with this figure. In his interpretation of Leonardo’s painting, Esposito points out that the degeneration of the conflict into war ‘concerns not the animalization of the human, but the humanization of the animal; in other words, the other face of the centaur metamorphosis’.6 The ‘humanization of the animal’ corresponds to the war among ‘wolves’ that characterizes the Hobbesian state of nature: ‘Between humanity and animality there is no such abyss as there is in Hobbes separating the “wolves” in the state of nature from the subjects in the civil state: the wolf is part of the human, the same way nature is part of civilization.’7

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Early Modernity: Hobbes Thomas Hobbes’s perspective on the centaur could not be further from Machiavelli’s. For Hobbes, the centaur symbolizes ‘a fierce, a fighting, and unquiet generation’.8 In his view, the twofold nature of the centaur has nothing to do with civility and culture. In Hobbes’s work, the centaur depicts the savagery of the state of nature, and cannot symbolize any political form, even less so a state. The centaur instead embodies the force of the multitude in the state of nature. Hobbes concedes that the multitude may fight using laws, but argues that only the laws of the state can be just. Justice is incompatible with the state of nature, as it is an exclusive prerogative of the civil state. For Machiavelli, under no circumstances is any law in and of itself ‘just’, because law is inseparable from force. For Hobbes, only the just authority of the state can neutralize the possibility that another force of law arises from outside of it. In De Cive, Hobbes writes: if any man now shall […] by most firm reasons demonstrate that there are no authenticall doctrines concerning right and wrong, good and evill, besides the constituted Lawes in each Realme, and government; and that the question whether any future action will prove just or unjust, good or ill, is to be demanded of none, but those to whom the supreme hath committed the interpretation of his Lawes; surely he will not only shew us the high way to peace, but will also teach us how to avoyd the close, darke, and dangerous by-paths of faction and sedition, then which I know not what can be thought more profitable.9

The state is the political form that neutralizes the centaur-like nature of the multitude, its conflictual character, taming its animal condition through human reason. When human beings renounce their centaur-like nature, the multitude submits itself to the sovereign as ‘the people’. Thus, in the Hobbesian absolute state, there is no place for the centaur. As the frontispiece of Leviathan shows, the body politic is still composed of two parts – the sovereign’s head and the people’s body – but this time they are not parts united in a single nature; rather, one part is subordinated to the other: the people is subordinate to the sovereign. Relegated to the state of nature, the multitude is completely left out of the picture. The centaur thus has no place either in the Hobbesian absolute state or in the modern state which grew out of it. It existed only in the mythical state of nature, outside of human history.

The Modern Prince against Fascism: Gramsci During the crisis of the modern nation-state in the twentieth century, the centaur and the notion of the multitude returned. Its first re-appearance was during the conjuncture of a double crisis: the political crisis that led to the advent of fascism (1922) and the world economic crisis that began in 1929, as associated with the Great Depression. No-one studied the juncture of these two crises more

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thoroughly than Antonio Gramsci did. For Gramsci, fascism arose from the crisis of the young Italian state, which was unable to form a people, instead speaking directly to the animal side of the multitude. In 1921, before fascism took power, Gramsci writes: Fascism has presented itself as the anti-party; has opened its gates to all applicants; has with its promise of impunity enabled a formless multitude to cover over the savage outpouring of passions, hatreds and desires with a varnish of vague and nebulous political ideals. Fascism has thus become a question of social mores: it has become identified with the barbaric and antisocial psychology of certain strata of the Italian people which have not yet been modified by a new tradition, by education, by living together in a well-ordered and well administered State.10

As a Machiavelli scholar, Gramsci also considers the multitude in its ambivalence. The animal side of the multitude – its ‘savage outpouring of passions, hatreds and desires’ – is not to be neutralized or repressed, but needs its own head, a real party (i.e. the communist party), to replace ‘the anti-party’ of fascism. During his imprisonment, during the crisis of state sovereignty brought to light by fascism, Gramsci evoked this real party as the ‘Modern Prince’.11 In this passage he makes direct reference to the centaur: The dual perspective can present itself on various levels, from the most elementary to the most complex; but these can all theoretically be reduced to two fundamental levels, corresponding to the dual nature of Machiavelli’s Centaur – half-animal and half-human. They are the levels of force and of consent, authority and hegemony, violence and civilisation, of the individual moment and of the universal moment (‘Church’ and ‘State’), of agitation and of propaganda, of tactics and of strategy, etc. […] In actual fact, it often happens that the more the first ‘perspective’ is ‘immediate’ and elementary, the more the second has to be ‘distant’ (not in time, but as a dialectical relation), complex and ambitious. In other words, it may happen as in human life, that the more an individual is compelled to defend his own immediate physical existence, the more will he uphold and identify with the highest values of civilisation and of humanity, in all their complexity.12

Gramsci’s modern prince is deeply linked with the notion of the multitude. While the fascist party is an anti-party because it establishes a separation between leader and multitude, leaving the latter in the state of nature, the real party has to bring the immediate nature of the multitude to its own politicization as a people: the people of the multitude and not the multitude subjugated as a people to the prince. The modern prince has to recompose the body of the centaur. As in Machiavelli, the centaur embodies the coexistence of opposites, without hierarchy or subordination between its parts, thus representing conflict as constituent of politics.

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At the beginning of the ‘Italian Long 1968’: Pasolini The figure of the centaur returns again in the philosophical and political debates that took place in another state of crisis: at the beginning and end of the so-called ‘Italian long ‘68’ (1968–77). Chiron appears in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1969 film of Medea, as Jason’s teacher. The centaur intervenes at different stages in the life of the hero, but his form changes depending on Jason’s age. When Jason is a child, Chiron has the classic features of the centaur: half man, half horse. His dual nature generates no tension and none of the conflicting aspects of his figure prevail. While standing in a natural – primordial and archaic – landscape, Chiron says to Jason: ‘All is sacred, all is sacred, all is sacred! There is nothing natural in Nature, my lad, remember that. The day Nature seems natural to you, it means the end, and the beginning of something else. Farewell sky, farewell sea’.13 For Pasolini, this is the cosmos of the classic centaur, the ancient model of cosmos, the cosmos of myth: the cosmos as the coexistence of opposites. The modern cosmos, by contrast, is characterized by the collapse of this mutual connection. In the modern cosmos, oppositions become autonomous: nature becomes only natural, culture only artificial, animals only animal and humans only human. And yet, Pasolini sees Modernity as just another form of cosmic order, in which the unity of opposites is displaced within the interiority of the modern subject as individual. Chiron’s second appearance in the film takes place when Jason is an older boy. Chiron is no longer a mythical figure but now looks like a man. He tells Jason: ‘For ancient man, […] reality is an entity so perfect, that the emotion he experiences, in the stillness of a summer sky, is equal to the most profound, personal experience of modern man.’ The ambivalence of Chiron has been ‘internalized’ in the modern subject. In a humanized, modern cosmos, the natural and animal dimensions of life have taken on a human form, and the body becomes the locus of both reason and the passions; for Pasolini this is the conflict that shapes the modern cosmos. Later in the film, the adult Jason encounters Chiron in Pisa’s Piazza dei Miracoli. This setting implies that the marshy landscape of their first encounter has been superseded by a second nature, a humanized nature. This time Chiron appears to Jason in two forms: the half man half horse of his childhood and the human of his youth. It is the latter who speaks: ‘You’ve known two [centaurs]: a sacred one when you were a boy and a desecrated one when you became a man. But what was sacred is preserved within the new desecrated form. And now here we are, one beside the other!’ Does this scene of Medea represent the end of both the ancient and the modern cosmos? Are the two divided centaurs now independent of each other? In a long interview entitled ‘The Dream of the Centaur’ (1969, 1975), Pasolini partly answers these questions. He argues that the figure of the centaur in Medea is not about ‘dualism or splitting. This meeting, or rather this presence of the two centaurs, means that the sacred does not fail because desecrated. The sacred being remains juxtaposed to the desecrated being’.14 After all, from the beginning Chiron warned Jason that ‘there is nothing natural in nature’. He stated at the outset that oppositions are coexistent and juxtaposed

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in the cosmic order, whether its nature is mythical or human. In short, there is no ‘dialectical overcoming’ or ‘dialectical synthesis’: conflict is insoluble. It is this conflict that the cosmos safeguards and ensures. While reading ‘The Dream of the Centaur’, it becomes clear that, for Pasolini, the symbol of the centaur refers to the sexual sphere and has autobiographical undertones. At the same time, Pasolini’s remarks also have political and philosophical subtexts, which is what interests me here. He says: I am so metaphysical, mythic, so mythological that I do not fear saying that the fact that surpasses the former one, does not incorporate or assimilate it dialectically. I say that they are in juxtaposition. […] In so far as there prevails in me a vision of reality that is hieratic and immobile […]. Note that with this I contradict my Marxist convictions and more radically what Hegelianism revealed to me about movement. I contradict the dialectic.15

In this way, the poetry of Pasolini meets a leitmotif of Italian political and philosophical thought of the time: the critique of Hegelian dialectics.16

At the end of the ‘Italian Long 1968’ As mentioned above, the centaur appears at the beginning and end of the Italian ‘long ’68’. About a decade after Pasolini’s interview, the figure of the centaur was resurrected in ‘Il Centauro’, a journal that marked a turning point in Italian philosophical and political thought. Describing itself as a ‘journal of philosophy and political theory’, it was published from 1981 to 1986 and featured essays by philosophers such as Biagio de Giovanni, Massimo Cacciari, Roberto Esposito, Giorgio Agamben, Giacomo Marramao, Remo Bodei and others. The journal’s title refers explicitly to Machiavelli’s centaur, and each issue began with the same citation on Chiron from The Prince. The 1980s were the beginning of what Paolo Virno and Michael Hardt called the ‘counterrevolution:’ the reaction of capitalism to the Italian long 1968 that subsumed its revolutionary forces in order to reconfigure itself.17 ‘Il Centauro’ combined the two most original currents of Italian Marxism at that time, Gramscianism and Operaismo, both of which had distanced themselves from the Italian Communist Party, but to different degrees: while the former simply dissented from the party line at the time, the latter comes from an original position openly in conflict with it. Despite the differences between them, these two strands of Marxism shared a critique of the Hegelian matrix of the Marxian dialectic. Each issue of the journal was structured around traditional dichotomies of modern political thought, such as subjects/forms, theology/politics, revolution/ tyranny, contradiction/difference, time/body, technique/myth, order/conflict, space/politics and history/tradition. Such dichotomies were considered not only in their opposition, but also in their coexistence and simultaneity. The conflicting relationship established between these terms was always present and was regarded as the defining element of their ‘politicality’. As in Machiavelli, in ‘Il Centauro’

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politics evolves out of conflict, not as a result of its being overcome. Machiavelli’s centaur represents a paradigmatic figure that reformulates the notion of sovereignty beyond the state. Departing from the Hegelian conception of the state, in which order neutralizes conflict, the journal championed an idea of sovereignty whose body politic could embrace the social conflicts that emerged during the 1970s. We can see the shift from Pasolini’s Medea to ‘Il Centauro’ in another of Pasolini’s works. The themes of his unfinished novel Petrolio (interrupted by his death in 1975) resonate with his remarks in the interview quoted above. Petrolio was written in the name of a ‘cosmic crisis’, which coincided with the end of the cosmos (be it modern or ancient) that contemplated the existence of the centaur and of the opposites, and the beginning of the new cosmos of neo-capitalism that tends to unify the world under the imperative of production and consumption, to an effective unity of culture, social forms and forms of life. The cosmic crisis consists of ‘the passage from the natural “Cycle” of the seasons to the industrial “Cycle” of production and consumption’.18 In the section of the interview entitled ‘The Apocalypse According to Pasolini’, Pasolini states: ‘All of the difficulty of judgment derives from the fact that we are entering in a moment of variants (of variations).’19 The difficulty of judgment that Pasolini observes consists in the production of variants and variations that do not posit political alternatives. This type of judgment is ‘judgment without decision’, and its ‘moment’ is neocapitalism. In trying to elide conflict, it lacks the ability that political decision has to use conflict as an opportunity for a new politics. The poetics of Petrolio consists instead in variations without interruptions. Put in terms of the cosmic crisis: ‘it’s a matter of deciding how […] everything as before.’20 Petrolio discusses the anthropological mutation of neo-capitalism as a process that renders imperceptible the interweaving of animal and human, nature and history. Because they are imperceptible, the conflicting unity of opposites ultimately becomes impossible. This crisis of the cosmic is not the mere overcoming of contrapositions into a superior unity. In the neo-capitalist cosmos, bourgeoisie and proletariat, public and private, state and business, man and woman are variants of one another, an internal variation of the same, thus neutralizing the centaur’s conflictual unity of opposites. Thus, the opposite of capitalism – the communism that Pasolini saw in the joyous life of the proletariat and Lumpenproletariat – is captured by neo-capitalism and depicted as its internal variation, as the ‘communism of capital’, as it were.21 In the neo-capitalist variations without alternatives, the conflict as symbolized by Chiron is dissolved. The centaur has no place in Petrolio, because the cosmos that allowed for its existence has come to an end. For Pasolini, the crisis of this cosmos turns into a cosmos of crisis: into the neo-capitalist cosmos where judgment without decision – without a way out of crisis – rules. ‘Il Centauro’ ceased publication in 1986, before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the advent of what we have come to call neoliberal globalization. The problem of how to create a political decision that did not remove conflict was a recurring issue in the journal.22 Anticipating the collapse of a world divided into two blocks, the journal’s essays examined the possibility of an effective ‘decision without

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judgment’. But in doing so, these thinkers relied on a decision that remained part of the system of judgment in which that decision is neutralized. That is, with the progressive vanish of a political alternative outside the capitalist-liberal system (such as communism had been until then), the criterion of judgement became exclusively that which Margaret Thatcher expressed in those years with the formula ‘there is no alternative’. Therefore, no decision – based on the modern conception of conflict – could open a political alternative within a world that neoliberalism was already unifying. Indeed, one explanation for why ‘Il Centauro’ ceased publication was because its authors continued to rely on the categories of modern politics in their examination of a decision without judgment. The faculty of ‘judgment’, which allowed Hobbes to divide the body of the centaur into two – separating human and animal, law and force, sovereign and multitude, and subordinating one to the other – was no longer conducive to effective political decisions. The sovereignty of the state was in crisis. The thinkers of ‘Il Centauro’ were informed by the political conception of conflict that preceded the formation of the modern state and its attempts at eradicating conflict. ‘Il Centauro’ tried to revive Machiavelli’s centaur, and sought to define a type of sovereignty that included, and was predicated on, conflict. However, its thinkers failed to see that a political post-state form is a biopolitical form. What shapes it is not sovereignty, but rather – as Pasolini noted – neo-capitalism or, as we call it today, neoliberalism. And yet, maybe it is in a biopolitical order that a political decision that does not separate the two parts of the centaur – the leader and the led – again becomes viable.

The neoliberal state of crisis Another attempt to recover the categories of Machiavelli took place in the 1990s, this time within a biopolitical discourse. However, here it was not the figure of the centaur that predominated, but that of the multitude. The multitude came to play a crucial role in the thought of Antonio Negri, Michael Hardt and the thinkers of post-Operaismo. For these thinkers, in the crisis of the state brought on by globalization and thus with the dissolution of the people configured by the state sovereignty, the multitude returns as a post-state and anti-sovereign figure. In Commonwealth, the third book of Negri and Hardt’s Empire trilogy, the multitude has to become the ‘new Prince:’ ‘“Becoming-Prince” is the process of the multitude learning the art of self-rule and inventing lasting democratic forms of social organization’.23 The multitude becomes prince when it governs itself, at which point the political body of the prince is re-united. There is no longer a separation between governors and governed, sovereign and multitude. This is possible only in a biopolitical body, where the fissures of modern politics tend to dissolve. The decision-making of the multitude comes from a decision without judgement, because it originates in the multitude itself: ‘The becoming-Prince of the multitude is a project that relies entirely on the immanence of decision making within the multitude.’24 For Hardt

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and Negri, the conflict embodied in the centaur remains within the multitude; it is a constituent conflict, and it is what makes the multitude the ‘becoming-Prince’. But what if the conflictual dimension of the multitude does not lead to a form of decision-making, but rather – as Paolo Virno argues25 – is turned against itself in the form of competition? This repeats and updates the same questions that Machiavelli and Gramsci raised in relation to the multitude, but now in the context of the neoliberal market. Unlike an affirmative biopolitics, which promotes the constituent conflictual nature of the multitude, neoliberal biopower transforms the immanent conflict of the multitude into competition between individuals. The war of all against all that characterizes the neoliberal market is, in Hobbes’s terms, what defines the state of nature that needs to be governed by leaders, if not by a sovereign. Today, a global sense of insecurity and precariousness provoked by the logic of competition has pushed public opinion in many Western countries towards a longing for ‘the return of the state’, something which has found confirmation in the results of recent political elections. This is often couched in the language of a ‘new populism’, that is, a multitude which has lost its form as ‘the people’ but would like to return to it. It is in this political context that, in their 2017 book Assembly, Hardt and Negri recover the centaur of Machiavelli as ‘emblematic of the union of the leaders and the led’.26 For them, the centaur symbolizes ‘the correct balance, just measure’27 between ‘democratic initiative and central leadership’, that ‘are not really opposites but instead have different capacities and fulfill different roles – tactics and strategy, spontaneity and political planning’.28 Just as they had written ten years previously, for Hardt and Negri ‘a solution to the problem of leadership can be found only within the movements of the multitude’.29 Therefore, we must be careful not to confuse this idea of a multitude still searching for its own political form with the multitude that today is nostalgic for its role as the people within the nation state. The multitude is not yet able to deploy its immanent conflictual nature in politics as a constituent conflict. It is as if we are once again confronting the political situation that faced Machiavelli, with the risk of falling into the political impasse of Hobbes, and so into an outdated form of sovereignty. In neoliberal biopower, indeed, the conflictual nature of the multitude’s body politic does not generate political decisions. Therefore, the multitude needs a head, a central leadership, which takes political decisions for its entire political body – and so the figure of the centaur returns. Indeed, for Hardt and Negri, the centaur today embodies, albeit only provisionally, the political form of a multitude still searching for its own immanent decision-making. They argue: ‘Today and in the context of biopolitics a new type of reflection on organization is possible, one that might begin by inverting the two halves of the centaur but quickly ends up refusing its dualism entirely.’30 In the meantime, the centaur is still alive within neoliberalism’s permanent state of crisis. This permanent state of crisis is the neoliberal renewal of the state of nature, in which the multitude seems to have no alternative besides competition on the market or a return to being the people within the nation state. In this context,

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the centaur is a reminder of at least the possibility that the multitude could shape its own leadership, assuming this conflict as its own.

Notes 1

Centaurus is one of earliest constellations identified, including by the second-century astronomer Ptolemy, in his list of 48 constellations. See G. J. Toomer, ed., Ptolemy’s Almagest (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999). 2 Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, trans. James B. Atkinson (Indianapolis, Cambridge: Hackett, [1532] 2008), 279–81. 3 Niccolò Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, trans. Harvey C. Mansfield and Nathan Tarcov (Chicago, London: The University of Chicago Press, [1531] 1996), 115. 4 Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 12. 5 Roberto Esposito, Living Thought: The Origins and Actuality of Italian Philosophy, trans. Zakiya Hanafi (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012), 101. 6 Esposito, Living Thought, 102. 7 Esposito, Living Thought, 50. 8 Thomas Hobbes, De Cive: Philosophical Rudiments Concerning Government and Society (New York: Oxford University Press, [1642] 1987), 31. 9 Hobbes, De Cive, 31–2. 10 Antonio Gramsci, ‘Elemental Forces’, in Selections from Political Writings 1921–1926, ed. and trans. Quintin Hoare (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1978), 38–9. 11 On Gramsci’s interpretation of Machiavelli’s Prince, see Peter D. Thomas, ‘The Modern Prince: Gramsci’s Reading of Machiavelli’, History of Political Thought 28: 3 (Autumn 2017): 523–44. 12 Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, ed. and trans. Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell-Smith (New York: International Publishers, 1971), 169–70. 13 All quotations from Pasolini’s Medea are taken from the film, cross-checked with the published transcript; see Giacomo Gambetti, ed., Medea: un film di Pier Paolo Pasolini (Milano: Garzanti, 1970), 89–108. In rendering the English translations of the spoken dialogue, I have generally followed the English subtitles. 14 Pier Paolo Pasolini, ‘The Dream of the Centaur: A Partial Translation’, in Scrittori inconvenienti: Essays on and by Pier Paolo Pasolini and Gianni Celati, ed. Armando Maggi and Rebecca West (Ravenna: Longo, 2009), 157. The translation is by James Michael Fortney. 15 Pasolini, ‘The Dream of the Centaur’, 157. 16 See Dario Gentili, Italian Theory. Dall’operaismo alla biopolitica (Bologna: il Mulino, 2012). 17 See Paolo Virno and Michael Hardt, eds., Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics (Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota Press, 1997). 18 Pier Paolo Pasolini, Petrolio, trans. Ann Goldstein (New York: Pantheon Books, 1997), 335. 19 Pasolini, ‘The Dream of the Centaur’, 144. 20 Pasolini, Petrolio, 405. 21 ‘Communism of capital’ has become a key to the reading of post-Fordism by post-Operaismo: ‘The metamorphosis of social systems in the West, during the 1980s and 1990s, can be synthesized in a more pertinent manner with the

46

22

23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Politics of the Many expression: communism of capital. This means that the capitalistic initiative orchestrates for its own benefit precisely those material and cultural conditions which would guarantee a calm version of realism for the potential communist. Think of the objectives which constitute the fulcrum of such a prospect: the abolition of that intolerable scandal, the persistence of wage labor; the extinction of the State as an industry of coercion and as a “monopoly of political decision-making”; the valorization of all that which renders the life of an individual unique. Yet, in the course of the last twenty years, an insidious and terrible interpretation of these same objectives has been put forth. First of all, the irreversible shrinking of socially necessary labor time has taken place, with an increase in labor time for those on the “inside” and the alienation of those on the “outside.” Even when squeezed by temporary workers, the entity of employed workers presents itself as “overpopulation” or as the “industrial reserve army.” Secondly, the radical crisis, or actually the desegregation, of the national States expresses itself as the miniature reproduction, like a Chinese box, of the form-of-State. Thirdly, after the fall of a “universal equivalent” capable of operating effectively, we witness a fetishistic cult of differences – except that these differences, claiming a substantial surreptitious foundation, give rise to all sorts of domineering and discriminating hierarchies. […] Post-Fordism is the communism of capital.’ Paolo Virno, A Grammar of the Multitude: For an Analysis of Contemporary Forms of Life (Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2004), 110–11. See, for example: R. Esposito, Forma e scissione in Machiavelli (n. 1, 1981); B. de Giovanni, ‘Politica’ dopo Cartesio (n. 1, 1981); M. Cacciari, Diritto e giustizia. Saggio sulle dimensioni teologica e mistica del moderno Politico (n. 2, 1981); and G. Marramao, Sul tema rivoluzione. Temporalità storica e secolarizzazione moderna (n. 3, 1981). Some articles from the journal are collected in Dario Gentili, ed., La crisi del politico. Antologia de ‘il Centauro’ (1981–1986) (Napoli: Guida, 2007). Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Commonwealth (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009), 8. Hardt and Negri, Commonwealth, 13. See Paolo Virno, Multitude: Between Innovation and Negation, trans. Isabella Bertoletti, James Cascaito and Andrea Casson (Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2008). Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Assembly (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 15. Hardt and Negri, Assembly, 16. Hardt and Negri, Assembly, 18. Hardt and Negri, Assembly, 67. Hardt and Negri, Assembly, 65.

References Esposito, Roberto. Living Thought: The Origins and Actuality of Italian Philosophy. Translated by Zakiya Hanafi. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012. Gentili, Dario, ed. La crisi del politico. Antologia de ‘il Centauro’ (1981–1986). Napoli: Guida, 2007. Gentili, Dario. Italian Theory. Dall’operaismo alla biopolitica. Bologna: il Mulino, 2012. Gramsci, Antonio. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. Edited and translated by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell-Smith. New York: International Publishers, 1971.

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Gramsci, Antonio. ‘Elemental forces’. In Selections from Political Writings 1921–1926, Edited and translated by Quintin Hoare, 38–40. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1978. Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. Commonwealth. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009. Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. Assembly. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. Hobbes, Thomas. De Cive: Philosophical Rudiments Concerning Government and Society. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. Machiavelli, Niccolò. Discourses on Livy. Translated by Harvey C. Mansfield and Nathan Tarcov. Chicago, London: The University of Chicago Press, 1996. Machiavelli, Niccolò. The Prince. Translated by James B. Atkinson. Indianapolis, Cambridge: Hackett, 2008. Pasolini, Pier Paolo. Medea: un film di Pier Paolo Pasolini. Milano: Garzanti, 1970. Pasolini, Pier Paolo. Petrolio. Translated by Ann Goldstein. New York: Pantheon Books, 1997. Pasolini, Pier Paolo. ‘The Dream of the Centaur: A Partial Translation’. In Scrittori inconvenienti: Essays on and by Pier Paolo Pasolini and Gianni Celati, edited by Armando Maggi and Rebecca West, 131–83. Ravenna: Longo, 2009. Thomas, Peter D. ‘The Modern Prince: Gramsci’s Reading of Machiavelli’. History of Political Thought 28:3 (Autumn 2017): 523–44. Toomer, Gerald James, ed. Ptolemy’s Almagest. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. Virno, Paolo. A Grammar of the Multitude: For an Analysis of Contemporary Forms of Life. Translated by Isabella Bertoletti, James Cascaito and Andrea Casson. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2004. Virno, Paolo. Multitude: Between Innovation and Negation. Translated by Isabella Bertoletti, James Cascaito and Andrea Casson. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2008. Virno, Paolo and Michael Hardt, eds. Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics. Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota Press, 1997.

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Chapter 3 F L I P P I N G Y OU R S C H M I T T : H UM A N N AT U R E A N D T H E D E M O C R AC Y O F T H E M U LT I T U D E Paul Mazzocchi

In her interrogation of the work of post-Operaismo theorists, Chantal Mouffe offers a number of critiques that centre around the opposition between two political strategies: ‘engagement with’ and ‘withdrawal from’ institutions. She argues that for post-Operaismo theorists ‘radical politics is envisaged … in terms of a “withdrawal” from existing institutions so as to foster the self-organization of the Multitude’.1 Drawing from her democratic appropriation of the work of Carl Schmitt, Mouffe finds this objectionable because it eliminates the dimension of the political as a realm of antagonism/conflict, something she sees as the essence of democracy. She contends that the multitude is conceptualized as a subject that contains a natural unity, and is necessarily opposed to the state as ‘a monolithic apparatus of domination that cannot be transformed’.2 In this context, withdrawal seeks to precipitate the withering away of the state and an end of politics. Mouffe raises important questions about the concept of the multitude, including the specificity of its democratic import. But, against her critique, this chapter aims to recuperate the democratic politics at the core of the concept of the multitude through the work of Paolo Virno. While Mouffe purports to critique Virno along with the two preeminent theorists of the multitude, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, she winds up partaking in a common collapsing of the distinction between post-Operaismo theorists.3 In staking out the democratic politics of the multitude, the chapter pays particular attention to Virno’s subversive utilization of Schmitt. While Mouffe draws on Schmitt’s political ontology, Virno draws on the connection Schmitt draws between human nature and politics. Yet, he flips Schmitt’s contention that the dangerousness of human nature necessitates an authoritarian state, using such premises to argue for the radical necessity of the multitude’s anti-statism: the openness to the world that characterizes the human animal can be directed against the very institutions that seek to limit it in producing new forms of collective life. In this vein, he offers a radical democratic alternative to the necessarily statist elements of Mouffe’s own appropriation of Schmitt, while retaining and reconceptualizing the concern for the political as a realm of conflict and antagonism that cannot be negated.

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Mouffe’s Schmittian ontology According to Schmitt, the autonomous logic of the political is characterized by the friend–enemy distinction, and it is thus conceived as a realm of conflict and power that cannot be eradicated. Drawing on this insight, Mouffe suggests that identities are always formed on the basis of a ‘we’ that is differentiated from a ‘they’, both of which remain fluid and non-essentialist, existing only in the specific relation between the two collective identities: the ‘they’ is the condition of possibility for the very formation of a ‘we’, or the we’s ‘constitutive outside’.4 Because the political is founded on and out of this conflict, Mouffe asserts the contingency of all ‘politics’, conceived as different from the political. While the political is a realm of conflict, politics represents ‘the temporary and precarious articulation of contingent practices’.5 But against Schmitt, Mouffe develops this ontology in a specifically democratic direction, suggesting that democracy attempts to transform conflicts from antagonisms to agonisms. Antagonisms threaten to descend into ‘other’-ings animated by violence that attempt to eradicate the ‘they’ and ‘destroy the political association’. Agonisms are adversarial relations in which ‘while in conflict, [different collectivities] see themselves as belonging to the same political association, as sharing a common symbolic space within which the conflict takes place’.6 This commonality is predicated upon the ‘ethico-political principles of democracy’7 and embedded within liberal democratic institutions, which supply the framework within which conflicts can become adversarial and avoid being antagonistic: it is within this framework that the common principles of freedom and equality are accepted and can be debated.8 Building on this, Mouffe founds her theory of radical politics on a hegemonic engagement with institutions. This is envisioned as a process of de- and rearticulation of discourses and democratic demands. Indeed, the war of position between contingent identities entails a give and take that plays out via conflict over hegemonic power. Each discourse is thus placed in agonistic relation to contesting discourses, which then respond in aiming to harness oppositional demands in ways conducive to their own maintenance of a power base and a hegemonic social role. Within this, Mouffe suggests the possibility of producing ‘chains of equivalence’ in the subjectivization of ‘the People’; these chains would help to produce a contingent identity unified around demands for equality, though without glossing over the differences and oppositions contained within this body. Progressive changes can be made ‘thanks to the synergy that was established between the government and a series of social movements … with the aim of tackling the social and socio-economic challenges confronting the country’.9 For Mouffe, this symbolizes the necessity of a symbiotic relationship between parliamentary and extra-parliamentary struggles to transform the institutional framework and its attendant forms of power. Mouffe’s work acts to de-centre and challenge the universal principles that have informed the post-political consensus that had emerged over the last several decades. Within this context, her assertion of the centrality of conflict and contingency to politics is formative. Yet, her own political ontology operates via a formalist model that ultimately subtends democratic possibilities. More

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specifically, Mouffe’s singular focus on an ontology of the political unnecessarily weds democracy to sovereignty or hegemonic leadership and reduces democracy to an immanent frame that is inherently incorporative. This ultimately refuses a transcendent moment that might rupture the rationality or logic of her political ontology. Specifically, she reduces democracy to ‘a logic of representation of interests within a state-regulated system of hegemonic struggles’.10 While presented as the ontology of the political, these very features are extracted from a selective reading of ‘founding’ political experiences, centrally the emergence of the new social movements.11 Derived from the imputed ontological validity of these events, subjectivity is reduced to a Sisyphean eternal return: it is always and everywhere the same process of subjectification that occurs, obfuscating particular historical conditions (including those from which her own model derives) and de-politicizing politics via a formalistic imposition.12 This includes the prior inscription of politics in the form of the state.13 Political movements or moments that fail to conform to this blueprint are then dismissed as post-political.14 While Mouffe is correct in maintaining that difference is central to rethinking democratic politics, she reduces politics to autarchic processes of self-origination or self-legislation that seek representation within the state, with the only condition being the acknowledgement of all politics as contingent. But wedding identities to adversarial relations ignores that the nature of political structures within this immanent democratic frame may be constitutive of the very agonistic character that emerges from them. This is the logical outcome of her theory of collective identity formation, which fails to account for relations of alterity as anything other than conflictual.15 Yet, the state as hegemonic and agonistic object is precisely what creates the conditions of conflict. Indeed, the structure of identity politics that Mouffe sets up creates the condition of mutual objectification and exclusion, when the state is represented as a third term that mediates the conflict by allowing for a hegemonic representation to drive politics – even when this is considered merely a contingent deployment of politics. Aside from ‘recognition’ of equal legitimacy, democracy becomes a purely conflictual regime with state control as the object of hegemonic struggle. Mouffe suggests that the state-form can be modified through this, but ultimately the state retains a necessary permanence in order to serve the role of stabilizing the ontological conditions that she asserts. By viewing the state as a medium for containing and playing out conflicts, Mouffe’s thought is fundamentally incapable of allowing for non-state institutions of the political. The point here is not that we must move towards the consensus politics that Mouffe rejects but that her political ontology negates the very possibility of a new form of agonistic politics attuned to plurality without jettisoning solidarity and without necessitating a state politics.

Flipping Mouffe’s Schmitt Mouffe ignores that Virno specifically draws on Schmitt and a conception of political conflict in elaborating his own conception of the democracy of the multitude. And he does so in a subversive manner that allows him to develop a radical democratic

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politics attuned to the concerns raised by Mouffe. In this direction, a fundamental precondition of the friend–enemy distinction is the dangerousness of human nature. For Schmitt, if the political is structured by enmity and antagonism, this is precisely because of the aggression that characterizes human nature as such. As he states: ‘One could test all theories of the state and political ideas according to their anthropology … The problematic or unproblematic conception of man is decisive for the presupposition of every further political consideration[.]’16 In this vein, Schmitt suggests two diametrically opposed poles of thought: on the one hand, ‘anarchist’ theories assert the inherent goodness of human beings and view the state as a corrupting force that inhibits human flourishing.17 On the other hand, authoritarian theories assert the inherent evil or dangerousness of human nature, which requires a state to keep aggressive and violent drives in check.18 Of course, Schmitt contends that all ‘genuine’ political theories possess an ‘evil’ conception of human nature, because only this conception can account for the friend–enemy distinction. Virno picks up on this element of Schmitt’s work. As he states: ‘it is not wise to turn up one’s philosophically sophisticated little nose in the face of the crude choice between: “man is by nature good,” and “man is by nature bad.”’19 Schmitt sought to engage this dualism in order to avoid blind or simplistic moralisms. But there is more to the dangerousness of human nature than its aggressive drives. In this vein, the very starting premise for Virno lies in the ambivalence of human nature, which militates against the binary oppositions offered by the anarchist and authoritarian understandings. And, while he begins with these Schmittian premises, Virno is unequivocal in his rejection of the conclusions Schmitt draws: the risky instability of the human animal – so-called evil, in sum – does not imply at all the formation and maintenance of that ‘supreme empire’ that is the sovereignty of the State. On the contrary, ‘hostile radicalism towards the State’ and towards the capitalist means of production, far from taking for granted the innate meekness of our species, can construct its own authentic pedestal in full recognition of the ‘problematic’ temperament of the human animal, which is undefined and potential, (thus, also dangerous).20

In this vein, Virno cites Schmitt on Helmuth Plessner: ‘“[man] is primarily a being capable of creating distance” who in his essence is undetermined, unfathomable, and remains an “open question.”’21 This falls in line with Machiavelli’s insight that humans are adaptive to particular environments, but that this does not overcome their originary openness.22 That is, while they can take on certain traits because of processes of socialization, this does not close off the ‘potential’ that is the fundamental core of human nature, with potentiality denoting ‘a deficit of presence’.23 Biological potentiality is contained in the generic and open traits of the human subject: the language faculty (the capacity for speech divorced from given linguistic systems), ‘instinctual non-specialization’ (the organism’s incomplete character), neoteny (the retention of earlier phases of phylogenetic development – their non-adaptation to sociocultural control) and, by virtue of the first three,

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the lack of a circumscribed or univocal environment. All of this represents the potentiality of the human organism as an orientation towards disorientation: the human being is always potential and incomplete. Given these conditions, human nature is constituted by an ‘openness to the world’ that defies any specific institutional counterpoint: the world is ‘a vital context that always remains partially undetermined and unpredictable’.24 Consequently, the socialization process is always potentially short-circuited by neoteny, and the social environment is unable to ever fully repress base instincts or raw human potential. More to the point, human aggressiveness emerges precisely in response to the disjunction between unfinalizable human nature and a social environment that seeks to harness and repress this very excess. In fact, the attempt by social environments to contain or sublimate aggressive drives has a fundamentally ambivalent effect: ‘it sooths out danger’ by providing forms of stability and predictability, but also ‘multiplies and diversifies the occasions of risk’.25 Here, Virno is cognizant of the dilemmas posed by the dialectic of emancipation and the closure of the political. If we dispense with the idea that human nature is inherently good, then we can begin thinking about the production of an alternative politics as continuing to be riddled with tensions and conflict – the lack of a determinate direction allows for both ‘evil’ and ‘innovative actions’, as well as the continual oscillation between the two. Put differently, the excess and potential that characterize human nature carry within them the possibility of facilitating ‘the abuse of power and of torture’ as well as the capacity ‘for the invention of works councils or of other democratic organisms based on that typical political passion that is friendship without familiarity’.26 The problem that one finds in the ‘good’ conception of human nature thus lies not in it being, quite simply, ‘wrong’, but in its attempts to expunge the contrary drives that likewise exist within human nature. Rather than expunging or repelling the ‘negative’ necessary for understanding antagonism and political thinking,27 Virno internalizes this as a part of human nature that must be non-dialectically incorporated without mediation or synthesis: he embraces the Janus-faced character of human nature to combat its binary simplification. Yet, the subversive element of this reading of Schmitt lies in the conclusion that, rather than necessitating or justifying the state, the ‘evil’/open character of human nature speaks against any such circumscription.

A new geometry of hostility Nina Power suggests that there is a disjunction in Virno’s work between his theorization of human nature and his account of radical politics. Specifically, she argues that, in Multitude: Between Innovation and Negation, Virno fails to systematically connect human nature and the political strategy of exodus, instead focusing on the innovative elements of human nature exhibited in jokes and language games.28 But we need not be confined by Virno’s lack of clarity and can tie together the loose threads of his thought in further illuminating the political and

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democratic nature of his work, including the connection between human nature and exodus. Virno suggests some basic parameters for such an extrapolation in Multitude. First, [t]he fragility of the ‘we-centered space’ … must, instead, construct the realistic presupposition of every political movement that aims at a radical transformation of the present state of things … For political anticapitalist and antistate action there is no positive presupposition [of human nature] to be vindicated. Its eminent duty is to experiment with new and more effective ways of negating negation, of placing ‘not’ in front of the ‘not human.’29

Elsewhere, he states: [i]nstitutions protect us, if, and only if, they derive apotropaic resources from the ‘opening to the world’ and from the ability to negate, from the neotenic condition and from the modality of the possible. They protect us, if, and only if, they exhibit at all times that they belong to the sphere of ‘that which can be different from the way it is.’30

On the one hand, this calls for the emergence of we-centric modes of subjectivity, founded in the potential that can emerge through creating distance from capitalist and state social relations. This would counteract the radical evil that emerges from human nature, which can act to negate the humanity of others in the form of friend–enemy other-ings. On the other, it calls for continually reproducing the conditions of possibility of innovation, that is of non-repressive political institutions. The aggressive and open qualities of human nature can be driven away from their potentially destructive outcomes through the production of a social environment that does not fully repress the excess of potentialities. In this direction, we can confront Mouffe’s claim that the politics of the multitude is predicated upon a simplified ‘withdrawal from institutions’. She makes this claim by reducing ‘institutions’ (and the political) to the state. But it is precisely such an equivocation that a strategy of ‘exodus’ aims to explode. As Virno describes the political logic of exodus: [i]nstead of submitting to the pharaoh or openly rebelling against his rule (A or not A), the Israelites identify another possibility, one which evades the number of the alternatives that could be counted at the beginning: that of fleeing Egypt. Neither A, nor not-A, neither resigned acquiescence nor struggle to seize power in a predetermined territory, but an eccentric B[.]31

Or, as he explains elsewhere: [d]efection modifies the condition within which the struggle takes place, rather than presupposing those conditions to be an unalterable horizon; it modifies the context within which a problem has arisen, rather than facing this problem by

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opting for one or the other of the provided alternatives. In short, exit consists of unrestrained invention which alters the rules of the game and throws the adversary completely off balance.32

In this context, exodus represents not an ontology but a ruptural logic, an exit from what are said to be the ontological conditions of life, which actually act to limit the options available. Exodus breaks with the predetermined discourse, opening up the possibility of an entirely new political option via refusal of the existing rules of the game. Consequently, Virno sees exodus as an ‘engaged withdrawal’33 from the parasitic forms of state and capitalist institutions precisely because they are predicated upon enmity and exploitation. This strategy aims to affect a change in the ‘geometry of hostility’.34 For Schmitt, enmity emerges in the friend–enemy distinction, which redirects human aggressiveness towards the enemy via the permanent prospect of war. Mouffe mutes this by changing antagonism into agonism – an enmity without war. But both antagonism and agonism come at the expense of marginalizing the relation of friendship. Friendship seemingly only emerges as a secondary function via the definition of, and mobilization against, the enemy group. Virno’s understanding of human nature as open and ‘capable of creating distance’ directs antagonism/hostility against the very relations and institutions that form the state artifice – against the power of sovereign command and decision, along with the relations it makes possible or impossible. This new geometry of hostility breaks with the reduction of politics (or the political) to the logic of friend–enemy, or the hegemonic struggle for power/sovereignty, and seeks to reconfigure the political arena. The state relation reduces politics to submission or revolt, both symptomatic of a struggle for power and the ability to determine the conditions of political life – even if contingently. Exodus calls for the creation of a new relation that exists outside of the state and its binary option, as an exit from the world of immanence into a radical alterity that distances itself from the totalizing logic of the present. More to the point, exodus exhibits the openness and ambivalence of human nature in the service of a radical, democratic politics. On the one hand, violence or aggressiveness/enmity is directed against the state apparatus, whose exploitative function aims to inhibit such action. But, at the same time, this is precisely what facilitates a freeing of the potential that such exploitative and inhibiting actions by the state seek to repress. Consequently, in the act of pursuing ‘lines of flight’ and tearing down the artifice of the state, the conditions of possibility of affect and friendship are fundamentally changed. The possibility of politics – founded on solidarity – emerges out of the violent act of resisting the State via forms of insurgent action. As Virno puts it: ‘[friendship] is defined by the relations of solidarity that are established in the course of flight – by the necessity of working together to invent opportunities that up until that point have not been computed, and by the fact of their common participation in the Republic.’35 The Republic/multitude is directly opposed to the state/people, with the latter denoting an irreducible unity that effaces singularity and plurality. The particular

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model for this is Hobbes’s Leviathan. For Hobbes, the unorganized mass contained in the state of nature is the ‘multitude’. Given the problems of the state of nature, Hobbes sees the need for a sovereign power to remove the ambiguity that exists there and to determine the meaning of justice in order to unify the multitude into the people, under the auspices of the state as a singular will.36 On the other hand, the multitude is characterized by ‘an ensemble of “acting minorities,” none of which, however, aspires to transform itself into a majority. It develops a power that refuses to become government’.37 Exodus shifts the nature of the antagonism by focusing on the attempt to establish friendship and solidarity, rather than engaging in forms of civil war with the enemy: the antagonism is directed against the state. Far from suggesting the end of power, exodus seeks a transformation of power into a mechanism of ‘acting-in-concert’. In dispensing with the absolute enmity that emerges from the civil war over sovereign power, or a hegemonic struggle, exodus is the search for new forms of political institutions that can foster solidarity against the forms of power and enmity that revolve around the state. In this context, Virno endorses the formation of subterranean and extra-parliamentary organizations that exist outside of, and against, the state as an institution and a relation: he turns to ‘leagues, councils and soviets’ as bodies that mobilize the political and ethical capacities of the democratic masses against their objectification and transubstantiation into the avenues of administrative functions via the state apparatus. As non-representative organizations, these institutions defy technical and administrative duties – as well as the sovereign capacity for command – in so far as they are characterized by ‘example and political reproducibility’ which, far from limiting the legitimate forms of action, produce ‘elaborate actions that are paradigmatic and capable of blossoming into new combinations of knowledge, ethical propensities, technologies and desires’.38 Thus, exodus represents a form of logical revolt that seeks forms of solidarity and radical action that recognize their singularity, yet try to open up this singularity to lasting forms of political solidarity and transformation.

The murmuring multitude According to Mouffe, the multitude contains a ‘natural unity’ that can pave the way ‘for a reconciled society beyond law, power and sovereignty’.39 In these respects, she claims, the multitude represents a move beyond or outside of politics, whereby antagonism has been transcended by a redemptive leap that undermines the fundamental ontological import of heterogeneity.40 Mouffe is suggesting two things here. First, the multitude and its forms of revolt/resistance are naturally occurring and already formed,41 rather than socially constructed via processes of subjectification. Second, the multitude’s coming into being will lead to a withering away of the state and, therefore, an end of politics. Against these lines of criticism, Virno understands the multitude as precisely a product of subjectification. As he states: Multitude signifies: plurality – literally: being-many – as a lasting form of social and political existence, as opposed to the cohesive unity of the people.

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Thus, multitude consists of a network of individuals; the many are a singularity. The crucial point is to consider these singularities as a point of arrival, not as a starting point; as the ultimate result of a process of individuation, not as solipsistic atoms.42

Individuation refers to a particular articulation of the shared attributes of human nature: if human nature is ‘open’ and potential, then it must be individuated into particular forms. Consequently, there is no pre-established unity or identity, and individuation rejects the pre-constitution of the subject as either an individual or a member of a collective. The subject is a product of a process of individuation and, consequently, the multitude is the outcome of a process that seeks to rupture existing political identities and relations in the service of opening the possibility of something new – something multiple, or a being-many, that resists the beingOne of the people. In these respects, individuation denotes not merely a process of subjectification, but a process of subjectification as a means of creating distance from the state. To illustrate this, Virno again turns to Hobbes: For Hobbes, the decisive clash is the one which takes place between multitude and people. The modern public sphere can have as its barycenter either one or the other. Civil war, always threatening, has its logical form in this alternative. The concept of people, according to Hobbes, is strictly correlated to the existence of the State; furthermore, it is a reverberation, a reflection of the State: if there is a State, then there are people. In the absence of the State, there are no people.43

We see here once again a shifting of the antagonism constitutive of politics from that between contingent identities over power via a third term (hegemony/the state) to that between a subject of democracy and the state. In the multitude, sovereignty is left behind as a mode of power reduced to the A or not-A that exodus seeks to shatter via the founding of new modes of being-together. But the antagonism is intractable as politics oscillates between the people and the multitude, and vice versa. This means that political conflict carries on permanently precisely because individuation is precarious. In these respects, Virno contends that we are constantly reproducing or returning to the process of individuation in the production of new subjectivities. Indeed, the nature of potentiality – the potential of potentiality – is something that continually haunts all forms of individuation, because individuation fails to exhaust or realize human potential,44 and therefore continually returns via a neotenic regression to the origins of the process of individuation. Even in the context of exodus, Virno is quick to note that a reconciled society, devoid of conflict, can never be established precisely because of human nature’s dangerousness. Drawing on the biblical story of exodus, Virno turns to the ‘murmurings’ in the desert, which exhibit the inability of any social environment to circumscribe or fully sublimate the openness and ambivalence of the human animal. In the context of the exit from the Pharaoh’s reign and the reign of Pharaoh, the situation of searching for a life beyond the ‘house of slavery and

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iniquitous labour’ includes the very aleatoric and indeterminate existence that the break with the available options opens up. Far from supplying something readymade or drawing on a natural unity, the Jews had to found new institutions of being-together. Yet, over time, the solidarity that had united them in exodus does not hold, and ‘nostalgia for the ancient oppression grows, respect for their fellow escapees suddenly changes into hatred, and violence and idolatry overflow’.45 In this direction, the multitude as a form of subjectivity is enacted in order to find institutions of stability that might produce new forms of democratic practice founded in solidarity. But the same excesses that produce this possibility also produce the possibility of capsizing into relations of domination: the re-emergence of new forms of the state, of relations of enmity and the struggle over sovereign power. In understanding ambivalence politically, Virno states: ‘friendship without familiarity, the authentic fulcrum of a political community, can always capsize into a familiarity loaded with enmity that instigates massacres between factions, gangs, tribes.’46 Hence, all political formations – owing to the excess and indeterminacy that characterizes humans – entail an oscillation between ‘partial success and incipient failure’,47 the very conditions of possibility for politics that theories of sovereignty aim to suppress. Given the persistence of ‘evil’ in the dangerousness of human nature, human community or solidarity is itself always a deferred realization, something that can regress or merely institute new forms of domination. In these respects, Virno draws on Schmitt’s use of ‘katechon’. The apostle Paul refers to katechon as ‘a force that restrains the prevalence of evil in the world, continually keeping at bay the triumph of the Antichrist’.48 But the point is that it restrains without ‘defeating’, ‘expunging’ or ‘circumscribing’. In fact, katechon keeps at bay not only the triumph of the Antichrist, but also the triumph of the Messiah, thus expressing the non-dialectical or non-synthetic character of exodus and human nature: the idea that evil cannot be eradicated and, consequently, ambivalence and oscillation are permanent features of the political. The problem is that the victory of good or evil would result in an atrophy, which would seemingly be embodied in an absolute evil or an absolute good, with each representing a mirror image of a redemptive leap that closes the opening to the world that is at the core of the dangerous notion of human nature. Schmitt and authoritarian theorists see katechon embodied in the sovereign’s capacity to triumph over the evil of human nature, and seemingly enunciate a notion of katechon at odds with its merely restraining force. For Virno, katechon must be embodied in the form of republican institutions that seek to provide insulation against the emergence of aggressive instincts, but which also provide for the continual innovation that emerges out of human nature’s ‘dangerous’ qualities – the challenge to these institutions’ current make-up. Institutional containment may have the positive effect of potentially inhibiting species-specific aggression but may also have the effect of closing off the possibilities of new bonds of solidarity and affect. Consequently, with katechon we find something approaching a weak messianism, in which the formation of new political institutions is not conceived as the ‘end of time/history’ but as the condition of possibility of further innovation.

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Notes Chantal Mouffe, Agonistics: Thinking the World Politically (New York: Verso, 2013), 71. 2 Mouffe, Agonistics, 78. 3 Giuseppina Mecchia and Max Henninger, ‘Introduction’, SubStance 36:1 (2007): 5; David Eden, Autonomy: Capitalism, Class and Politics (London: Ashgate, 2012), 11, 17; Franco Berardi, ‘Paolo Virno: Exodus and Language’, in Contemporary Italian Political Philosophy, ed. Antonio Calcagno (Albany: SUNY Press, 2015), 172. 4 Chantal Mouffe, The Return of the Political (London: Verso, 1993), 2. 5 Chantal Mouffe, On the Political (London: Routledge 2005), 18. 6 Mouffe, On the Political, 20. 7 Chantal Mouffe, ‘Deliberative Democracy or Agonistic Pluralism?’ Social Research 66: 3 (Fall 1999): 755. 8 Mouffe, On the Political, 31. 9 Mouffe, Agonistics, 72–7. 10 Richard Day, quoted in: Lois McNay, The Misguided Search for the Political: Social Weightlessness in Radical Democratic Theory (Cambridge: Polity Press 2014), 92. 11 Barbara Epstein, Political Protest and Cultural Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 19, 245–51. 12 Maurizio Lazzarato directs this criticism at Jacques Rancière and Alain Badiou. Maurizio Lazzarato, Signs and Machines: Capitalism and the Production of Subjectivity (Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2014), 251, 253. 13 Fred Dallmayr, ‘Book Review: The Return of the Political’, Constellations 3:1 (April 1996): 119. 14 McNay, Misguided Search, 92. 15 Andrew Schaap, ‘Agonism in Divided Societies’, Philosophy and Social Criticism 32: 2 (March 2006): 270–1. 16 Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political (Expanded Edition) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 58. 17 Carl Schmitt, Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1985), 55. 18 Schmitt, Concept of the Political, 58–65; Schmitt, Political Theology, 55–9. 19 Paolo Virno, Multitude: Between Innovation and Negation (Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2008), 15. 20 Virno, Multitude, 16. 21 Virno, Multitude, 13. 22 Schmitt, Concept of the Political, 59. 23 Paolo Virno, ‘Natural-Historical Diagrams: The “New Global” Movement and the Biological Invariant’, Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy 5: 1 (2009): 95. 24 Virno, Multitude, 17. 25 Virno, Multitude, 18. 26 Virno, Multitude, 20. 27 Mouffe, Agonistics, 78. See also Ernesto Laclau, ‘Review: Can Immanence Explain Social Struggle?’ Diacritics 31: 4 (Winter 2010): 5. 28 Nina Power, ‘He’s Not Beyond Good and Evil’, Mute: Culture and Politics After the Net 2: 11 (2009): 28–35. 1

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29 Virno, Multitude, 190. 30 Virno, Multitude, 21. 31 Virno, Multitude, 148. 32 Paolo Virno, A Grammar of the Multitude: For an Analysis of Contemporary Forms of Life (Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2004), 70; Virno’s italics. 33 Paolo Virno, ‘Virtuosity and Revolution: The Political Theory of Exodus’, in Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics, ed. Paolo Virno and Michael Hardt (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 197. 34 Virno, ‘Virtuosity and Revolution’, 204. 35 Virno, ‘Virtuosity and Revolution’, 205. 36 Virno, Grammar of the Multitude, 22. 37 Virno, ‘Virtuosity and Revolution’, 201; Virno’s italics. 38 Virno, ‘Virtuosity and Revolution’, 203. 39 Mouffe, Agonistics, 78. 40 Mouffe, Agonistics, 78. 41 See also, Laclau, ‘Review’, 8. Laclau directs this at Hardt and Negri in Empire. 42 Virno, Grammar of the Multitude, 76. 43 Virno, Grammar of the Multitude, 22; Virno’s italics. 44 Paolo Virno, When the Word Becomes Flesh: Language and Human Nature, trans. Giuseppina Mecchia (Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2015), 228. 45 Virno, Multitude, 24. 46 Virno, Multitude, 22. 47 Virno, Multitude, 22. 48 Virno, Multitude, 56.

References Berardi, Franco. ‘Paolo Virno: Exodus and Language’. In Contemporary Italian Political Philosophy, edited by Antonio Calcagno, 161–77. Albany: SUNY Press, 2015. Dallmayr, Fred. ‘Book Review: The Return of the Political’. Constellations 3:1 (April 1996): 115–20. Eden, David. Autonomy: Capitalism, Class and Politics. London: Ashgate, 2012. Epstein, Barbara. Political Protest and Cultural Revolution. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. Laclau, Ernesto. ‘Review: Can Immanence Explain Social Struggle?’ Diacritics 31:4 (Winter 2010): 2–10. Lazzarato, Maurizio. Signs and Machines: Capitalism and the Production of Subjectivity. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2014. McNay, Lois. The Misguided Search for the Political: Social Weightlessness in Radical Democratic Theory. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2014. Mecchia, Giuseppina and Max Henninger. ‘Introduction’. SubStance 36:1 (2007): 3–7. Mouffe, Chantal. The Return of the Political. London: Verso, 1993. Mouffe, Chantal. ‘Deliberative Democracy or Agonistic Pluralism?’ Social Research 66:3 (Fall 1999): 745–58. Mouffe, Chantal. On the Political. London: Routledge, 2005. Mouffe, Chantal. Agonistics: Thinking the World Politically. New York: Verso, 2013.

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Power, Nina. ‘He’s Not Beyond Good and Evil’. Mute: Culture and Politics After the Net 2:11 (March 2009): 28–35. Schaap, Andrew. ‘Agonism in Divided Societies’. Philosophy and Social Criticism 32:2 (March 2006): 270–1. Schmitt, Carl. Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1985. Schmitt, Carl. The Concept of the Political (Expanded Edition). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. Virno, Paolo. A Grammar of the Multitude: For an Analysis of Contemporary Forms of Life. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2004. Virno, Paolo. Multitude: Between Innovation and Negation. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2008. Virno, Paolo. ‘Natural-Historical Diagrams: The “New Global” Movement and the Biological Invariant’. Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy 5:1 (2009): 92–104. Virno, Paolo. ‘Virtuosity and Revolution: The Political Theory of Exodus’. In Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics, edited by Paolo Virno and Michael Hardt, 198–209. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996. Virno, Paolo. When the Word Becomes Flesh: Language and Human Nature. Translated by Giuseppina Mecchia. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2015.

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Chapter 4 U N BU I L D T H E P A RT Y : M U LT I T U D E A N D A U T O N OM IA Luhuna Carvalho

Introduction The organizational structure of the most visible moments within the cycles of struggles of the last decades (from the Genoa G8 to the Gilet Jaunes, through the occupied squares) seems to evoke Antonio Negri’s and Michael Hardt’s concept of the multitude. A wild array of different political subjectivities coincided in orchestrated tactics that pushed the limits of the political sphere of participation and representation. The graspable continuity and influence between struggles, however, occurred not through their constituent practices, nor through their emerging democratic institutions, but rather through the dissemination of technics and tactics of revolt, which are often directed against the institutionalization of those very struggles. This text will address how such tension is embedded within the attempt to derive a concept of the multitude, tracing a brief genealogy that sees the concept emerge from the limits and contradictions of the Italian social movements of the 1960s and the 1970s, where we find an emphasis on selfvalorization and attempts at synthetization. But this approach will not necessarily take this emphasis as the limit, in constructing this genealogy.

Multitude, Operaismo and Autonomia The anti-globalization movement of the late 1990s seemingly coalesced a number of disparate struggles which were previously isolated and disconnected, as if the collapse of the Eastern Bloc had removed the keystone that held back any truly global project of resistance to capital. Naming itself as the ‘movement of movements,’ the succession of summits and counter-summits established a diffuse network of militants, connecting distant political realities through their agents: small parties and unions, progressive institutions and factions of civil society, autonomous collectives and media projects, etc. The need to articulate this complex potentiality led to the emergence of several platforms, such as the World

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Social Forums of Porto Alegre and international organization ATTAC,1 which sought to translate such assemblage of political forces into a systematization of concrete demands and institutional players. The most popular attempt to theoretically ground such movements was the one put forward in Negri and Hardt’s Empire in 2000, published early enough within that cycle of struggles to accompany and contribute to its development. Empire2 saw contemporary class struggles as an opposition between a diffuse and decentred sovereign global framework of exploitation and command, empire, and the multitude, as the emerging materializations of the contemporary political composition of living labour. The political repertoire of the multitude presupposed two important elements that came from the materials produced by the Italian 1960s Marxist current Operaismo and from the 1970s Autonomia movement. First, that the social movements’ inner political structure could replace the party’s classic function with the apparatuses of collective intelligence it was now technically capable of developing. And, second, that new democratic forms were always already being developed, rehearsed and put to the test within such assemblage of singularities.3 As a collective subject that simultaneously developed methods of struggle while constituting new forms of democratic collective living, the multitude remixed the institutional workers’ movement framework of militancy and transition. Whereas the ‘left’ was defined by specific programmatic phases and roles, within the multitude activism, transition and supersession were one and the same thing.4 While such a legacy is plainly evident and assumed, it does subsume those historical experiences within a particular narrative that posits itself as its logical (and legitimate) expansion and continuation. Operaismo coalesced as a theoretical current around the work of social researchers and militants previously engaged with the Italian Communist Party (PCI). Disillusioned with the party’s post-war social-democrat turn, Raniero Panzieri, Romano Alquati, Mario Tronti and several others turned their attention to the flourishing industrial workers’ struggles, deemed autonomous due to their increasing radicality and their independence from union and party organization.5 Their inquiry into the workers’ lives and their participation in the explosion of wildcat strikes led to an appraisal of a new landscape of class antagonism which explicitly broke off with the manifold orthodoxies of the ‘official’ workers’ movement. This rupture did not come from any ephemeral radicalization of positions. Rather, in a return to Marx that mirrored parallel projects in Germany and France,6 Operaismo sought to understand these struggles within the development of class relations in real subsumption7 (or, as this was called in its early journals, neo-capitalismo):8 once all mediation and representation became a transmission agent for capital’s plan for its own socialization, once society itself became a mere instrument and moment of capital’s process of valorization, then antagonism emerged as fundamental class determination. It was within the ethnography of those new class compositions that Negri developed the method which, over the decades, led him to try and systematize every new cycle of struggle. The idea, set forth in Empire, that struggles are

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inherently constitutive of new democratic institutions is already present in Raniero Panzieri’s accounts of the 1962 FIAT strikes.9 Panzieri, editor and founder of Operaismo’s seminal journal Quaderni Rossi, claimed that a democratic element was embedded within the autonomy of these struggles vis-à-vis party and union, in the way workers elected which methods and goals to pursue. Consequential to this affirmation was the claim, first developed by Panzieri and later also sustained by Hardt and Negri in Assembly, of an inversion of the role between class and party.10 If class could, on its own, without party guidance, make the transition from economic to political demands then the party’s role was already subsumed in the class itself. It was within the problematic raised by this inversion that the first splits in Quaderni Rossi unfolded, leading to the formation of new journal Classe Operaia. Against Panzieri’s claim that class autonomy should be integrated into the PCI11 so as to remake the institution in its mould, Tronti, and several others, claimed that these new struggles should beget a new party. Tronti sustained this affirmation on the claim, famously featured on the cover of Classe Operaia (the journal where Operaismo finally came into its own): ‘we have to turn the problem on its head, change orientation, and start again from first principles, which means focusing on the struggle of the working class.’12 Whereas the history of capital had been read as class coalescing around capital’s dynamical transformations, Tronti suggested that this perception was wrong, and that capital itself was bound to follow workers’ resistance and organization. Workers’ struggles had always forced capital to develop one way instead of another, and political economy was but a conceptual structure built around the need to curtail workers’ refusal of capitalist labour.13 Although workers’ primacy is the theoretical tenet more commonly associated with Operaismo and its offshoots, the actual relevance and centrality of the concept within the general structure of the period’s conceptual work is open to debate.14 Class primacy sustains the possibility of workers’ political action to be autonomous from the institutions of its representation. Within this understanding, primacy is not so much a question of historical anteriority but, rather, a logical primacy that comes to posit capital as merely parasitic of working class created wealth, and hence all mediation between labour and capital is a mere instrument of this exploitative command. A historical primacy would need to sustain a first initial moment of such relation, but Tronti’s conceptual proposal seems more geared towards sustaining a concrete and localized argumentative position rather than make a general essential claim about the nature of history.15 The claim of primacy, if taken seriously and not merely as a historical gimmick, needs to be understood as a theory of tendency. Primacy not as causal anteriority, but as the most intense moment of contradiction that comes to determine the whole: class comes first inasmuch as its antagonism determines all other developments. The political groups organized around the theoretical structure of Operaismo came to prominence after the 1968/9 explosion of university and factory struggles. As much as the operaisti had predicted the explosive potential of emerging proletarian subjectivities, this succession of revolts seasoned their theory with a firm political practice, leading to the formation of openly political, and not

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merely theoretical, groups.16 Even so, 1968 was also a turning point; 1968 was when Operaismo’s theory of the social factory, of an extension of the industrial productive apparatus from the factory to society at large, found concrete subjective expressions. The autonomous struggles previously enacted by industrial workers were now being carried on by a multiplicity of social subjects: students, the unemployed, women, youth, etc. It was from the development of those struggles, from how they quickly overcame the perspective of the singular group that, some years later, Autonomia was formed.17 Autonomia was a loose and decentred informal coalition of shop floor and neighbourhood committees, journals and media projects, small parties and unions, countercultural collectives and social centres, along with thousands of non-aligned militants and sympathizers. Amidst this wild horde, several organized cores disputed the direction and programme of the broader general movement, with different degrees of power and relevance.18 It is from this experience that the idea of multitude as a ‘constellation of singularities’ emerges. As one of the theoretical leaders of the movement, Negri, taking after Romano Alquati’s research methodology,19 developed a problematic of class composition that would sustain this organizational/insurrectional form as dialectically and historically legitimate, rather than just an episodic expression of rage and despair taking place outside of the ‘proper’ development of historical materialism.20 Class composition separated, at every historical moment, class struggle from how capital was forced to function, positing not only an autonomy of class vis-à-vis capital but also refusing any remaining idea of a possible common development of the productive forces to be carried on by both capital and labour. The political composition of class, at that historical moment, was then to behave and organize as multitude, a coalition of subjectivities and a ‘constellation of singularities’, set against the technical composition of the class.21 Autonomia collapsed under the weight of repression and militarization. Thousands of militants were persecuted by a PCI-controlled judiciary system; hundreds ended up in prison or were forced into exile. Plenty of others abandoned the joyous militancy of Autonomia to engage in ever more desperate forays into armed struggle.22 But even if such eventualities did play a key role in Autonomia’s demise, and even if the historiographical work necessary to sustain a proper theory of Autonomia’s defeat is beyond the scope of this text, it can be said that within Autonomia’s eclipse we also find the questions concerning the movement’s inner contradictions and limits. As a mythical period forming part of the collective imaginary influencing struggles today, it would seem that Autonomia functioned seamlessly as free play of insurrectional singularities, and that its organizational and functioning forms reproduced effortlessly, along the years of its existence, until they faced an outside limit. However, and quite contrary to this myth, one can only really correctly talk of Autonomia as an historical movement, and not as an organizational model. From the start, Autonomia was ripe with internal turmoil and with a feverish tension concerning not only the conjugation and compatibility of such array of positions, but also regarding the political forms it should assume. That such a myriad of

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positions and subjectivities came to form a ‘constellation’ did not depend on their ability to do so, as if such a reticular network was ideologically implied in each and every political subjective therein present. But, rather, this formation depended on, or was due to, the internal limits of every such group, committee or collective. Even if some political groups did not aspire to become hegemonic within the movement, others certainly did, so aiming to turn Autonomia into the vanguard capable of unlocking Italy’s stalemate between the right-wing party Democrazia Cristiana and the PCI, and turning this stalemate into a full-blown pre-revolutionary situation.23 This, in turn, came to contrast with the fractions of Autonomia whose project rested on an idea of social exodus; a collective abandonment of the apparatuses of control.24 The particularity of the Italian ‘creeping May’ was how, tendentially, most social actors, with different aspirations and contexts, assumed collective insurrectionary behaviours. Autonomia grew out of that coincidence and, dialectically, also suggested such a revolutionary horizon was possible. Once such constellation disbanded, in part because the limits of diversity in methods and goals became painfully evident, the social and organizational form it allowed also collapsed as possibility. Historian Steve Wright’s description of the structure of Autonomia, and of the array of positions concerning the project and possibility of a party of Autonomia, portrays this situation thoroughly. According to Wright’s account, while a significant part of the movement was adamantly opposed to such a project, even as those in favour found themselves split over the different perspectives and forms around which such party was to be built. Some thought the party should come out of the consolidation of the neighbourhood and factory committees; others that it should follow the constitution of the factory committees into a military force, while others felt it should not amount to more than the armed wing of the movement’s decisions and wills.25 Nevertheless, all of the attempts to create such a party of Autonomia, in whatever form, were unsuccessful. The intensity of the 1977 insurrection pulverized all these hypotheses as the movement quickly went beyond them and found itself face to face with the violence and power of the state.26 Autonomia did articulate different struggles, but none of its factions were ever truly capable of synthetizing the savage potentiality of such an assemblage of singularities into a unified form. However, to suggest that Autonomia collapsed due to this incapacity to derive a party would be highly disputable. Rather, what is implied by the emerging multiplication of available historical fronts is that the movement itself refused such party form, inasmuch as it would mean the constitution of separated institutions of mediation.27

Self-valorization and antagonism Negri’s own theory of the party shifted over the Autonomia years,28 but it was always connected to his concept of self-valorization. Negri, like others,29 felt that Marx’s labour theory of value had been superseded once valorization started to take place socially rather than exclusively through immediate productive labour, so rupturing

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the relation between labour-time and value.30 As struggles went beyond the factory walls, and into the ‘social factory’, a ‘proletarian self-valorization’ emerged against capitalist valorization.31 For Negri, the appropriation of working time (through absence, sabotage, strikes, etc.), the growth of movements’ infrastructures (through squatting, the boycott of utility bills and ‘proletarian grocery shopping’)32 and, in more abstracts terms, the general sociality built within the movement were concrete expressions of a ‘self-valorization’ that was constitutive of the coming proletarian institutions. Negri takes this possibility from his reading of the Grundrisse, looking to how Marx opposes the pure potentiality of a productive subjectivity against the absolute determination of objectivity.33 This separation between subject and object presupposes a reticular command where objectivity grips subjectivity in oppressive hold, where subjects cannot ever accomplish subjectivation inasmuch as objects are never truly apprehended. Autonomia, as expected, would seek to turn the terms of this equation, seeing this opposition as an expression of antagonism, and seeing antagonism between capital and labour as only truly possible when labour is considered as pure potentiality, not objectified in any other ontological appearance. That is: labour as not-labour, as not-value, as not-capital. Hence any political action that seeks to overthrow the command of capital must be an action that enters into a relation with that potentiality – an action that creates such potentiality while enacting it at the same time. In a late Autonomia pamphlet from 1979 – that is, from a moment of its demise – Franco Piperno, one of the former leaders of Potere Operaio, writes about ‘self-valorization’ in a way that portrays the concept’s strengths and limits. ‘Self-valorization’ is grounded on the possibility of finding a determination for use-value that is not dialectically held to exchange-value: Use value is the disdain of fixed employment, maybe even two steps from home; it’s the horror felt towards learning a craft; it’s mobility; it’s the flight from rigid performance, understood as active resistance to the commodity form, to becoming a commodity, to being totally subjugated to the movements of the commodity […] Use value is the naive hope born with the hundreds of thousands of experiences of ‘counter economy’ in agriculture, in services and the neighbourhoods, born to live precariously and then die, as tender allusion to a different form of social labour and a different form of distribution of labour time […] Use value is the abstract inhumanity of murder and armed struggle – a chimerical solution to a real problem, a dense mourning for the totality of one’s own possibilities, a desperate attempt to make real, with impatient pride, one’s own social strength; that nevertheless, in the skewed form of military violence, rewards precisely the contrary for which it stands.34

Piperno closely followed Negri’s hypostatization of use-value as self-valorization, but this description is largely an elegy for a spent potential. Resistance sought to materialize as ‘counter economy’ or as ‘armed struggle’, but these ‘chimerical solutions’ never really reconstructed an immanent productive apparatus. Nor did they actually overcome the problematic of such antagonist refusal. On the contrary,

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it seems that the materialization of such potentiality within the abstraction of ‘selfvalorization’ or as military action was itself already the very spelling out of its own defeat. Negri’s theoretical work, producing important concepts such as selfvalorization, by the late 1970s seems geared towards determining a synthesis that the Autonomia itself was not willing, or capable, of doing. His openly assumed Leninism was never more evident, when so much of Negri’s writings seemed aimed at joining to the movement’s antagonist practices a theoretical self-representation, and one that would be capable of overcoming the dispersion of such antagonist practices. Inasmuch as such a conceptual repertoire allows us to grasp Autonomia as a complex phenomenon, it also cloaks its true, contradictory, multiplicity. As such, the conceptual movement of positing Autonomia’s repertoire of struggle as self-valorization is similar to that which seeks to infer a subsuming party form on the instances of struggle. In both situations, such subsumption is deemed necessary to make the phenomenon graspable, usable, thinkable, positive. Negri thought that all offensive and substantial content of struggle that strayed from this process risked dissipation into mere voluntarism or ‘fanaticism’.35 Herein lies the Negrian contradiction that would unfold in different terms, throughout the decades. On the one hand, Negri comes to see all struggles as a rupture in the continuity of command, as forcing a way out of capital’s reticular power structure. Their intensity and ingenuity explicate the impossibility of mediation brought about by the transformations in capital. Antagonism is not merely an opposition that might embody the Schmittian friend/enemy dichotomy, but also a moment of suspension and interruption of capital’s reproduction, and the introduction of an indeterminate element within the unceasing flow of determination and abstraction that is capital.36 Yet, on the other hand, Negri also claims that the potentiality of such indetermination, of that partisan suspension, is always already in a process of autonomous self-determination, whose teleological and programmatic content is in a process of continuous affirmation that stems from a partial command over production, and one that is able to posit a cooperative commons and the constitution of new institutions.37 If Autonomia truly expresses the political phenomenology of real subsumption, where previous institutions of mediation between capital and labour collapse inasmuch as they become an instrument for capital to extend its domain, then the social form of Autonomia, of an antagonist assemblage of instances of refusal, cannot be subsumed in the material or political abstractions of self-valorization, nor in its party-form. On the contrary, inasmuch as Autonomia presented itself as the decomposition of capital’s reticular power, it also refused any such reconstruction of another, and different, reticular power. The problematic of self-valorization would, in Negri’s post-Autonomia conceptual framework of the multitude, move away from the problematic of such antagonism. In Autonomia, self-valorization existed in the proletarian struggle’s capacity to destitute capitalist command.38 Later on, self-valorization started being defined in terms of the productive process that class allegedly

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carries out, in spite of capital’s command.39 The understanding of the multitude as a productive class, still firmly held under capital’s grip, can only appear after the abandonment of the antagonist element within self-valorization’s original problematic. That a crucial critical perspective is lost within such logical presupposition is evident when comparing the role of violence in Negri’s body of work from the 1970s to that of the Empire tetralogy. Even if a critique of the role of armed struggle was due after the disastrous militarization in the late 1970s, it is necessary to take into account how the onset of armed struggle was a subsidiary of the attempts at creating the party of Autonomia.40 Autonomia’s conception of violence was initially far removed from the specialized proto-military struggles of its contemporary far-left, and quite distant from the methods of the later Red Brigades. Autonomia’s antagonism was attuned to the aforementioned need to rupture a structural command, to the need to interrupt the metropolitan nexus that integrated factory and society, to the need of protecting the territory conquered by the movement (to protect ‘self-valorization’ in Negri’s terms). In that sense, even when expressed in physical violence, such violence was first and foremost a violence against things, a violence against the infrastructural command of dead labour, a destituent practice that materialized in an ever-escalating conflict.41 It was only afterwards, and after facing state terrorism,42 that this concept of violence degenerated into an idea of a military operation between formal and informal armed forces – i.e. the conflict between the Red Brigades and the state. This distinction is crucial. It is here violence that stops being the dispute for the sovereign structures of the monopoly of violence but, rather, becomes the idea of something performed as a deconstruction of those same sovereign structures.43 In this conjecture, the concept of self-valorization, and its successive iterations, is bound to this very same problematic. Negri presupposes that such violence must forcefully defend a kernel of self-valorization that is inherently constitutive: living labour aiming to free itself from capital’s parasitical grip. However, at the same time, such labour has no object other than that very struggle – it has no objective content other than antagonism, other than that destituent tension. Once that antagonist element is dropped, once living labour becomes a mere productive category, an economical abstraction, then the concept’s logical structure collapses.

The Good, the bad, and the destituent This genealogy of the problematic of the multitude reveals a crucial problem of the concept. Inasmuch as struggles emerge through assemblages, they also refuse the institutionalization of such forms – opting to disband rather than to coalesce. Contemporary struggles do, at least partially, take place away from institutional representation, and do emerge as a ‘constellation of singularities’. But Negri’s claim,

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present in the concept of multitude, that multitude constitutes new democratic institutions, or even new subjects, is highly debatable. Post-1989 cycles of struggles can be roughly grouped into three periods: the ‘anti-globalization movement’ (from the late 1990s until the mid-2000s), the ‘squares movement’ (roughly from 2010 to 2013) and the (presently ongoing, still nameless) global cycle of struggles which stretches from France to Hong Kong, through Chile, Lebanon and many other places.44 While strikes, riots, protests and occupations do take place oblivious to such periodizations, their global projection does shape and influence local peaks of mobilization, forms of struggle, and institutional and representational elements. As much as some elements of continuity and influence can be grasped within these periods, these elements do not observe any sort of formal or informal, institutional line of progression. The anti-globalization movement was constituted by a handful of institutional and semi-institutional agents, coming from different spheres, reunited in global social forums. While particular factions did find larger public exposition,45 no true innovative political forms emerged out of this movement, nor did any such form survive the demise of the movement. The protests, however, universalized direct-action tactics rehearsed during the previous decades in different parts of the globe: from German Antifa Black Blocs to the UK’s festive antics of Reclaim the Streets. True political innovation happened within the protest’s organization, within their tactical repertoire, and within the networks made, but not in their Social Forum counterparts.46 If, on the one hand, the anti-globalization movement did partially rest on previously existing institutional framework, on the other hand, it seemed to already advance some of the tendencies followed through by successive cycles of struggle. This can be discerned in: autonomous use of information and communication technology (both through self-published media and the development of communication tools); blockage and occupation as a political understanding of the territorial materiality of capital fluxes and of the symbolic places of power; organized violence against commercial and political infrastructures, and against police repression. It was this tactical and organizational repertoire that came into its own during the square occupations movement. Rather than appeal to the existing political structures, squares attempted to create their own – setting up improvised polis within the heart of the metropolis, deriving them from the organizational methods first used to organize anti-globalization protests, and defending them from police violence and institutional appropriation. These square occupations included a proletarian population which was not part of the specialized, summit-hopping militant and activist milieu, and this projected, even further, these tactics of struggle. Within the cycle of struggles kicked off by the Gilet Jaune protests, this continuity of tactics seems to have renounced any sort of attempt of creating new political institutions. In France, occupations happened in peripheric stretches, not metropolitan centres. The plurality of demands, seen from Beirut to Barcelona,

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appears unreducible to a common element, other than those of an increasingly dispossessed global proletariat. But their tactics do seem to be in constant communication, as with people in Hong Kong teaching people in Santiago how to disable tear gas canisters.47 Tactics circulate globally across concrete struggles with an ever-greater intensity. But these struggles have seemingly distanced themselves from attempting to constitute shared or global political forms. This can be seen as an insufficiency or, in contradistinction, as a voluntary refusal to constitute any sort of party of the multitude. Twenty years after the publication of Empire and the Genoa G8 summit, it appears that the constitution of new forms of participation and representation implicit in the concept did not follow any tangible line. And it appears that it is the destituent character of the multitude became evident, rather than a constitutive one.48 Social forums did not turn into occupied squares and the popular assemblies of the Indignados did not re-emerge in the late 2010s.49 On the contrary, it seems that the riot has become a sort of international movement’s lingua franca, gaining ever more pronounced autonomy vis-à-vis the institutional repertoire of the workers’ movement, developing increasingly sophisticated techniques of eluding control, and determining other forms of struggle. This is not to imply that political forms do not jump over borders, or that one can simply abstract such a methodology of action from the political practices that sustain it. Indeed, the prevalence of such modes of metropolitan insurrection presupposes what Romano Alquati called an ‘invisible organization’: not any sort of underground cadre but, rather, the existence of ties of solidarity and complicity ungraspable by normative political categories.50 The Covid-19 crisis of 2020 witnessed the emergence of a series of local projects of mutual aid independent of any state or institutional influence (as discussed in the Introduction to this volume). This shows that, implicit within the global legibility of the riot, one finds structures of care and assistance that, however similar in themselves, tend nonetheless to avoid coalescing into any institutional expression. Panzieri’s original intuition concerning the reversal of roles between party and class finds an update here. Institutions do not determine forms of struggle. On the contrary, forms of struggle undo institutions. A contemporary use for the concept of the multitude, for a political understanding of the multiplicity of struggles that does not grasp them as abstract and isolated ephemeral outbursts, needs to understand how the process of their becoming stems from a technic and sensual condivision of tactics that is not subsumable in a common institutional direction. Rather, multitudes’ fragmentation is in itself a form of struggle to be explored. The lasting pertinence of the concept occurs only as much as the concept is capable of allowing struggles to share between themselves localized techniques of resistance. To build posterior abstractions upon these techniques is to burden them with the very same abstractions and mediations that they emerge to refuse. This does not mean that the multitude is politically incapable of proposing forms. Instead, those forms should be allowed to emerge from the immediate materiality and sensuality of struggles themselves, rather than rushed through exterior attempts to coalesce them into institutional expressions.

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Notes 1 2 3

4 5

6

7 8 9

10 11 12 13 14

ATTAC is an acronym for Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions and for Citizen’s Action. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2000). A claim made throughout the cannon of Operaismo; see, for example: Raniero Panzieri, La Ripresa del Marxismo Leninismo in Italia (Rome: Nouve Edizione Operaie, 1977) as well as Negri’s writings of 1973, grouped as ‘Worker’s Party Against Work’ in Antonio Negri, Books for Burning: Between Civil War and Democracy in 1970s Italy, trans. and ed. Timothy S. Murphy (London and New York: Verso, 2005), 51–117. See Chapter VIII of Antonio Negri, Marx oltre Marx (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1979) as well as Hardt and Negri, Empire, 405. See Raniero Panzieri, Spontaneita’e organizzazione. Gli anni dei ‘Quaderni Rossi’ 1959–1964, ed. S. Merli (Pisa: BFS Edizioni, 1994). In English, see Raniero Panzieri, ‘Seven Theses on Workers’ Control (1958)’, Viewpoint Magazine (September 2014): https://www.viewpointmag.com/2014/09/09/seven-theses-on-workers-control–1958. And see also Romano Alquati, Sulla FIAT e altri scritti (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1975). Tronti’s key work, Workers and Capital (1966), has been recently translated into English by David Broder (London: Verso, 2019). See also a recent account of the political and conceptual trajectory of Autonomia in Gigi Roggero, L’operaismo politico italiano. Genealogia, storia, metodo (Rome: Derive Approdi, 2019). Operaismo can be read as part of the international tendency that led participants in post-war struggles to reread Marx through contemporary events and developments, as well as through the then new availability of (at that point) unpublished texts, the most famous being Marx’s Grundrisse. Although Operaismo draws very different conclusions, its problematics and themes are not distant from those proposed in German and French contemporary critical currents, from the Neue Marx Lekture to communization theory. Marx uses the concept real subsumption to describe the reorganization of forms of labour within the capitalist mode of production. For a critical history of the term see Endnotes collective, ‘History of Subsumption’, Endnotes 2 (2010): 130–52. See Raniero Panzieri, ‘Relazione sul neocapitalismo’, in Ripresa del Marxismo Leninismo, ed Raniero Panzieri (Milano: Sapere, 1972), 170–232. See Panzieri, Spontaneita’e organizzazione. The explosion of the factory struggles of 1968/9 was prefigured, throughout the 1960s, in the Turin Fiat factories. In 1962 a series of strikes left the factory to demonstrate in the city centre, leading to a series of riots that would inspire a lot of Operaismo’s early theoretical production. The general argument in Assembly is that the squares movement has enacted such an inversion yet again; see Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Assembly (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2017). See, for example: Raneiro Panzieri, ‘Separare le strade’, in L’Operaismo degli Anni Sessanta, eds. Giuseppe Trotta and Fabio Milano (Rome: Derive Approdi, 2008), 312–13. Mario Tronti, Workers and Capital, trans. David Broder (London: Verso, 2019), 65. See Tronti’s ‘A New Type of Political Experiment: Lenin in England’; Tronti, Workers and Capital, 65–72. Mario Tronti systematically argued the thesis on the primacy of labour struggles with respect to restructuring and development of capital in his Workers and Capital.

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15 Tronti, Workers and Capital, 211–23. 16 Potere Operaio and Lotta Continua were the most well-known Operaismo-influenced groups. Potere Operaio featured most of journal Classe Operaia’s key intellectuals, and was made of a country-wide network of militants and factory assemblies. Lotta Continua was instead more influenced by French Maoism and sought to build a more classical Leninist organization. 17 See Nanni Balestrini and Primo Moroni, L’Orda d’Oro 1968–1977 (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1997). 18 See Balestrini and Moroni, L’Orda d’Oro. 19 Romano Alquati was one of the founders of the journal Quaderni Rossi. See Evan Calder Williams, ‘Invisible Organization: Reading Romano Alquatti’, Viewpoint Magazine (September 2013): https://www.viewpointmag.com/2013/09/26/invisibleorganization-reading-romano-alquati/. 20 See Antonio Negri, Factory of Strategy: Thirty-Three Lessons on Lenin, trans. Arianna Bove (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014). 21 See Negri, Factory of Strategy, 80, and Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Commonwealth (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009), 131–7. 22 See an account of these events in Steve Wright, Storming Heaven: Class Composition and Struggle in Italian Autonomist Marxism (London: Pluto Press, 2017), 183–207. 23 See Wright, Storming Heaven, 183-207. 24 ‘Creative’ and ‘Diffuse’ Autonomia covered the areas of the movement which, in different degrees, stood opposed to any Leninist intent to build the party. See, for example, Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi, ‘La Specificitá Desiderante nel Movimento dell’Autonomia’, in Gli Autonomi Vol. 1, ed. Sergio Bianchi and Lanfranco Caminiti (Derive Approdi: Rome, 2007), 290–5. 25 Steve Wright, ‘A Party of Autonomy?’ in The Philosophy of Antonio Negri: Resistance in Practice, ed. Timothy S. Murphy and Abdul-Karim Mustapha (London: Pluto Press, 2005), 73–106. 26 The ‘movement of 1977’ was a series of protests that took place over Italy’s major urban centres. Students and Autonomia militants faced not only the police but also the PCI. In Rome, Sapienza University students fought (and expelled) CGIL’s (PCI’s union, Italy’s biggest) stewards from the campus. In Bologna, the police murder of a young Lotta Continua ex-militant, Francesco Lorusso, kicked off an occupation of the city that led the PCI-led mayor to call in army tanks so as to restore order. See Moroni and Balestrini, L’Orda d’Oro 1968–1977. 27 The last decades have seen the edition of substantial amounts of personal memories and recollections from the period, of more thorough attempts at comprehensive historiographical accounts, and of long-lost documents. Amidst these are several ‘marginal’ accounts of Autonomia, which fall out of the Potere Operaio–centred cannon. See Bianchi and Caminiti, Gli Autonomi. 28 Potere Operaio was to be the ‘party of insurrection’: the party was concerned with systematizing the revolutionary demands of the workers within specialized military and political functions. Unlike plenty of other small parties that had come about after 1968/9, as attempts to give the movement a direction, Potere Operaio sought to make the autonomous factory committees move in their direction. Years later, after Potere Operaio had dissolved into Autonomia, Negri considered the role of the party to be one of grasping the movement’s demands in order to set its calendar and waves of struggles. Movement could not be dependent on the ephemeral, even if there are

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massive outbursts of insurrectional rage. See Moroni and Balestrini, L’Orda d’Oro; Alessandro Stella, Années de Réve et de Plomb (Agone: Paris 2016); Sergio Bianchi, Figli di Nessuno (Milieu: Rome 2016). 29 Jacques Camatte’s texts from the early 1970s, particularly ‘The Wandering of Humanity’ (first published in the Invariance journal in 1973), develops an argument that is surprisingly similar to Negri’s, even if drawing radically different conclusions. See Jacques Camatte, The Wandering of Humanity, trans. Fredy Perlman (Detroit: Black & Red, 2002). 30 Antonio Negri, Marx Beyond Marx: Lessons on the Grundrisse, trans. Harry Cleaver, Michael Ryan and Maurizio Viano (London: Autonomedia/Pluto, 1991). 31 See Antonio Negri’s 1977, ‘Domination and Sabotage: On the Marxist Method of Social Transformation’; Negri, Books for Burning, 231–90. 32 ‘Proletarian grocery shopping’ were forms of collective expropriation of goods from commercial spaces. 33 Karl Marx, Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy (Rough Draft), trans. Martin Nicolaus (London: Penguin Classics, 1993), 295; cited and discussed in Negri, Marx Beyond Marx, 69–70. 34 Franco Piperno, ‘Sul Lavoro non Operaio’, in Metropoli. L’Autonomia Possibile, Vol. II., ed. AA.Vv (Pgreco: Rome, [1979] 2017), 123; author’s own translation. 35 See Negri’s ‘Domination and Sabotage’; Negri, Books for Burning, 231–90. 36 Negri holds this position from his work of the late 1970s to the ‘post-Operaist’ Empire series, co-written with Michael Hardt. 37 See Antonio Negri, Insurgencies: Constituent Power and the Modern State (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1999), and Hardt and Negri, Commonwealth. 38 Negri, Books for Burning, 51–117. 39 Negri, Books for Burning, 231–90. 40 Steve Wright, ‘A Party of Autonomy?’ in Murphy and Mustapha, Philosophy of Antonio Negri, 73–106. 41 In political and philosophical discourse the term ‘destituent’ is known due to Giorgio Agamben’s work. See Giorgio Agamben, ‘What Is a Destituent Power?’ Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 32: 1 (2014): 65–74. However, this term has also been used, independently, in Latin American radical political discourse. On the history of the concept, also see Raffaele Laudani, Disobedience in Western Political Thought: A Genealogy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 4–5. In this chapter, the term ‘destituent’ reflects the antagonistic side of multitude. 42 The 1969 bombing of a bank in Piazza Fontana, and the death of the falsely accused anarchist militant Pinelli, opened a season of state involvement in terrorist attacks that become known as the ‘strategy of tension’. See Wright, Storming Heaven, 121. 43 See Negri’s discussion about the relation between ‘Red Bases’, Autonomia’s territorial strongholds, and the ‘Red Brigades’, the organizations in charge of defending them (unrelated to the posterior armed struggle group of the same name); Negri, Books for Burning, 231–90. 44 See, for example, Joshua Clover, Riot Strike Riot (London: Verso, 2016) and Joshua Clover, ‘The Year in Struggles’, Commune Magazine (March, 2020): https:// communemag.com/the-year-in-struggles/ 45 ATTAC and the Tutti Bianchi, for example. 46 See, for example, David Graeber, Direct Action: An Ethnography (Edinburgh: AK Press, 2009).

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47 For through accounts of these technical developments and their influence see the Chuang Collective, ‘Summer in Smoke’, http://chuangcn.org/2019/12/summer-insmoke/, and Katherine Tai’s presentation at CCC.DE, ‘What the World Can Learn from Hong Kong: From Unanimity to Anonymity’, https://media.ccc.de/v/36c310933-what_the_world_can_learn_from_hongkong. 48 Some of the theorists that came out of the Operaist tradition, such as Paolo Virno, already noted the potentially negative character of the multitude, but from a different philosophical and political perspective than that discussed above. See, for example, Paolo Virno, ‘Theses on the New European Fascism’, Grey Room 21 (2005): 21–5. 49 Inasmuch as the Spanish political party Podemos did emerge from parts of the Indignados movement, one should be careful when positing a seamless continuity between both phenomena. Not only is the consolidation of the party made through the progressive abandonment of its assembly roots and rapprochement to the previously existing institutional left, but it would also be arguable to claim that such a representative strategy emerges from the success, rather than the failure, of the 15M squares movement. The Greek economist Pavlos Roufos argues that a similar process took place in Greece; Pavlos Roufos, ‘If Syriza is the answer, then the question was wrong’, Brooklyn Rail (March, 2015): https://brooklynrail.org/2015/03/field-notes/ if-syriza-is-the-answer-then-the-question-was-wrong. For a detailed history of Podemos see Emmanuel Rodríguez López, La Política en el Ocaso de la Clase Media (Madrid: Traficantes de Sueños, 2016). 50 See Williams, ‘Invisible Organization’.

References Agamben, Giorgio. ‘What Is a Destituent Power?’ Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 32:1 (2014): 65–74. Alquati, Romano. Sulla FIAT e altri scritti. Milan: Feltrinelli, 1975. Balestrini, Nanni and Primo Moroni. L’Orda d’Oro 1968–1977. Feltrinelli: Milan, 1997. Berardi, Franco ‘Bifo’. ‘La Specificitá Desiderante nel Movimento dell’Autonomia’. In Gli Autonomi Vol. 1, edited by Sergio Bianchi and Lanfranco Caminiti, 290–5. Derive Approdi: Rome, 2007. Bianchi, Sergio. Figli di Nessuno. Rome: Milieu, 2016. Camatte, Jacques. The Wandering of Humanity. Translated by Fredy Perlman Detroit: Black & Red, 2002. Chuang Collective. The Summer in Smoke (December 2019): http://chuangcn. org/2019/12/summer-in-smoke. Clover, Joshua. Riot Strike Riot. London: Verso, 2016. Clover, Joshua. ‘The Year in Struggles’. Commune Magazine (March 2020). https://communemag.com/the-year-in-struggles/. Endnotes Collective. ‘Communization and Value-Form Theory’. Endnotes 2 (2010): 68–105. Endnotes Collective. ‘History of Subsumption.’ Endnotes 2 (2010): 130–52. Graeber, David. Direct Action: An Ethnography. Edinburgh: AK Press, 2009. Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. Empire. Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2001. Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. Commonwealth. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009.

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Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. Assembly. Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2017. Laudani, Raffaele. Disobedience in Western Political Thought: A Genealogy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Marx, Karl. Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy (Rough Draft). Translated by Martin Nicolaus. London: Penguin Classics, 1993. Negri, Antonio. Marx oltre Marx. Milan: Feltrinelli, 1979. Negri, Antonio. Marx Beyond Marx: Lessons on the Grundrisse, Translated by Harry Cleaver, Michael Ryan and Maurizio Viano. London: Autonomedia/Pluto, 1991. Negri, Antonio. Insurgencies: Constituent Power and the Modern State. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1999. Negri, Antonio. Books for Burning: Between Civil War and Democracy in 1970s Italy. Translated and edited by Timothy S. Murphy. London and New York: Verso, 2005. Negri, Antonio. Factory of Strategy: Thirty-Three Lessons on Lenin. Translated by Arianna Bove. New York: Columbia University Press, 2014. Panzieri, Raniero. La Ripresa del Marxismo Leninismo in Italia. Rome: Nuove Edizione Operai, 1977. Panzieri, Raniero. Spontaneita’e organizzazione. Gli anni dei ‘Quaderni Rossi’ 1959–1964, ed. S. Merli. Pisa: BFS Edizioni, 1994. Panzieri, Raneiro. ‘Separare le strade’. In L’Operaismo degli Anni Sessanta, edited by Giuseppe Trotta and Fabio Milano, 312–13. Rome: Derive Approdi, 2008. Panzieri, Raniero. ‘Seven Theses on Workers’ Control (1958)’. Viewpoint Magazine (September 2014). https://www.viewpointmag.com/2014/09/09/seven-theses-onworkers-control-1958. Piperno, Franco. ‘Sul Lavoro non Operaio’. In Metropoli. L’Autonomia Possibile Vol. II., edited by AA. VV., 123. Pgreco: Rome, 2017. https://www.abebooks.it/servlet/ BookDetailsPL?bi=19187781409 Rodríguez López, Emmanuel. La Política en el Ocaso de la Clase Media. Madrid: Traficantes de Sueños, 2016. Roggero, Gigi. L’operaismo politico italiano. Genealogia, storia, metodo. Rome: Derive Approdi, 2019. Roufos, Pavlos. ‘If Syriza is the answer, then the question was wrong’. Brooklyn Rail (March, 2015). https://brooklynrail.org/2015/03/field-notes/if-syriza-is-the-answerthen-the-question-was-wrong. Stella, Alessandro. Années de Réve et de Plomb. Paris: Agone, 2016. Tai, Katherine. ‘What the World Can Learn from Hong Kong: From Unanimity to Anonymity’. https://media.ccc.de/v/36c3-10933-what_the_world_can_learn_from_ hongkong. Tronti, Mario. Workers and Capital. Translated by David Broder. London: Verso, 2019. Virno, Paolo. ‘Theses on the New European Fascism’. Grey Room 21 (2005): 21–5. Williams, Evan Calder. ‘Invisible Organization: Reading Romano Alquatti’. Viewpoint Magazine (September 2013). https://www.viewpointmag.com/2014/09/09/seventheses-on-workers-control-1958. Wright, Steve. ‘A Party of Autonomy?’ In The Philosophy of Antonio Negri: Resistance in Practice, edited by Timothy S. Murphy and Abdul-Karim Mustapha, 73–106. London: Pluto Press, 2005. Wright, Steve. Storming Heaven: Class Composition and Struggle in Italian Autonomist Marxism. London: Pluto Press, 2017.

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Part II T OWARDS A P OLITICS OF THE M ANY

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Chapter 5 C R OW D S A N D P U B L IC S Jodi Dean

Since 2011, the most important social actor worldwide has been the crowd. The most pressing political challenge has been the struggle over, around and through the crowd. Of what politics is the crowd the subject? Hong Kong, Ferguson, Gezi Park, Thailand, Ukraine, Tunisia, Tahrir Square, Greece, Spain, Chile, Brazil, Madison, Montreal, Oakland, Zuccotti Park: these place names have become markers of political intensity in a new cycle of struggles. They may, separately or together under a common name, come to designate an event. Whether they do come to designate an event – like the Paris Commune or 1968 – will depend on the politics to which the crowd gives rise: will this politics retroactively determine some or all of these place names as steps forward in the revolutionary process of the people as a collective political subject? In this essay, I explore the divisive politics of the crowd’s political rupture of the democratic politics enclosed in the public sphere. Since 2011, the crowd has introduced a gap within the political order of capital and state. Breaking with the suffocating reflexivity of contribution and critique in the mediated networks of communicative capitalism, insistent crowds impress themselves where they don’t belong, their very presence challenging the privatization of even ostensibly public places.1 Struggles in multiple locations now appear as one struggle. We see Gezi Park connected to Montreal connected to Tahrir Square. Instead of the separate incommunicable strikes of a multitude of singularities, the press of the crowd in place after place suggests the movement of the people, pushing questions of similarity, meaning and alliance. Which side are we on? Because of the instability of meaning in communicative capitalism – what Slavoj Žižek terms the decline of symbolic efficiency – current struggles rely less on empty signifiers like freedom and justice than they do on common images and names to hold their place, the more generic, the greater the reach: umbrella, tent, mask, Occupy.2 The generic image and common name (the precursor from the early 2000s was the ‘colour’ revolutions) do not designate identities or goals. They point to tactics anyone can use. That anyone can use them means that intentions can remain oblique, even opposed to those of others struggling under the same name. Yet insofar as these tactics-as-names are used in struggle, they inscribe

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a negation, an opposition, even as what is negated or opposed remains unclear, unstated. The common name and image can incite, carry, and extend a politics, providing the terms through which a politics may be legible after it appears. The common name and innocuous image mark a hole in the dominant order, a gap that is a site of open, ongoing, struggle. Because name and image precede ideology, the struggle over the meaning of the sign is part of the larger political struggle. Notice, even in the face of repeated assertions that Occupy Wall Street was ‘about’ democracy, the name is now (rightly) associated with anticapitalism. Similarly, a component of the political struggle of Occupy Central in Hong Kong was over whether it was, at heart, anti-capitalist or pro-parliamentary democracy. When the crowd appears in sites unauthorized by state and capital, it creates a political opening, the possibility for political subjectivation. Unlike the fiction of the public sphere, of that phantom public produced by an ideology of publicity that substitutes the fantasy of a unified field of deliberative processes for the actuality of partisan struggle, the crowd expresses the paradoxical power of the people as political subject, and here I mean the people as a divisive force, the people against the ruling class or the one per cent, the people as the rest of us.3 The crowd presses forward unexpectedly, then dissipates. We feel the force of many, even as we know they are not all; there are always more. Insistent and opaque, the crowd illuminates attributes of political subjectivity distinctive to the contingent, heterogeneous unity of collectives, attributes missed in mistaken characterizations of the political field as consisting of individuals and operating through procedures of democratic deliberation. Rather than a matter of deliberation, choice and decision, the politics of crowds manifests as breaks and gaps, in the unpredictability of an exciting cause, as well as through collective courage, directed intensity, and capacities to cohere. This does not mean, however, that the crowd is a political subject. The crowd is the Real that incites the political subject. It’s a necessary but incomplete component of political subjectivity, the rupture effected by the concentrated push of many, the disruptive power of self-conscious number as it feels its own force.

The affective intensity of provisional being The most influential early crowd theorist is Gustave Le Bon. His widely reprinted and translated book The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind laid the groundwork for twentieth-century-theorization of crowds. Benito Mussolini found Le Bon inspiring, particularly Le Bon’s discussion of the leader.4 Commentators such as Sigmund Freud also contributed to a reception of Le Bon that emphasizes the role of the leader.5 But Le Bon doesn’t talk about leaders until midway through The Crowd. When he does, he treats the leader as the nucleus of will around which a crowd forms, what we could also express in Lacanese as an object-cause of crowd desire. The crowd doesn’t desire the leader. The leader incites and directs the desire of the crowd. The leader is an instigator, an agitator whose intensity inspires the crowd and concentrates its attention. And even as Le Bon allows for the rare,

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great leaders of history, he focuses primarily on the fact that the leader begins as one of the led and that he is led himself, hypnotized by the idea as Maximilien Robespierre was by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The idea possesses the leader such that nothing else exists for him, which explains why leaders of the crowd ‘are recruited from the ranks of those morbidly nervous, excitable, half-deranged persons who are bordering on madness’.6 The leader concentrates and transmits an idea, turning it into a cause of action. Indeed, Le Bon considers the possibility that mass periodicals may even be replacing the leader in that they, too, can simplify, consolidate and transmit ideas. The emphasis on the leader displaces our attention from what is ingenious in Le Bon’s notion of the crowd, namely, his rendering of the crowd as a ‘provisional being formed of heterogeneous elements’.7 Le Bon presents the crowd as a distinct form of collectivity. The crowd is not a community. It doesn’t rely on traditions. It doesn’t have a history. The crowd is not held together by unstated norms or an obscene supplement that extends beyond its own immediacy (although crowd images and symbols clearly shape the reception and circulation of crowd events).8 Rather, the crowd is a temporary collective being. It holds itself together affectively via imitation, contagion, suggestion, and a sense of its own invincibility. Because the crowd is a collective being, it cannot be reduced to singularities. On the contrary, the primary characteristic of a crowd is its operation as a force of its own, like an organism. The crowd is more than an aggregate of individuals. It is individuals changed through the torsion of their aggregation, the force aggregation exerts back on them to do together what is impossible alone. The crowd phenomena that interest Le Bon define a new political era of mass political involvement. What the people desire is less significant than the fact that they desire. Crowd desire registers in the concentration that negates, in the positivity of a negation of the boundaries and separations ordering social being, in the pulsion of the people’s desire even as what it’s a desire for remains unstated, unconscious. For Le Bon, the political unconscious is a crowd of diverse and indeterminate others to whom we belong and the forces this belonging exerts. His crowds teem with the embodied passion that public sphere theory excises yet sometimes attempts to reinsert in its versions of collectivity.

Collective enjoyment From the nineteenth through the twenty-first centuries, crowd observers and commentators react to large political crowds with combinations of anxiety and enthusiasm. Social order disrupted, anything can happen. Exemplary here is Hyppolite Taine’s account of crowds in the French Revolution. Written in the aftermath of the Paris Commune of 1871, Taine’s portrayal influenced Le Bon. It continues to serve as a prototype for crowd description; we hear its echo in contemporary reports of crowds. Taine describes a tumultuous buzzing swarm. ‘The starving, the ruffians, and the patriots all form one body, and henceforth misery, crime, and public spirit

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unite to provide an ever-ready insurrection for the agitators who desire to raise one.’9 Taine’s crowd doesn’t have a politics. It is the opportunity for politics. Need, violence and a sense of justice reinforce each other. The crowd manifests the desire of the people but without telling us what it’s for, telling us instead that it can never be one thing, never one and never a thing, that until it is dispersed it will remain beyond satisfaction. Taine ventriloquizes in advance twenty-first-century internet commentary: In this pell-mell of improvised politicians, no one knows who is speaking; nobody is responsible for what he says. Each is there as in the theatre, unknown among the unknown, requiring sensational impressions and transports, a prey to the contagion of passions around him, borne along in the whirl of sounding phrases, of ready-made news, growing rumours, and other exaggerations by which fanatics keep out doing each other.10

Here in the upheaval of the political crowd there is no clear or singular demand, no person of known responsibility. The setting is one of rumour without knowledge and rhetoric without basis. People in the crowd are speaking, and their collective desire exceeds what is individually spoken. In the contemporary United States, it could seem that what the people desire most are cheap consumer goods. Our most prevalent image of crowds is that of Black Friday shoppers surging through the doors of Walmart. Ubiquitous screens feature chaotic hordes cohering through the concentration of individual desires before the closed doors of big box stores, the aggregated intensities of personal wants for things hinting at a collective will to take that just might go over the edge and reject the codes of price and property. In these crowd images, capitalism formats our setting so that only consumers and commodities appear, the consumers welded into a single mass through the erasure of social space, the commodities now so desirable as to have been magically able to effect this erasure. Black Friday shoppers know the role they play. Decades of media coverage have made that clear enough with their interviews of bargain hunters braving bitter cold and long lines, excited in the press of bodies against glass, and desperate enough to punch, kick and grab in this scene of shopping staged as looting. The form of crowd action capital expects in these spectacles of consumption – wait, press, rush – has been well-established. Late-twentieth-century Britain offered a particular sort of crowd experience for those standing in stadium terraces watching football. As Bill Buford describes it: the physicalness was constant; it was inescapable – unless you literally escaped by leaving. You could feel, and you had no choice but to feel, every important moment of play – through the crowd. A shot on goal was a felt experience. With each effort, the crowd audibly drew in its breath, and then, after another athletic save, exhaled with equal exaggeration. And each time the people around me expanded, their rib cages noticeably inflating, and we were pressed more closely together. They had tensed up – their arm muscles flexed slightly and their bodies

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stiffened, or they might stretch their neck forward, trying to determine in the strange, shadowless electronic night-light if this shot was the shot that would result in a goal. You could feel the anticipation of the crowd on all sides of your body as a series of sensations.11

Buford attempts to understand the violence of English football fans, a violence not only of fighting (beating, kicking, knifing) and property damage (smashing, burning, throwing), but also of crush, stampede, collapse, and suffocation. Crowd violence is more a product of design, architecture, patterns of ticketing and transportation than it is a spontaneous expression of anger. A crowd forms in a place. It depends on the boundedness of a setting to concentrate its intensity. On the one hand, the boundaries demarcate the permissible ‘the crowd can be here, but not there’.12 They establish the divisions that en-form the crowd. On the other, these very limits invite transgression, directing the crowd’s attention. They provide the thresholds that, once crossed, enable the crowd to feel its strength and renew its assertion of power. Buford attends to this crowd feeling, the exhilarating moment when a sense of individuality is obliterated as all the mediators of social interchange that maintain our separateness give way to the ‘jubilant authority of suddenly being in a crowd’.13 Charge, atmosphere, pressure, expectation, excitement: the affective sensibility of the collective becomes desirable in itself, the shared sense of the power of numbers. This sense lets us construe the crowd as the positivity of negation, a positive expression of the negation of individuality, separateness, boundaries and limit. We could say that the crowd is a public that enjoys collectivity rather than enclosing it within a mediated sphere where individuals fantasize about their audience.

The discharge Buford’s depiction of the violent crowds associated with English football supporters repeats key elements of Elias Canetti’s classic work Crowds and Power. Canetti associates the crowd with a primal fear, the fear of being touched, particularly by the strange or unknown. Only in a crowd, the denser the better, is this fear shed. ‘As soon as a man has surrendered himself to the crowd, he ceases to fear its touch’,14 Canetti writes. ‘Suddenly, it is as though everything were happening in one and same body. This is perhaps one of the reasons why a crowd seeks to close in on itself: it wants to rid each individual as completely as possible of the fear of being touched.’15 Norms of appropriate proximity dissolve. Conventional hierarchies collapse. In place of the distinctions mobilized to produce the individual form, there is a temporary being of multiple mouths, anuses, stomachs, hands and feet, a being comprised of fold upon fold of touching skin. Canetti describes the moment of the crowd’s emergence as the ‘discharge’. This is the point when ‘all who belong to the crowd get rid of their differences and feel equal’.16 Up until that point, there may be a lot of people, but they are not yet that concentration of bodies and affects that is a crowd. Density, though, as it increases,

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has libidinal effects: ‘In that density, where there is scarcely any space between, and body presses against body, each man is as near the other as he is to himself, and an immense feeling of relief ensues. It is for the sake of this blessed moment, when noone is greater or better than another, that people become a crowd’.17 Canetti gives us the crowd as a strange attractor of jouissance, a figure of collective enjoyment.18 The libidinal energy of the crowd binds it together for a joyous moment, a moment Canetti renders as a feeling of equality and that we might also figure as the shared intensity of belonging. The feeling won’t last; inequality will return with the dissipation of the crowd. Very few give up the possessions and associations that separate them (and those who do form what Canetti terms ‘crowd crystals’). But in the orgasmic discharge, ‘a state of absolute equality’ supplants individuating distinctions.19 Canetti’s crowd equality clearly has nothing to do with bourgeois equality of the sort Karl Marx excoriates in ‘The Critique of the Gotha Program’.20 This is not the formal equality of a common standard applied to different people, objects or expenditures of labour. Rather, the equality Canetti invokes is one where ‘a head is a head, an arm is an arm, and the differences between individual heads and arms is irrelevant’.21 Desubjectification accompanies intense belonging. Just as Marx parenthetically notes that unequal individuals ‘would not be different individuals if they were not unequal’,22 so does Canetti associate inequality with differentiation, with the siphoning off of the fluid, mobile substance of collectivity into the form of distinct individuals. This experience of equality in the crowd, he argues, infuses all demands for justice. Equality as belonging – not separation, weighing and measure – is what gives ‘energy’ (Canetti’s term) to the longing for justice. Too many, Canetti argues, castigate the crowd for its destructiveness without seeking its cause. He associates destructiveness with the discharge, almost as if the crowd were crying out in ecstasy: ‘the noise of destruction adds to its satisfaction’. Sounds of shattering glass augment the jubilation of the crowd while prolonging enjoyment by promising continued growth and movement; ‘the din is the applause of objects’.23 Particularly satisfying is the destruction of boundaries. Nothing is off limits because there are no limits. The windows and doors that make houses into separate spaces, spaces for individuals apart from the crowd, are smashed. ‘In the crowd the individual feels that he is transcending the limits of his own person. He has a sense of relief, for the distances are removed which used to throw him back on himself and shut him in. With the lifting of these burdens of distance he feels free; his freedom is the crossing of these boundaries.’24 Canetti’s crowd desires. It wants to grow, to increase and spread. It will persist as long as it is moving towards a goal. In addition to equality and density, then, he attributes to crowds traits suggestive of what psychoanalysis treats as desire: growth and direction. The urge to grow is a push to be more, to eliminate barriers, to universalize and extend the crowd feeling such that nothing is outside it. Direction intensifies equality by providing a common goal. The goal must remain unattained, if the crowd is to continue to exist. Expressed in Lacanian terms, desire is a desire to desire.

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The people or the mob Some contemporary crowd observers claim the crowd for democracy. They see in the amassing of thousands a democratic insistence, a demand to be heard and a right to assembly. In the context of communicative capitalism, however, the crowd exceeds democracy. Communicative capitalism reconfigures the relation among crowds, democracy, capitalism and class. On the one hand, the democratic reading of the crowd blocks these changes from view. It harnesses the crowd into the service of the very setting that the crowd disrupts. On the other hand, the democratic reading opens up a struggle over the subject of politics: the determination whether a crowd is the people or the mob.25 In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the crowd posed questions of power and order. ‘The crowd’, Walter Benjamin writes, ‘no subject was more entitled to the attention of nineteenth century writers’.26 At the time, the crowd appears as a quintessential political expression of the people.27 Inseparable from the rise of mass democracy, the crowd looms with the threat of the collective power of the masses, the force of the many against those who would exploit, control and disperse them. Whether feared or embraced, the flood, intrusion or crush of crowds thrusts the collective many into history. Commentators who, like Le Bon, want to keep the people in their place warn against ‘the extraordinary rebellion of the masses’.28 They depict crowds as brutal, primitive, even criminal, mobs. In contrast, commentators seeking the overthrow of the elites champion the crowd’s political vitality. Workers, peasants and commoners of every sort are recognizing and asserting themselves as sovereign. Marx famously describes the crowds of the Paris Commune as the people ‘storming heaven’.29 For nineteenth- and twentieth-century observers, then, crowds and popular democracy are intertwined. At issue is whether the sovereignty of the people can be anything other than mob rule. A benefit of the democratic reading of the crowd is its revelation of a split: the mob or the people. The crowd forces the possibility of the intrusion of the people into politics. Whether the people is the subject of a crowd event is up for grabs. The crowd opens up a site of struggle over its subject. A crowd might have been a mob, not an event at all. It might have been a predictable, legitimate gathering, again, not an event but an affirmation of its setting. And it might have the people rising up in pursuit of justice.30 A crowd event is or will have been an effect of the political process the crowd event activates. The crowd does not have a politics. It is the opportunity for politics. The determination whether a crowd was a mob or the people results from political struggle. Resisting for a while the urge to classify crowds in terms of a pregiven political content enables us to consider crowds in terms of their dynamics. Crowds are more than large numbers of people concentrated in a location. They are effects of collectivity, the influence – whether conscious, affective, or unconscious – of others.31 Contemporary social science analyses these effects with terms like bandwagoning, bubbles and information cascades. Mainstream commentary continues to use terms from earlier crowd theory: imitation, suggestion and contagion.

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The democratic claim for the crowd was powerful in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Democracy could name an opposition. Even as communists registered the limits of bourgeois democracy in its use as an instrument of capitalist class rule, democracy could still register a challenge to existing structures of power. In the twenty-first century, however, dominant nation-states exercise power as democracies. They bomb and invade as democracies for democracy’s sake. International political bodies legitimize themselves as democratic, as do the contradictory entangled media practices of communicative capitalism. When crowds amass in opposition, they poise themselves against democratic practices, systems and bodies. To claim the crowd for democracy fails to register this change in the political setting of the crowd. Democratic governments justify themselves as rule by the people. When crowds gather in opposition, they expose the limits of this justification. The will of the majority expressed in elections stops appearing as the will of the people. That not all the people support this government or those decisions becomes openly, physically, intensely manifest.32 Disagreement and opposition start to do more than circulate as particular contributions to the production of nuggets of shareable outrage in the never-ending flow of clickbait in which we drown one another. They index collective power, the affective generativity that exceeds individual opinions. Many press back, using the strength of embodied number to install a gap in the dominant order. They make apparent its biases, compromises, and underlying investments in protecting the processes through which the capitalist class accumulates wealth. They expose the fragility of the separations and boxes upholding electoral politics. The crowd reclaims for the people the political field democracy would try to fragment and manage. Under communicative capitalism, the democratic claim for the crowd reinforces and is reinforced by the hegemony of ideals of decentralization and self-organization. Early crowd theorists describe the crowd as primitive, violent and suggestible. In our present context, these descriptions are often inverted as ‘smart mobs’ and the ‘wisdom of crowds’.33 Such inversions appropriate the crowd, enlisting it in support of capitalism as they strip away its radical political potential. Business writers like James Surowiecki, for example, talk about the crowd in terms of collective intelligence. Surowiecki’s primary interest is in how to harness this intelligence, which he treats as information compiled from diverse and independent sources. His claim is that a crowd of self-interested people working on the same problem separately in a decentralized way will come up with the best solution. Cognitive diversity is key, necessary for avoiding imitation and groupthink (necessary, in other words, for blocking the affective binding-together of a provisional collective being). Surowiecki’s exemplary crowds are corporations, markets, and intelligence agencies. Their wisdom depends on mechanisms like prices and systems that are able ‘to generate lots of losers and then to recognize them as such and kill them off ’.34 In actuality, Surowiecki’s crowds are not so much crowds as they are data pools. He can treat the crowd as wise because he has condensed it into information, dispersed it into individual heads and reaggregated

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it under conditions that use the many to benefit the few. Aggregation, Surowiecki admits, is decentralization’s paradoxical partner. Eugene W. Holland commandeers Surowiecki’s claims for the wisdom of crowds in his attempt to envision a free-market communism.35 Holland wants to show the plausibility of horizontal, bottom-up, decentralized, and self-organized social organization. Jazz, soccer, the internet and markets all demonstrate, Holland argues, how group members adapt themselves to one another in the absence of top-down coordination. There are limits to these examples as social models. When playing, musicians and soccer players know and accept that they are involved in a common endeavour.36 A performance and a game necessarily restrict who and how many people can play. Jazz and soccer don’t scale. Further, and more fundamentally, Holland ignores the unavoidable production of inequality on the internet and in markets. Concerned with avoiding anything that smacks of state power, he neglects the extreme division between the one and the many that arises immanently. Self-organization in complex networks doesn’t guarantee horizontality. In fact, it produces hierarchy. The clearest exposition of the constituent role of inequality in complex networks comes from Albert-László Barabási.37 Complex networks are networks characterized by free choice, growth, and preferential attachment. Free markets and the internet are prime examples. Complex networks have a specific structure, a power-law distribution of the items in the network. The most popular node or item in the network generally has twice as many links as the second most popular, which has more than the third most popular, and so on, such that there is very little difference among the crowd of those at the bottom but massive differences between top and bottom. This is the structure that produces blockbuster movies, best-selling novels and giant internet hubs. The idea appears in popular media as the 80/20 rule, the winner-take-all or winner-take-most character of the economy, and the long tail.38 In these examples, the one in first place emerges through the generation of a common field. These commons can be generated in a variety of ways: in comments on a post (think of Reddit and the ways that readers vote posts up and down; Holland’s examples are Slashdot and Kuro5hin), in web articles (think Huffington Post blogs or other sites offering lots of clickbait), on Twitter (via hashtags) and through competitions (think of contests for the best city tourism app), to use but a few examples. The contest generates a common field that will produce a winner. The more participation there is – the larger the field – the greater becomes the inequality, that is to say, the greater is the difference between the one and the many. Expanding the field produces the one. Holland, like so many advocates of self-organization, ignores the structure that free choice, growth and preferential attachment produce. Using Wikipedia to illustrate his point, Holland emphasizes the equality of Wikipedians.39 Clay Shirky, however, notes that ‘the spontaneous division of labour driving Wikipedia wouldn’t be possible if there were concern for reducing inequality. On the contrary, most large social experiments are engines for harnessing inequality rather than

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limiting it’.40 The so-called wisdom of crowds doesn’t spontaneously generate a free and equitable order. And contra Holland, networked experiments in decentralized self-organization don’t lead in the direction of dehierarchicized social change but rather towards ever more extreme differentiation between the few and many. Networked communication doesn’t eliminate hierarchy. It entrenches hierarchy by using our own choices against us. Although it may seem far removed from the brutal mob of the nineteenth century, the twenty-first century’s wise crowd is similar in one crucial respect: both attempt to prevent the crowd from introducing a gap through which the people can appear. Depictions of primitive and atavistic crowds in the nineteenth century naturalize their disparagement and repression. Social order and mob rule are antithetical. These people don’t belong in politics. They are not the people with a divisive claim to justice. Twenty-first-century evocations of the wisdom of crowds like Surowiecki’s and Holland’s likewise efface the crowd gap, this time absorbing it into idealized market and networked processes. Militant, disruptive, political crowds become so many self-organizing units, the self-interests of which naturally converge. Nineteenth-century treatments of the crowd as a mob acknowledge antagonism but try to prevent it from being linked to the people. Twenty-firstcentury versions of smart mobs deny antagonism altogether, substituting the interactions of individuals and small groups for organized political struggle. Surowiecki and Holland try to ensure that these interactions don’t coalesce into provisional heterogeneous beings but remain differentiated singularities. Each rejects imitation, a basic crowd dynamic, Surowiecki to avoid bubbles and riots, Holland to guarantee difference. They may use the term crowds, but their crowds neither become collective beings nor force a gap. In the complex networks of communicative capitalism, the so-called wisdom of crowds isn’t a matter of the intrusion of the many into politics. It’s the generation and circulation of the many in order to produce the one.

Numerical force In the contemporary United States, political crowds, crowds authorized by neither capital nor the state, rarely manifest out-of-doors.41 Increase seems a desire limited to capital. 2011 was a year of hope and disruption because protesters from Madison, Wisconsin through the multiple Occupy encampments shot a hole in the wall of expectations and enabled us to glimpse radical, collective, possibilities. For the most part, though, political crowds occur elsewhere – Tunisia, Egypt, Greece, even Canada. The 2 December 2013 headlines for the news program Democracy Now! expressed this status quo as it highlighted the thousands protesting in the occupied territories against potential Israeli expulsion of Bedouin Arabs, the thousands rallying in Honduras for an election recall, the tens of thousands protesting in Mexico against their president, the hundreds of thousands in Ukraine protesting the government’s refusal to boost ties to the EU and the ‘Republican Tweet Mocked for Racist Claim’. The Republican National Committee had tweeted a photo of Rosa

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Parks with the message: ‘Today we honour Rosa Park’s bold stand and her role in ending racism.’42 Thousands retweeted it with the hashtag #RacismEndedWhen. In the Democracy Now! headlines, domestic social media snark, contained in and channelled through networked communications, appears at the same level as mass protests in other countries as if to stand in for the missing crowd, the many invoked in terms like crowd-sourcing. Yet again political energy is captured in communicative capitalism’s circuits of drive. But this contained and limited media moment still indicates the necessity of the crowd for politics. The thousands of repetitions under a common name – marked by the hashtag – push back against the Republican Party’s rebranding efforts, demonstrating its failure to comprehend ongoing racism in the United States. For a little while, the Twitter crowd turns lack into a common object. They disorder the Republican social media plan, their intrusion via a common name denegating the minimal difference of communicative capitalism’s personalized media. Their force comes from their provisional beingmany-as-one until it is swept back into the engulfing media flow. Even here, even in communicative capitalism’s virtual crowds, we can glimpse an expression of crowd desire, a desire irreducible to either a specific object or specific individuals counted up as the force of their aggregation counts for nothing. Social media is thus also a site of permissible, laudable, increase; everyone wants more friends, forwards, and followers. Not all crowds install a gap. State and capital try to keep crowds in check, to absorb them back into the state of the things, the constant circulation of spectacles we collectively produce for the private accumulation of the few. When the protests following the 2009 presidential election in Iran were described as the Twitter Revolution and the overthrow of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in 2011 was called the Facebook Revolution, the disruptive acts of a revolutionary people were inscribed into a US-centric technophilic imaginary. The revolutionary opening was subsumed into communicative capitalism, proffered as more evidence of the liberatory character of the networked media practices that support and extend economic inequality. At the same time, by pointing to these platforms, the terms Twitter Revolution and Facebook Revolution mark them as crowd fora. Twitter and Facebook are not just tools; they are manifestations of the affective intensities associated with crowds – cascade effects, enthusiasm, band-wagoning, contagion. What a revolution was for or against, what it established, what it meant, what in fact was going on is submerged under the wave of quantity that takes the place of significance. More materially, the platform revolutions suggest the possibility that the crowd may incite an anticapitalist, even communist, collective political subject, the revolt of the many against the few. A business writer setting out the ways companies can ‘leverage’ the creative power of the crowd while drastically cutting costs warns that even if they aren’t paid ‘people will want a sense of ownership over their contributions’ and ‘develop proprietary feelings over the company itself ’.43 At a moment when twenty-first-century capitalists are lauding the wisdom of crowds and celebrating crowd-sourcing as the future of business, to say Twitter Revolution and Facebook Revolution is to broach the possibility that the posting and sharing many could seize the means of communications.

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Capitalist enthusiasm for the wisdom of crowds as a way to offload work onto those willing to do it for free inverts the characterization of the crowd prominent in nineteenth-century crowd theory. Early crowd theorists described the crowd as primitive, violent and suggestible. Later extensions of crowd theory link the crowd to the leader, rendering suggestibility as the fascination with the leader that incubates totalitarianism. Both the early and later versions associate crowds with deindividuation, irrationality and affective intensity. In contrast, contemporary attempts to use combinations of networked technologies, competition and prizes to expropriate the social substance render crowds as smart, knowing, and creative, as sources of value. On the one hand, the inversion is possible because of a shift of terrain from streets to networks. The crowd that contemporary companies attempt to exploit is the one that remains separated into individuated bodies as it produces itself in another space through networked personalized digital media devices. On the other hand, but correspondingly, the inversion is possible because of a shift in communication. It’s not just a matter of where the crowd is; it’s a matter of what the crowd is doing: the crowd is communicating, expressing opinions, sharing ideas, discussing, critiquing. In other words, the crowd is doing all the things previously associated with the public, but, as the aggregated, stored, quantifiable and searchable activity of hundreds of millions, these same things lose any capacity they might have had to register a gap. The wisdom of the crowd isn’t a matter of reason or argument; it’s not a question of its content. It arises from its circulation, from repetition, accumulation and correlation.

Communicative capitalism and the public sphere Communicative capitalism realizes the ideals of the public sphere: participation, inclusivity, equality and reflexivity. People are encouraged to share their opinions, express themselves, and get involved. It doesn’t matter what these opinions are as long as they are included (transparency is another version of the same norm). Networks are supposed to grow, to include more and more people and ideas, everyone, in fact; everyone and everything is supposed to be online, available, accessible. Everyone is supposed to be ready and able to contribute their point of view, their time and attention. Even theorists seemingly at a distance from the democratic advocates of publics and counterpublics enthusiastically repeat the injunction to include, enjoining us to broaden our vision of the public to include animals and objects. These theorists are doing the ideological groundwork for naturalizing the tags and sensors that will continue communicative capitalism’s processes of enclosure in the internet of things. In the networked interactions of communicative capitalism, moreover, utterances and contributions are equivalent: posts, likes, comments and tweets count as equal additions to the circulating flow. A truth is as good as a lie; agreement and disagreement both register as engagement. Word clouds illustrate this fundamental equivalence as they register quantity, the number of times a word is repeated regardless of context. The claims of the disingenuous are no different from the sincere: some

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people have raised questions about the science of climate change. And, because communicative capitalism realizes the public sphere ideal of reflexivity as well, all these points that I’m making, these critical reflections are themselves part of the mix; there is nothing surprising or disruptive about critical reflection. These days it can even precede that upon which it reflects; think, for example, about pundits who criticize a political speech before it has been made or activists who criticize a march before it occurs. And then there is a debate over the critique, reflection on the possible impact of the debate on the event before it occurs. Reflexivity, the very turn and gesture of the critical impulse, is caught in the environment it produces; each reflection participates in the public sphere as another addition, another contribution that is included and that is equal to any other – cat picture, beheading, lethal virus. One of the first theorists to grasp the impact of networked media or, in the language of the time, cyberspace was Slavoj Žižek: already in the nineties he pointed out that what was lost in the move to virtual reality was not reality but the virtual.44 What he meant was that computer-mediated interactions impact the dimension of meaning and signification associated with the symbolic order, the norms and understandings we take for granted as the background knowledge everybody knows. Žižek considers several ways computer-mediated interaction threatens virtuality. One is the loss of the binding power or performative efficacy of words. In online interactions, the binding power or performative efficacy of words declines; at any moment, the visitor to cyberspace can simply unhook himself.45 Since exit is an option with nearly no costs, subjects lose incentives for their words to be their bonds. Consistency is the ultimate internet hobgoblin. A second, more fundamental threat involves the dissolution of the boundary between fantasy and reality, a dissolution affecting identity and desire. Insofar as digital environments enable the realization of fantasies on the textual screen, they close the gaps between the subject’s symbolic identity and its phantasmic background.46 Instant gratification fills in the lack constitutive of desire. Hypertextual play enables the unstated subtext of any text to be brought to the fore, thereby eliminating the textual effects of the unsaid. Differently put, fantasies that are completely realized cease to be fantasies. A repercussion of this filling-in is a third threat, a threat to meaning. The gap of signification, the minimal difference that makes some item or answer significant, that makes it feel right or the one dissipates. But instead of eliminating the space of doubt, the filling-in occasions the loss of the possibility of certainty. Žižek asks, ‘Is not one of the possible reactions to the excessive filling-in of the voids in cyberspace therefore informational anorexia, the desperate refusal to accept information, in so far as it occludes the presence of the Real?’47 The feast of information results in a more fundamental starvation as one loses the sense of an underlying Real. All three threats – to performativity, desire, and meaning – indicate cyberspace’s foreclosure of the symbolic (the elimination of the space of the signifier as it slides into the Real that thereby itself loses the capacity to appear as Real). The loss of the symbolic is the loss of a space of signification. Consider, for example, the difference between celebrity photographs on the wall of a restaurant

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and celebrity images on one’s Facebook wall.48 The wall of a restaurant has a degree of duration; the fixed space suggests a space of belonging. To be included is an accomplishment of sorts; to be excluded means that one does not belong. Visitors generally see the same photographs year after year; to the extent that the photographs remain the same, they mark the continuity of the restaurant over time, testimony to the longevity of its appeal. Like the walls, the relationship between proprietor and customer relies on a kind of fixity; those who eat do not cook; they do not clean; they are not liable for damages. The restaurant space is a private space to which they have access as paying customers. Facebook walls are different and not simply because they are screens. Rather, they are fluid, changing and ubiquitous. Few friends faithfully inspect each other’s walls. Even as we may observe patterns in our friends’ postings, we recognize that these patterns are nonall, nontotalizable, shifting snapshots and moods. Given that any of us can be on Facebook, Facebook walls can’t mark inclusion and exclusion. They subvert distinctions between public and private. My friends are on my wall and I am on theirs. Our walls don’t feel like walls. At best they are momentary shifting depositories for billions of microacts of publicity. One can add pretty much whatever one likes, recognizing nonetheless that the fact of this adding registers very little. Not even all of one’s friends will see it; Facebook’s algorithms choose for us who sees what. It’s not personal; it’s business. More information, more participation, more reflection, more inclusion: the realization of public sphere ideals in communicative capitalism produces their opposite. Instead of finding information, people are ever more doubtful and unsure; how do we know what to believe? There is always something that we have missed or left out, in fact more that we have missed than we can ever know. The intensification of the demand to include dissolves the space of inclusion so that people feel ever more excluded. There is no big Other whose recognition of our inclusion would count; more is happening somewhere else, and we are not included in it. For theorists in the humanities, the concept of the public sphere held a particular attraction in the nineties. Social Text and Critical Inquiry published more articles with the term public in the title in 1990 than any year before or since; for Public Culture the boom years for public were 1993 and 1994. The appearance in 1989 of the English translation of Jürgen Habermas’s Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere no doubt factors in here as the book became the subject of conferences and exchanges. A broader explanation for the seeming obviousness of the importance of the complex of ideas of public, public sphere, counterpublics, and publicity to some in the nineties may be the rise of civil society, the end of the Cold War, and the acceleration and demassification of media with the prominence of personal computing, videorecording, pagers, fax machines, cable and the internet. More specifically, with the so-called end of ideology and ostensible defeat of communism, the great battle of the twentieth century seemed to have been won in favour of markets and parliamentary democracy. Politics would henceforth involve protecting the freedom of markets and vitality of democracy, being sure that they were as inclusive, transparent and participatory as possible as

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well as trying to maintain some kind of separation and balance between them. Too much democracy would prevent the market from carrying out its productive and distributive functions just as too much market could lead to monopolies, bubbles, crashes, and recessions. Much of the Left agreed that there was no alternative to capitalism and folded itself into issue and identity politics. Oppression came to be seen not in terms of exploitation but in terms of exclusion, exclusion from equal participation in the public sphere or spheres of civil society. Keeping the basic political frame intact, the goals of politics were then the complex of norms and ideals around publicity: inclusion, visibility, voice, awareness, participation, being counted, being seen, being heard. The reflexivity of these last three items – being counted, being seen, being heard – is worth noting as they mark a shift to the self (that is, the individual or group trying to register). What had been a focus on outcomes turns into a self-centred focus on one’s own registration, which is difficult and fragile in communicative capitalism. Signs that we count are reassuring – so many retweets, so many likes. It doesn’t matter whether they agree or disagree; the very indication that we’ve been seen or heard provides its own little charge. The fact of appearing delivers a little nugget of enjoyment in the jargon of Jacques Lacan. The goal doesn’t matter insofar as a kind of political satisfaction accrues to the aim as the path or process becomes itself the vehicle for enjoyment. The dynamic here is thus that of drive rather than desire. Contemporary democracy, structured through the norms of the public sphere, runs a program of democratic drive, where participation, attention and circulation provide the enjoyment attaching people to a system where the solution to the problems of democracy appears as more democracy rather than as changing the system. Jacques Rancière’s account of the staging of disagreement rather than figuring the political as such (the political confrontation between politics and the police) exemplifies this sublimation of politics in democratic drive. As drive, democracy organizes enjoyment via a multiplicity of stagings, of making oneself visible in one’s lack. Contemporary protests in the United States whether as marches, vigils, Facebook pages or internet petitions aim at visibility, awareness, being seen. They don’t aim at taking power. Our politics is one of endless attempts to make ourselves seen. It’s as if instead of looking at our opponents and working out ways to defeat them, we get off on imagining them looking at us. Around the same time that some theorists are working with ideas of publicity and the public sphere, others are emphasizing depoliticization, dedemocraticization and postpolitics. Public sphere and postpolitics are two sides of the same coin, two approaches to the same field where subjectless circuits of communication have displaced a collective political subject. Chantal Mouffe makes a powerful version of this argument with her critique of Habermasian deliberative democracy. Habermas negates ‘the inherently conflictual natures of modern pluralism’, she argues. Together with Rawlsian liberalism, deliberative democracy disavows the way that ‘bringing a deliberation to a close always results from a decision which excludes other possibilities’.49 The norms and ideals constellated around publicity and the public sphere fail to grapple with the fact that politics is necessarily

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divisive. A decision for one course rather than another excludes some possibilities and positions. Part of the challenge of politics is the ability to take responsibility for that exclusion, avowing it as a condition of politics rather than a barrier to it. Once the Left became liberal, presenting itself in terms of appeals to democracy, a politics limited to civil society, and ideals of inclusion and civility in a public sphere, it could no longer name an enemy. Or, its enemy became the same as those of the liberal democratic state – terrorism, fundamentalism and any advocacy of organized political power. On this score, rather than seeking to build apparatuses of power the ultimate Left liberal gesture was exposing its operation in an embrace of a fantasy of relations totally devoid of power. The real effect of this fantasy was the empowerment of capital as a class. Key to the strength of Mouffe’s position is her careful use of Carl Schmitt’s critique of liberal parlimentarianism. Schmitt argues that liberalism seeks to evade the core political opposition between friend and enemy, replacing politics with ethics and economics. This replacing is in fact a displacing of the intensity characteristic of the political to another realm. In Schmitt’s words: the political can derive its energy from the most varied human endeavours, from the religious, economic, moral and other antitheses. It does not describe its own substance, but only the intensity of an association or dissociation of human beings whose motives can be religious, national (in the ethnic or cultural sense), economic, or of another kind and can effect at different times different coalitions and separations.50

The political marks the intensity of a relation, an intensity that characterizes the antagonism constitutive of society (around which society forms). Crowds, when they amass in sites unauthorized by capital and the state, transmit this intensity. They are vehicles of disruption that rupture the dominant liberal democracy imaginary that has been the form of postpolitics. Crowds insist on and express division (in this vein, Canetti emphasizes double crowds that thrive in their opposition). I’ve argued that the realization of democratic norms of publicity, inclusivity, reciprocity and equality (equality in the form of the communicative equivalent of contributions) in communicative capitalism has resulted in the diminution of the efficacy of critique and the strengthening of capitalism. Communication becomes a number game: how many hits, shares and retweets? How many followers? In a numbers game, capital has an advantage. One can pay for a better place in google search results; one can pay to promote posts on Facebook. Money may not be able to buy me love, but it can buy me likes. These examples are trivial, though, when it comes to capital’s real impact on communications: ownership of the platforms, of the companies that provide network access, of the data and metadata communication use generates, of the factories that make the multiple devices that have become dearer to us than appendages.

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Conclusion I have emphasized the political opening of the crowd event. The energy of the crowd opens to political subjectivity, but it is not the same as political subjectivity. The crowd is a libidinous, collective intensity: a provisional, heterogeneous being constituted out of the egalitarian discharge. Even as contemporary crowds express the momentary force of aggregated number generated in communicative capitalism, they push forward with the rupture of communicative capitalism’s ideology of publicity. Crowds are not publics of opinion exchanging individuals. They are the push of collectivity; we are many and strong. Crowds insist, not to be included but to break through, to disrupt. People act together in ways impossible for individuals, a phenomenon that preoccupied the early-twentieth-century crowd theorists. When it inscribes a gap within dominant arrangements, the crowd prefigures a collective, egalitarian possibility – but prefigures in a completely literal way: prior to figuration. The crowd by itself, unnamed, doesn’t represent an alternative; it cuts out an opening by breaking through the limits bounding permitted experience. It misassembles what is present and threatens what is not yet there. People are there but, through the active desire of the crowd, differently from how they were before, combined into a state of such absolute equality that ‘differences between individual heads and arms are irrelevant’.51 Together previously separate people impress the possibility of the people as the collective subject of a politics. The crowd is necessary but insufficient, an incomplete part of a politics not yet the politics of a part, half a split subject. For the crowd to become the people, representation is necessary. Some on the Left – autonomists, lifestyle anarchists and libertarian communists – so embrace the energy unleashed by the crowd that they mistake an opening, an opportunity, for an end. They imagine the goal of politics as the proliferation of multiplicities, potentialities, differences. The unleashing of the playful, carnivalesque, and spontaneous is taken to indicate political success, as if duration were but a multiplication of moments rather than itself a qualitative change. For the fantasists of politics as beautiful moment, any interpretation of a crowd event is to be contested because of its unavoidable incompleteness, its partiality. They forget, or disavow, the fact that the non-all character of the people is the irreducible condition of struggle. And so they treat organization, administration and legislation as a failure of revolution, a return of impermissible domination and hierarchy rather than as effects and arrangements of power, rather than as attributes of the success of a political intervention. The politics of the beautiful moment is no politics at all. Politics combines the opening with direction, with the insertion of the crowd disruption into a sequence or process that pushes one way rather than another. There is no politics until someone announces a meaning and the struggle over this meaning begins. Most of us have experiences in everyday life that confirm this point; we come across a bunch of people in an unexpected place and want to know what’s going on. What are they doing, what is everybody looking at, why are police there? Have we come across a protest, a crime, an accident, a film set? Insistence on remaining within

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the infantile fantasy of the beautiful moment of indeterminacy attempts to forestall politics and its necessary division. Put it in terms of the crowd: a crowd can provide an opportunity for the emergence of a political subject, but it doesn’t determine this emergence. The crowd doesn’t explain its actions. It abjures telling some other what it means. The crowd refuses justification because its voice is multiple, babel; it is not a being that knows what it is saying. (But is there such a being?) The crowd’s chaotic moment is indeterminate, to be configured with respect to power, truth, justice, or the hegemonic array of forces. Disruption, alone, doesn’t need or engender political subjectivity. The cacophony of impressions and transports of the unknown among the unknown releases a sense of the many channelled in the everyday along set paths, igniting possibilities that will appear in retrospect to have been there all along. The political challenge is maintaining fidelity to this sense of the many – the crowd discharge – without fetishizing the cacophonous rupture.

Notes For a discussion of communicative capitalism, see Jodi Dean, Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies (Durham: Duke University Press, 2009) and Blog Theory (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010). 2 See Slavoj Žižek, The Ticklish Subject (London: Verso, 1999), 322–34. 3 For a critique of the notion of the public sphere, see Jodi Dean, Publicity’s Secret (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2002). For a discussion of the people as the rest of us, see Jodi Dean, The Communist Horizon (London: Verso, 2012). 4 See Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi, Fascist Spectacle (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 21. 5 See Sigmund Freud, ‘Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego’, in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud: Volume 18, trans. and ed. James Strachey (London: Hogarth Press, 1953–74), 64–144. For a critique of Freud’s reading of Le Bon, see Jodi Dean, ‘Enclosing the Subject’, Political Theory 44: 3 (June 2016): 363–93. 6 Gustave Le Bon, The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (Kitchener: Batoche Books, 2001 [1896]), 68. 7 Le Bon, The Crowd, 15. 8 Christian Borch provides a history of sociology structured as a history of crowd semantics, that is, an analysis of the crowd as a theoretical concept in sociology. See Christian Borch, The Politics of Crowds: An Alternative History of Sociology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). 9 Hyppolite A. Taine, The Revolution, trans. John Durand, vol. 1 (London: Daldy, Isbister & Co., 1878), 30–1. 10 Taine, The Revolution, 31. 11 Bill Buford, Among the Thugs (New York: Vintage Departures, 1993), 166; thanks to Joe Mink for this book. 12 Buford, Among the Thugs, 190. 13 Buford, Among the Thugs, 194. 1

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14 Elias Canetti, Crowds and Power, trans. Carol Stewart (New York: Noonday Press, 1984), 15. 15 Canetti, Crowds and Power, 16. 16 Canetti, Crowds and Power, 17. 17 Canetti, Crowds and Power, 18. 18 See Dean, Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies for a discussion of strange attractors. 19 Canetti, Crowds and Power, 29. 20 See Karl Marx, ‘The Critique of the Gotha Program’, in The Marx-Engels Reader, ed. Robert C. Tucker, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (New York, 1972), 525–41. 21 Canetti, Crowds and Power, 29. 22 Marx, ‘The Critique of the Gotha Program’, 530. 23 Canetti, Crowds and Power, 19. 24 Canetti, Crowds and Power, 20. 25 For a nuanced discussion of the figure of the crowd, see also William Mazzarella, ‘The Myth of the Multitude, or, Who’s Afraid of the Crowd?’ Critical Inquiry 36 (Summer 2010): 697–725. 26 Walter Benjamin, ‘On Some Motifs in Baudelaire’, in Illuminations, trans. Harry Zohn, ed. Hannah Arendt (New York: Schocken Books, 1978), 166. 27 But not only in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. There is a vibrant historical literature on preindustrial and revolutionary crowds, some of the best of which comes from the British Marxist historians group. See, for example, George Rudé, Ideology and Popular Protest (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1995), and E. J. Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels: Studies in Archaic Forms of Social Movement in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1959). For a recent engagement with the postrevolutionary USAmerican crowd, see Jason Frank, Constituent Moments (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2010). 28 José Ortega y Gasset, The Revolt of the Masses, trans. J. R. Carey (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1932). 29 Karl Marx, letter to Ludwig Kugelman (12 April 1871), www.marxists.org/archive/ marx/works/1871/letters/71_04_12.html 30 As I explain in The Communist Horizon, this is a divisive vision of the people as the rest of us. 31 See Teresa Brennan, The Transmission of Affect (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2004). 32 In his account of the idea and image of crowds in late-nineteenth- and earlytwentieth-century Europe, Stefan Jonsson presents the mass as an effect of representation, more particularly of the problem of representing ‘socially significant passions’ and the structuring of the social field via a distinction between representatives and the represented. Stefan Jonsson, Crowds and Democracy: The Idea and Image of the Masses from Revolution to Fascism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), 26. 33 See Howard Rheingold, Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution (New York: Basic Books, 2002), and James Surowiecki, The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies, and Nations (New York: Doubleday, 2004). 34 Surowiecki, The Wisdom of Crowds, 29.

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35 See Eugene W. Holland, Nomad Citizenship: Free-Market Communism and the SlowMotion General Strike (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011). 36 Kian Kenyon-Dean uses high school band as a compelling counterexample. Unlike the jazz ensemble unified through the music, high school band is typically divided into at least three groups: band geeks that want to play, the resistant disrupters and the indifferent. See Kian Kenyon-Dean, ‘Social Force’, Graphite (26 May 2015), graphitepublications.com/social-force/. 37 Albert-László Barabási, Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means for Business, Science, and Everyday Life (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Perseus, 2002). 38 The term long tail comes from Chris Anderson. For a longer discussion of power laws and the long tail, see Dean, The Communist Horizon. 39 See Holland, Nomad Citizenship, 88. 40 Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations (New York: Penguin Press, 2008), 125. 41 For the people out-of-doors, see Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 (Chapel Hill: University of Carolina Press, 1969). 42 Democracy Now! ‘Headlines’, Democracy Now! (2 December 2013): www. democracynow.org/2013/12/2/headlines#1223. 43 Jeff Howe, Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business (New York: Crown Business, 2008), 181. 44 I draw here from my longer discussion in Jodi Dean, ‘The Real Internet’, International Journal of Žižek Studies 4:1 (2010): 1–22. 45 Slavoj Žižek, The Indivisible Remainder: On Schelling and Related Matters (London: Verso, 1996), 196. 46 Slavoj Žižek, The Plague of Fantasies (London: Verso, 1997), 163. 47 Žižek, The Plague of Fantasies, 155. 48 My discussion here is in dialogue with W. J. T. Mitchell’s reading of the public image with respect to the ‘Wall of Fame’ in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989); see W. J. T. Mitchell, ‘The Violence of Public Art: Do the Right Thing’, in Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1994), 371–96. 49 Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox (London: Verso, 2000), 105. See also Mouffe, On the Political (London: Verso, 2005). 50 Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, trans. George Schwab (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 38; my emphasis. 51 Canetti, Crowds and Power, 29.

References Anderson, Chris. ‘The Long Tail’. Wired (2004): https://www.wired.com/2004/10/tail/. Barabási, Albert­László. Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means for Business, Science, and Everyday Life. New York: Plume, 2003. Benjamin, Walter. ‘On Some Motifs in Baudelaire’. In Illuminations, Translated and edited by Harry Zohn and Hannah Arendt, 155–200. New York: Schocken Books, 1978. Borch, Christian. The Politics of Crowds: An Alternative History of Sociology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Brennan, Teresa. The Transmission of Affect. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2004.

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Buford, Bill. Among the Thugs. New York: Vintage Departures, 1993. Canetti, Elias. Crowds and Power. New York: Noonday Press, 1984. Dean, Jodi. Publicity’s Secret. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2002. Dean, Jodi. Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press. 2009. Dean, Jodi. Blog Theory. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010. Dean, Jodi. ‘The Real Internet’. International Journal of Žižek Studies 4:1 (2010): 1–22. Dean, Jodi. The Communist Horizon. London: Verso, 2012. Dean, Jodi. ‘Enclosing the Subject’. Political Theory 44:3 (2016): 363–93. Democracy Now! ‘Headlines’. Democracy Now! (2 December 2013): https://www. democracynow.org/2013/12/2/headlines#1223. Falasca-Zamponi, Simonetta. Fascist Spectacle: The Aesthetics of Power in Mussolini’s Italy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. Frank, Jason. Constituent Moments. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2010. Freud, Sigmund. ‘Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego’. In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume 18, trans. and ed. James Strachey, 65–144. London: Hogarth Press, 1955. Habermas, Jürgen. Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1989. Hobsbawm, Eric J. Primitive Rebels: Studies in Archaic Forms of Social Movement in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Manchester: University of Manchester Press, 1959. Holland, Eugene W. Nomad Citizenship: Free-Market Communism and the Slow-Motion General Strike. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011. Howe, Jeff. Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business. New York: Crown Business, 2008. Jonsson, Stefan. Crowds and Democracy: The Idea and Image of the Masses from Revolution to Fascism. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013. Kenyon-Dean, Kian. ‘Social Force’. Graphite (26 May 2015): http://graphitepubli-cations. com/social-force/. Le Bon, Gustave. The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind. Kitchener: Batoche Books, 2001 [1896]. Marx, Karl. ‘Letter to Ludwig Kugelman’. (1971): https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/ works/1871/letters/71_04_12.htm. Marx, Karl. ‘The Critique of the Gotha Program’. In The Marx-Engels Reader, trans. and ed. Robert C. Tucker, 525–41. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1972. Mazzarella, William. ‘The Myth of the Multitude, or, Who’s Afraid of the Crowd?’ Critical Inquiry 36:4 (2010): 697–727. Mitchell, W. J. T. ‘The Violence of Public Art: Do the Right Thing’. In Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation, 371–96. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. Mouffe, Chantal. The Democratic Paradox. London: Verso, 2000. Mouffe, Chantal. On the Political. London: Routledge, 2005. Ortega y Gasset, José. The Revolt of the Masses. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1930. Rheingold, Howard. Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. New York: Basic Books, 2002. Rudé, George. Ideology and Popular Protest. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995. Schmitt, Carl. The Concept of the Political. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.

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Shirky, Clay. Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations. New York: Penguin Press, 2008. Surowiecki, James. The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies, and Nations. New York: Doubleday, 2004. Taine, Hippolyte. The Revolution. Trans. John Durand. London: Daldy, Isbister & Co., 1878. Wood, Gordon S. The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1969. Žižek, Slavoj. The Indivisible Remainder: On Schelling and Related Matters. London: Verso, 1996. Žižek, Slavoj. The Plague of Fantasies. London: Verso, 1997. Žižek, Slavoj. The Ticklish Subject. London: Verso, 1999.

Chapter 6 C L A S S C OM P O SI T IO N A N D T H E ( N O N ) E M E R G E N C E O F T H E M U LT I T U D E Stevphen Shukaitis

Around ten years ago I found myself spending my weekends wandering around the Brick Lane part of East London. Living nearby in Clapton I found myself fascinated not just by the space itself, but more so by its social organization. Here was a former industrial area, the Truman Brewery, a sprawling nineteen-acre site, which, having been closed for its former industrial usage at some point in the 1980s, had now opened itself up as a weekend market for artists, cultural producers and other ‘creatives’ to hawk their wares. In the place of top-down Fordist models of production and control, the space had apparently been turned over to being inhabited by networks of flexibly organized workers going about their own work and practice. At the time, I was struck to see how – more than any other place I could imagine – here was a clear example of a space that had been transformed by transition from Fordism to post-Fordism, from a prevalence manual and industrial labour to a hegemony of immaterial labour. Walking around Brick Lane I found myself thinking about the declaration that Hardt and Negri make in Empire, namely that immaterial labour, in the expression of its own creative energies, can ‘provide the potential for a kind of spontaneous and elementary communism’.1 Excellent, I thought, given how much these economic and social transformations clearly were present in the area then it should definitely be a hot bed of political potential, upheavals and organizing. The networked operations of the insurgent multitude were clearly bound to express themselves at any second … Sooner or later … In some form … Eventually, right? What I found was nothing like the outbreak of an insurrection or the basis of anything like a spontaneous and elementary communism. Far from it. If anything, the area was much more filled with creative workers who were overworked, stressed and poorly paid, but still very much highly emotionally and psychologically invested in their particular creative practice. It struck me as a clear example of what CB Macpherson describes as ‘possessive individualism’,2 and one where the overwhelming focus on questions of self-interest overwhelmed and blocked off discussion of collective conditions. But this was interesting to me, precisely because having placed a good deal of importance on a series of concepts

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and arguments coming out of debates around post-autonomist thought, this was not what I expected (or hoped) to find. Instead it was what Alquati understood as the forced decomposition of consciousness, but existing in way that managed to appear creative and flexible.3 And I wanted to figure how and why this was the case. This led to the development of Metropolitan Factory, a workers’ inquiryinspired project that tried to tease out and understand these dynamics. In this chapter, I’m not going to attempt to restate the analysis developed in that project,4 but rather to think through the political implications of it. In other words, debates around the changing nature of class composition and politics tended focus around questions of immaterial and affective labour, networks, and of a multitude that would emerge from the dynamics of class recomposition.5 And I would still suggest these debates offered useful concepts ideas. The problem is that their political analysis got too far ahead of the class analysis. The effects and benefits of changes in work and political composition were overstated – and what actually played out was far from the image of insurgent multitude that many of us thought would develop. Thus, are we left in a Beckettian absurd situation, waiting for the multitude? Perhaps. But to allude to a different Beckett piece, maybe it’s question of learning to fail again, and fail better. Worstward ho, comrades! In other words, perhaps it is less a question about why the radical potential of the multitude was not revealed, but rather what can be made out of the event of the multitude’s non-emergence. The multitude did not emerge in the expected form, yet its presence is still there even in its apparent non-emergence. The political condition of the non-multitude is present within the dynamics of class decomposition, or how the potentials of cooperation and autonomy associated with forms of post-Fordist labour were integrated back into the operations of contemporary capitalism and social control. What this essay will develop then is not an analysis of the multitude as concrete reality. Rather, it will attempt to further develop tools for understanding dynamics of class decomposition, where the presence of the multitude can be registered precisely as a non-event, as that which is not present but whose possibility constantly haunts the present.

The future behind our backs For the purposes of this essay I’m not going to attempt to reconstruct a detailed history of the concept of the multitude (which can be found elsewhere within this book), or to discuss the finer points of how the concept is used differently by key political figures. What interests me more is how the concept comes out of debates within Operaismo and Marxist currents of the time. And somewhat more speculatively, I’d like to argue that it emerges from a period where the emerging post-Fordist dynamics presented themselves as containing the potential for selforganization, but that this opening was only temporary. However, this temporary nature of the situation, before the re-imposition of the dynamics of control, or

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what otherwise could be theorized as class decomposition, was not taken into account in the continued usage and development of the multitude as a concept. As Sergio Bologna describes it, from the view of these 1970s debate one could ‘glimpse the possibility of liberation in post-Fordism, but it was only a momentary burst’.6 It might seem, as the characters from The Misfits (John Huston, from Arthur Miller’s script, 1961)7 reflect upon, that ‘anything is better than wages’ (i.e. long-term, stable and predictable employment), but that perception passes once the reality of what follows it sinks in. It is this disjuncture between what might be described as the optimism of the concept, versus the less liberatory realities of existing conditions, that poses a problem. There is a clear and pronounced value to rooting the concept of the multitude back to debates and developments from the 1970s. There are clear links between how the concept of the multitude has developed in the English-speaking world and what Antonio Negri theorized earlier through the concept of the ‘socialized worker’.8 The argument is that a new figure of labour, the socialized worker, emerges as distinct from the repetitive manual labour of the Fordist factory worker, or more generally the industrial proletariat. Production was coming to be dispersed more through productive networks rather than concentrated into particular locations, with greater value being placed on symbolic production over material assets, etc. This is the classic and well-known story of the transition from Fordism to post-Fordism. The most important argument brought to understanding these shifts from an operaista or autonomist perspective is that this transformation is not simply about the internal reorganization of capitalist labour process that has been organized and agreed upon by the goodly agents of capital itself.9 Rather, following what, in the wake of Mario Tronti, has been referred to as a ‘reversal of perspective’, the key point was understand how the transformations of capitalism exist as a reactive dynamic shaped by existing forms of working class rebellion and antagonism. In this framing, the key task for analysis is to understand the relationship between emerging forms of antagonism, rebellion, and political organization, and how that relates to the changing dynamics of the organization of production and organizes power relationships. This was understood and analysed as the relationship between technical and political composition. The key conceptual development made within autonomist debates is to not fall back on the assumption that development of capitalism is shaped by its own logic – rather, it is constantly responding to and determined by something exterior to it, namely working-class rebellion and refusal. Thus, I would argue, if there were to be a set of concepts that autonomist thought is known for and which should be further developed today, it would not be based around the idea of the multitude, or immaterial labour. Rather, I would suggest what is far more important is the idea, or perhaps the tools, of class composition analysis itself. The virtue of class composition analysis is not automatically understanding the political possibilities of a given historical conjuncture as determined by the technical composition of machinery, the workings of management, the operations of finance and logistics, etc. That is not to claim that these have no effect, as this –

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to think that the changing dynamics of capital accumulation are solely shaped by class antagonism – would be perhaps the same mistake in the other direction. This would be to fall into another form of conceptual blindness, even if it is driven by the understandable desire to continue emphasizing the primacy of resistance. Autonomist political theory and class composition analysis have the greatest value precisely because they attempt to analyse the constantly shifting grounds of contention between capital’s attempt to re-found and reformulate the bases of its renewed accumulation, and the drive of the working class to escape from its condition subordinate to the demands of continuing capital accumulation. This is what the tools of a nuanced class composition analysis make possible: understanding the shifts, movements and ruptures in this ongoing tension, but without either giving or assuming that either has the ultimate determining position. Althusser might tell us that in the last instance the economy is determining, but that does not necessarily need to the case. Rather it is a question of following out the logic of tendencies that are in operation rather than assuming they will develop in any particular direction. The problem with the concept of the multitude as it has been developed10 is not that it’s wrong, per se. There is much to be said for understanding how shifts in media, technology, work, organization and social norms are enabling and constraining forms of political possibilities within the present. The difficulty is that the multitude, as concept, emerges from within that moment of the emergence of post-Fordist dynamics, but before control had been re-asserted. But that was a temporary moment rather than a new condition that would be sustained. In other words, the problem is when class composition gets ahead of itself, when it mistakes a temporary condition of changing technical composition, and the politics that might be possible, as something that will continue to exist. That’s not what happens. The magic moment ends, even if it does seem to re-appear with semi-regularity. Is not the greatly celebrated freedom of the socialized worker quite similar to how that was likewise claimed for the workers of the late 1990s new economy? And yet again that was claimed to be the property for the new workers of the sharing economy. The problem is there are indeed moments of possibility that open up, that present themselves as enabling greater degrees of autonomy and self-organization. But these moments are closed. What is needed are concepts and tools that let us understand and work through that process of closure, or what Midnight Notes describe as the expanded new enclosures,11 while still holding on to the value of what enabled them. This is precisely what a focus on class decomposition enables.

Compositions In Commonwealth Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri provide a simple and elegant definition of class composition. They follow the long-established approach of theorizing in terms of technical composition, or ‘what people do at work and the skills exercised there’, as distinguished from political composition, or ‘capacities

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in the field of political action’.12 The hallmark and most distinguishing feature of autonomist analysis comes through how class composition analysis focuses on the relationship between these two different areas, ideally without making any assumptions about how one form of composition necessarily and inherently determines the other. That is to say, it is not assumed that a population is only capable of certain forms of political organizing, or is limited to forms of political organizing (they can attain trade union consciousness, but nothing more or else). At its best, autonomist analysis employs class composition to understand the shifting back and forth between forms of political and technical composition as the antagonistic actions of working subjects who develop skills and abilities that either directly or indirectly end up influencing the changing nature and shape of social and economic activity. Timothy Murphy argues that the ‘central methodological innovation of Italian workerism … [is] the empirical study of class composition’.13 A process of class composition then is how the social energies of working class organizing cohere into building new forms of alliance and organization. Conversely class decomposition is the process through which capital and its agents seek to actively dissolve and break apart the forms of collectivity present within existing struggles, and, if possible, to turn them into social forms that are more beneficial to and supportive of continued, and often renewed, forms of capital accumulation and valorization. Likewise, another central theoretical innovation can be found in the idea of the ‘reversal of perspective’ developed by Mario Tronti, who argued that rather than looking to the development of capital, understood as self-determining, what was necessary was to understand social relations from the perspective of those attempting to rebel against and refuse the domination of capital. This had, and has, a great value, in that it reorients political analysis away from sterile structural economic analysis and places the subjectivity and collective energies of class struggle at the centre of thinking as well as organizing. The difficulty is the re-orientation, while finding ways to avoid the blindness of some forms of Marxist analysis, ends up creating other forms of conceptual blindness. Not every development or change in nature of capitalism can or should be understood as having resulted from a working-class rebellion. To think such would be to turn one form of dogmatism (such as only focussing on understanding capital itself as selfenclosed and autonomous in its development) into another, one that understands capital’s development as being wholly determined by working class refusal and revolt. This is why class decomposition is a concept that is mentioned fairly often within autonomist and post-autonomist debates, but is not developed very much as a concept in itself. This is what Camfield gestures towards with the idea that ‘any division of labour within capitalist production is not only technical but also a specific mode for capital’s attempts to control labour’.14 To focus on it in depth sits uneasily in any framework that wants to look to the energies of class struggle as being the driving force of history. And that’s understandable, but also limiting. Marx first developed the concept of decomposition in the first volume of Capital to understand the way that British industrial capital developed to intensify the

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production and extraction of surplus value by decomposing and recomposing the ratio between living and dead labour. The notion of class decomposition, and of class composition more generally, extends this principle. Rather than trying to understand a process through which the working class is made, it becomes a question of how class is made over and over again. Or perhaps it should be described as how the working class is made precisely as working class repeatedly through social processes which strip away the skills, knowledge, capacities and energies that have been developed through a process of social and political recomposition. Or as Steve Wright suggests, the insight of autonomist thinkers, unlike many other Marxist, was understanding how the ‘making’ of the working class within a particular social formation was [not] an event confined to a single period. Rather, it was the result of an ongoing interplay between the articulations of labour-power produced by capitalist development, and labour’s struggles to overcome them.15

The difficulty is that there is a real, and quite understandable, impetus to focus on processes of political composition, but not decomposition. Outbreaks of rebellion and class conflict are the moments of struggles and rebellions come together. They are moments of excess when the conditions of possibility are shifted rather than just worked within. And working from within a perspective that has been reversed, these are precisely the social processes and developments that one should be looking at. But the very limits of this can be understood by returning again to the conditions of Brick Lane that this essay began with. In many ways, the debates around immaterial labour can be understood, and should be understood, as carrying out and developing a class composition analysis. But the problem is how such an analysis can get so far ahead of itself that it loses the plot. There are a number of important things to be learned from conditions such as those. Unfortunately, the lessons available are not how forms of immaterial labour function as a catalyst of an elementary communism, one that can underpin the emergence of the multitude, which will act in dispersed coordinated action to radically transform the world. Rather, the area was populated by creative workers displaying a high degree of possessive individualism, or a focus and drive to develop their own particular creative practice that serves to block off and prevent discussions (and organizing) about collective conditions. In other words, the problem posed by Brick Lane is that changes in the shape of the technical composition of class may serve to block off and prevent the emergence of recomposition in the political sense. And given the close link between immaterial labour and at least some understandings of the multitude, it could be argued that this was also the prevention of the formation of multitudinous social forms. In other words, these conditions could be argued to present an interesting case of class decomposition, although arguably one where the precise opposite might have been expected. But the question is then what to do after this realization. Does this mean that all these concepts and debates can be discarded as they clearly do not

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show or explain what they might have been expected to? No, not all. But it does mean they require a bit of rethinking. Arguably such conditions provide a good example for understanding the multitude within the present, but paradoxically not through its emergence, but through its non-emergence. In other words, the multitude can be understood not through how it concretely exists within existing workplaces, cafés, and through the metropolis, but rather through how multitudinous social forms can be approached through how they are constantly decomposed within the diffuse networks of the creative economy and post-Fordist capitalism. In Spectres of Revolt, Richard Gilman-Opalsky16 argues that systems of governance are haunted by previous revolutionary movements. Arguably, new systems of labour are likewise haunted by the multitude capacity of that which came before them. A focus on the dynamics of class decomposition could be developed to analyse these spectral presences within the operations of the contemporary economic and social order. Stanovsky productively argues that for Hardt and Negri the multitude ‘is the thing they see being regenerated out of the twin decompositions of class and identity politics and arising out of the new, twenty-first-century conditions of global capitalism’.17 A focus on class decomposition works from and against those processes of decomposition, first to understand them, and from there to develop new tools and practices to interrupt them and develop new avenues of social and political recomposition. What could be developed from that perspective would be a broader and comparative analysis of the dynamic of class decomposition that is operating within the present. These could range from the operations of debt and financialization as disciplinary mechanisms,18 to the functioning of logistical media and logistics more generally.19 It would bring together a consideration of the rise of quantified self and surveillance of labour20 with consideration of intensive transformations of value extraction and surplus value production in the creative industries and cultural economy.21 A de/compositional analysis serves to highlight the ways that these dynamics embody the response to previous forms of class struggle while at the same time serving to decompose those very energies. Arguably together they function as key components of what Veronica Gago has theorized as neoliberalism from below, or a set of conditions that are materialized beyond the will of a government, whether legitimate or not, but that turn into the conditions under which a network of practices and skills operates, assuming calculation as its primordial subjective frame and functioning as the motor of a powerful popular economy that combines community skills of self-management and intimate know-how as a technology of mass self-entrepreneurship in the crisis.22

A focus on class decomposition brings together these networks of practices and skills that are operating to shape and reshape the composition of collective labour dynamics within the present. This is an important location for working through the dynamics of the multitude today, not through its presence, but how it is decomposed

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through the decomposing forces of the workings of neoliberalism from below. This is much different from an analysis that wants to continue on making heroic declarations about the emergence of the multitude. Steve Wright suggests that passivity on the part of the working class, broadly understood, is ‘easily conjured forth as a means to avoid facing the problem of class decomposition, a process every bit as real as that of recomposition’.23 But saying so is not the same as making the task of critical theory to understand the terms of defeat or paralysis. Rather by working through processes of class decomposition, as a site of the multitude’s nonemergence, it becomes possible to work through and against those conditions, perhaps even to sabotage them.

The plural times of the non-multitude In Plural Temporality, Vittorio Morfino explores how the conditions of the multitude are different because of a different relationship with time. This is the multitude’s plural temporality.24 Morfino suggests that truly understanding the radicality of the multitude requires a ‘concept of temporality that is completely different from temporal co­ existence’.25 For Morfino, the temporality of the multitude is to be understood instead as ‘the locus of the non­contemporaneous, of an impossible contemporaneity’.26 I’ve been suggesting in this short essay that this is what a class composition analysis, and more particularly one focused on class decomposition, gives access to. The multitude is understood not through its emergence but through its non-emergence, through its ongoing decomposition. Hardt and Negri suggest understanding the multitude through the ongoing process of its making.27 But paradoxically if this is a process of self-transformation, of making without a maker, it is arguably, if anything, more feasible to approach the plural times of multitude through working through and against the ongoing process of its unmaking. By understanding capital’s drive to constantly decompose and unmake the multitude, which is to say working through the multitude’s nonemergence, it can become possible to interrupt, sabotage and break down these dynamics… and from there to start yet again.

Notes 1 2 3

Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000), 294. C. B. Macpherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: From Hobbes to Locke (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). ‘The increase of capital’s domination over labour through the increasingly forced technical decomposition of tasks in order to crush politically workers’ class consciousness’, Romano Alquati, as quoted in Steve Wright, Storming Heaven: Class Composition and Struggle in Italian Autonomist Marxism (London: Pluto Books, 2003), 51–2.

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Stevphen Shukaitis and Joanna Figiel, ‘The Factory of Individuation: Cultural Labor & Class Composition in the Metropolis’, South Atlantic Quarterly 114: 3 (July 2015): 535–52; Stevphen Shukaitis and Joanna Figiel, ‘Knows No Weekend: The Psychological Contract of Cultural Work in Precarious Times’, Journal of Cultural Economy (2019). https://doi.org/10.1080/17530350.2019.1574863. 5 See for instance Dowling, Emma, Rodrigo Nunes, and Ben Trott, eds., ‘Immaterial and Affective Labour: Explored’, Ephemera: Theory & Politics in Organization 7: 1 (2007), http://www.ephemerajournal.org/issue/immaterial-and-affective-labourexplored. 6 Sergio Bologna, ‘Workerism Beyond Fordism: On the Lineage of Italian Workerism’, Viewpoint (2014), https://www.viewpointmag.com/2014/12/15/workerism-beyondfordism-on-the-lineage-of-italian-workerism/. 7 The Misfits, directed by John Huston © Seven Arts Productions Inc. 1961. All rights reserved. 8 Toni Negri, ‘Archaeology and Project: The Mass Worker and the Social Worker’, in Revolution Retrieved: Writings on Marx, Keynes, Capitalist Crisis and New Social Subjects (1967–83), ed. Toni Negri (London: Red Notes, 1988), 199–228. 9 Christian Marazzi and Sylvère Lotringer, eds., Italy: Autonomia: Post-Political Politics (New York: Semiotext(e), 1980). 10 Here I’m referring primarily to theorizations of the multitude which take their inspiration or follow the direction charted out in the work of Hardt and Negri. While this essay does not develop a comparison between them and other lines of development (for instance those in the work on Virno, Montag or Balibar), readers will find discussion of these authors in other sections of this book. 11 Midnight Notes, The New Enclosures (Jamaica Plain: Midnight Notes, 1990). 12 Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Commonwealth (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009), 351. 13 Timothy Murphy, Antonio Negri (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012), 69. 14 David Camfield, ‘Re-Orienting Class Analysis: Working Classes as Historical Formations’, Science & Society 68: 4 (2004): 438. 15 Wright, Storming Heaven, 78. 16 Richard Gilman-Opalsky, Specters of Revolt: On the Intellect of Insurrection and Philosophy from Below (London: Repeater, 2016). 17 Derek Stanovsky, ‘Organizing Marx’s Multitude: A Composition on Decomposition’, Rethinking Marxism 21: 2 (2009): 217. 18 Maurizio Lazzarato, The Making of the Indebted Man (Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2012); Randy Martin, Financialization of Daily Life (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002). 19 Ned Rossiter, Software, Infrastructure, Labor: A Media Theory of Logistical Nightmares (New York: Routledge, 2016); Deborah Cowen, The Deadly Life of Logistics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014). 20 Phoebe Moore, The Quantified Self in Precarity: Work, Technology and What Counts (London: Routledge, 2017). 21 Josephine Berry, Art and (Bare) Life: A Biopolitical Inquiry (Berlin: Stenberg, 2018); Lynn Owens, Cracking Under Pressure: Narrating the Decline of the Amsterdam Squatters’ Movement (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009). 22 Verónica Gago, Neoliberalism from Below: Popular Pragmatics and Baroque Economies (Durham: Duke University Press, 2017), 6. 23 Wright, Storming Heaven, 224.

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24 This is not to suggest that Morfino’s work is necessarily connected to a focus on class decomposition, but rather that making such a connection is potentially productive. 25 Vittorio Morfino, Plural Temporality: Transindividuality and the Aleatory Between Spinoza and Althusser (London: Brill, 2014), 143. 26 Morfino, Plural Temporality, 143. 27 Hardt and Negri, Commonwealth, 173: ‘Multitude should be understood, then, as not a being but a making – or rather a being that is not fixed or static but constantly transformed, enriched, constituted by a process of making. This is a peculiar kind of making, though, insofar as there is no maker that stands behind the process. Through the production of subjectivity, the multitude is itself author of its perpetual becoming other, an uninterrupted process of collective self-transformation.’

References Berry, Josephine. Art and (Bare) Life: A Biopolitical Inquiry. Berlin: Stenberg, 2018. Bologna, Sergio. ‘Workerism Beyond Fordism: On the Lineage of Italian Workerism’. Viewpoint (2014). https://www.viewpointmag.com/2014/12/15/workerism-beyondfordism-on-the-lineage-of-italian-workerism/ Camfield, David. ‘Re-Orienting Class Analysis: Working Classes as Historical Formations’. Science & Society 68:4 (2004): 421–46. Cowen, Deborah. The Deadly Life of Logistics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014. Dowling, Emma, Rodrigo Nunes and Ben Trott, eds. ‘Immaterial and Affective Labour: Explored’. ephemera: theory & politics in organization 7:1 (2007). http://www. ephemerajournal.org/issue/immaterial-and-affective-labour-explored Gago, Verónica. Neoliberalism from Below: Popular Pragmatics and Baroque Economies. Durham: Duke University Press, 2017. Gilman-Opalsky, Richard. Spectres of Revolt: On the Intellect of Insurrection and Philosophy from Below. London: Repeater, 2016. Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. Empire. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000. Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. Commonwealth. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009. Lazzarato, Maurizio. The Making of the Indebted Man. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2012. Marazzi, Christian and Sylvère Lotringer, eds. Italy: Autonomia: Post-Political Politics. New York: Semiotext(e), 1980. Martin, Randy. Financialization of Daily Life. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002. Midnight Notes. The New Enclosures. Jamaica Plain: Midnight Notes, 1990. Moore, Phoebe. The Quantified Self in Precarity: Work, Technology and What Counts. New York: Routledge, 2017. Morfino, Vittorio. Plural Temporality: Transindividuality and the Aleatory Between Spinoza and Althusser. London: Brill, 2014. Murphy, Timothy. Antonio Negri. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012. Negri, Toni. Revolution Retrieved: Writings on Marx, Keynes, Capitalist Crisis and New Social Subjects (1967–83). London: Red Notes, 1988. Owens, Lynn. Cracking Under Pressure: The Decline of the Amsterdam Squatters’ Movement. Penn Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009.

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Rossiter, Ned. Software, Infrastructure, Labor: A Media Theory of Logistical Nightmares. New York: Routledge, 2016. Shukaitis, Stevphen and Joanna Figiel. ‘The Factory of Individuation: Cultural Labor & Class Composition in the Metropolis’. South Atlantic Quarterly 114:3 (2015): 535–52. Shukaitis, Stevphen and Joanna Figiel. ‘Knows No Weekend: The Psychological Contract of Cultural Work in Precarious Times’. Journal of Cultural Economy (2019). https://doi. org/10.1080/17530350.2019.1574863. Stanovsky, Derek. ‘Organizing Marx’s Multitude: A Composition on Decomposition’. Rethinking Marxism 21:2 (2009): 216–27. Wright, Steve. Storming Heaven: Class Composition and Struggle in Italian Autonomist Marxism. London: Pluto Books, 2003.

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Chapter 7 M U LT I T U D E V O I D : T H E R E G A L M O D E O F I M P E R IA L L E G I T I M AT IO N Benjamin Halligan

The dimensions of the democratic and ethical aberration that are the British Royal Family are such that a popular mandate seems to be understood to be a necessity for its continued survival. No such mandate exists or has been invited; it has only ever been surmised, as a constant from the notion of divine selection, to the secular age – that is, across, as Faus puts it, ‘the slow historical birth of a desacralization of authority and the emergence of what we usually call democracy’.1 And, thereafter, as Blain and O’Donnell note, the British Royal family is unique, in a European context, as ‘the only monarchy not required to justify itself by its contribution to political modernity’.2 Such a mandate has not been put to the test. Tom Nairn’s study of the monarchy spends its first two sections pondering this democratic aberration (which he terms ‘The Mystery’), and with Nairn flummoxed by data that suggests, nevertheless, popular support even among unlikely groups, such as the unemployed (which prompts the subsequent subsection, ‘Are We All Mad?’).3 As a self-styled, self-defining ‘institution’, the Royal family assumes deference is afforded to it rather than earned by it. Even the very term ‘institution’, as freely deployed by popular historians and commentators, is telling: an historical entity, so outside of or partly excused from, or expected to chafe against, the vulgar norms of democratic regulation. Thus the mysterious aberration is nonetheless institutionalized. Nairn’s and Billig’s ‘Mystery’ is amplified and interrogated in Hardt and Negri’s theorization of democracy. Perhaps the Royals are no aberration, but merely consistent with the logic of Western social democracy? That is: that the Royals are called into existence with that very ‘audacious conceptual leap made by the theory and practice of parliamentary representation (from the “will of all” to the “general will”)’ – as a necessity in the bureaucratic transformation of ‘the many’ into a set singular figures, so that the resultant dull politicians of Westminster and Whitehall are offset by a measure of regal charisma and Buckingham Palace.4 Despite outward appearances to the contrary therefore, the continued existence of the Royals would seem to remain in the balance, and contingent – at best, an operative assumption. The British mainstream media can be said to have managed to achieve a status quo to this end through rendering as ineffective any serious

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opposition to this condition of contradiction. Even reserved and tactical criticism is voiced within the orbit of a sense of the Royals as news, and therefore newsworthy, and therefore part of the fabric of our lives. In this sense, the Royal family exists as a media strategy, in the gap between, as Hardt and Negri put it, ‘communicative production’ and ‘the construction of imperial legitimation’, where communicative production and the construction of imperial legitimation march hand in hand and can no longer be separated. The machine is self-validating, autopoietic – that is, systemic. It constructs social fabrics that evacuate or render ineffective any contradiction.5

This chapter will seek to explore a salient aspect of the workings of this media strategy in terms of how the Royal ‘subjects’ (i.e. the masses) are returned to their feudal role of silent, approving observers, and so come to function as evidencing that mandate. That is, via Hardt and Negri’s etymological prehistory of ‘the multitude’, this mass is presented as ‘the people’ since ‘[t]he people is one. The population, of course, is composed of numerous different individuals and classes, but the people synthesizes or reduces these social differences into one identity’.6 For this conception, or synthesis or reduction, the spectacle of an anti-multitude is conjured up: as homogenized and unified, dispersed and singular, commoners (rather than possessors of the common), and pointed to their leader – ‘Capital wants to make the multitude into an organic unity, just like the state wants to make it into a people’.7 The spectacle has, I argue, pace Situationist critiques, the aspiration to an affective quality: as a component of the ‘network force of imperial order’, it counters or radically revises multitude.8 It is from this vantage point that this chapter cautiously and partially equates ‘imperial’ and Royal, in terms of wishing to explore the creation of ‘legitimation’. Certainly military imperial trappings abound – various British Royals seem to have army positions and titles, and Dacre records thousands of members of the armed forces at the procession and then funeral of the Queen Mother.9 But the legitimation of imperial enterprises, in the sense understood by critics of globalization, is often ‘soft’ too (constitutional, political and legal). And Hardt and Negri note the operation of a ‘mixed constitution’ rather than any feudal, pyramid model of command.10 Indeed, Royal leaders offer some reassuring nostalgia in this confusing contemporary arrangement: back to the simpler days of high command, and born leaders. In the late 1970s, the provocative appropriation of Royal imagery by British punk culture (by Malcolm McLaren for the Sex Pistols, and Derek Jarman for his 1978 film Jubilee, amongst others) was more idiosyncratic than shocking: the Royals as representing something – for better or worse – particularly, even wretchedly, English. This idiosyncrasy arose from a sense that the Royal Family were irrelevant a priori; informed (and exasperated) British liberal thought, such as that then associated with the New Statesman, would have associated them with the trade unions at this time – as unreconstructed, parasitical organizations ripe for pruning, if not complete dismantling, with an inflated sense of importance outstripping limited political sway, and a patrician obstacle to the coming

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neoliberal reforms of the manufacturing base and welfare state.11 And yet, decades later, and on the other side of the first, brutal phases of the reforms, the Royal Family persists. No matter how scandalous or depraved the behaviour of its individual members, no mainstream political party, and no mainstream news/ media group, would call for its abolition. The ‘general will’, it should be inferred, would seem to render republicanism unimaginable: a dream deemed impossible, even by its dreamers, under the stasis of ‘common sense’, or pragmatic aegis of that which Mark Fisher diagnosed as a pervasive ‘capitalist realism’.12 The Royal family remains present as, to borrow a term used in relation to Walter Benjamin’s writing, a concept of history – that is, as an idea of the present day use of history, or the historical: monarchists and establishment types talk of continuity, moralists and conservationists of example, conservatives and clerics of figureheads.13 Naturally enough, therefore, the media construction of the Royal family tends to frame news narratives within the visual tropes of idioms or genres that approximate abstract ideas of history (the historical epic, the costume drama, period settings, fairy tale weddings, and so on). Which engagement of Queen Elizabeth II is not understood as ‘historic’? One-offs are unique and so historical; regular events, through the Queen’s involvement, become part of a historical continuum.14 This state of personification, in the melding of history and person (that is, abstraction and corporeality), raises a number of problems in terms of media representation and these problems are sporadically apparent at the moment of the intersection of abstraction and corporeality, or the passage from one to the other: a Royal death. The role of the media in this, in terms of reportage, is twofold: both the spectator-reporter of the tradition, and the creator-maintainer of the tradition. The concern of this chapter is not that which is typical of left-liberal critiques of contemporary media: to point out such contradictions, usually as viewed from an old fashioned notion of the presupposed impartiality of news media, or its functioning in respect to calling others to account. Rather, this chapter seeks to shed light on the functioning of the construction of a sense of a historical continuum and its aspects. ‘[M]edia power is not defined by its political statements’, Berardi, Jacquemet and Vitali argue, since ‘[t]elevision is not a medium for the creation of consensus or for a kind of rational persuasion … Television is a means of pervasion, rather than persuasion. It operates on the cognitive modalities for reception, interpretation and decision, rather than on the ideological content of the message’.15 Such an operation is apparent in the presentation of the Royal person. That is, that during life the Royal person is fantastical, unreal in their beauty, generosity, understanding, suffering … a star, or akin to a star, in the Hollywood sense. And, after their life, this perception changes: they are (were) only human after all, like us, and suffered like us too and are regaled by the same trivia of life. So, in dying they are reborn as recognizably human. This reading, or perhaps ‘state of affairs’, was furnished with empirical evidence in Rob Turnock’s study of viewer reactions to the media coverage of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997.16 Turnock had established monitoring groups for a prior research project; so the groups (families, friends) were watching television, as they

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ordinarily would, and then completing the questionnaires devised by Turnock and his team. Shortly after the formal disbanding of this project, and with the news of Diana’s death breaking, Turnock quickly reactivated the groups. His findings, later published in Interpreting Diana: Television Audiences and the Death of a Princess, are not presented as an illumination or exposé of the postmodern condition – a concern which vexed Anglo-American academia in the 1980s and 1990s – but they certainly work in such a way. What is made critical in Turnock’s examination of the nature of this viewing is the idea of ‘news’ itself, as grounded in, or drawn from, or as a reportage of, events. His conclusions evidence a reversal of expected norms: the viewers only came to accept the ‘impossible’ news of Diana’s death once it was presented with the dramatic characteristics of fiction – a pervasive element is added. And this translation or fictionalization is a process that seems to run as a parallel to the usual dynamics of news reporting, and it draws on the way in which television news becomes self-perpetuating and self-validating: at times of crisis people automatically turn to their television sets and this was certainly the case when the news about Diana broke. They do this because they cannot believe what they have heard from family or friends, and in some cases even from the radio. Those who rushed to their televisions, or those turning on casually, were met with extensive blanket coverage of this extraordinary event on the three main terrestrial channels. For many respondents [in the monitoring groups], the extensive coverage was not only necessary because Diana had been so important, but also because television actually demonstrated how important she was.17

The news, in itself, was difficult to accept – sudden, upsetting and tragic, outside the parameters of the normal run of expectations, and so forth. And the medium par excellence of and for such breaking events – 24/7 broadcast news – was halting in its typical role as verifier and validator of the news. Reality would seem to have outmanoeuvred television. BBC news anchorman Jeremy Paxman recalled endless preparations for the Queen Mother’s anticipated passing in the 1980s and 1990s (a cupboard of grey suits and black ties, biannual weekend practice runs, ‘long sets of guidelines were produced and laminated … [e]laborate chains of editorial command were established’), which he relates to an institutional uncertainty in the BBC as to its role: ‘was its job to tell the nation the news … or was it somehow to act as part of the Establishment, and to become Chief Mourner?’18 The role, for Turnock, is clear, and goes beyond such questions of editorial policy and editorial line: as he puts it, ‘Television as Comforter’: Not only did television institutionally sanction Diana’s death as something important, but also the appearance of members from different levels of the establishment and the depiction of a broad sweep of the public (with particular emphasis on young people, gays and blacks) offered some reassurance to those upset at home that their emotions were not aberrant … many rushed to their

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televisions for confirmation of the news of Diana’s death … for reassurance that others were feeling and responding in the same way.19

At this point of the need for reassurance, the news dissemination system meets its very opposite: the fictional, or fictionalization, of real events. The life and figure of Diana, once re-imagined as a soap opera star in the countless speed-edited obituaries, had found the co-ordinates that were finally understood to be tenable and believable for the grieving people: the mother, the wife, the ‘loose woman’, the schemer, the person-wronged, the listener, one of us, the person we admire, dislike, talk about, and a talker/communicator herself (as typifying a female soap opera character: prone to drama, gossipy, providing her own running commentary).20 To be clear: this is not a matter of decrying broadcast news for its adoption of fictional traits, abandoning its traditional conventions in favour of populist infotainment. Rather, this is a matter of the ontology of the flow of the reportage of broadcast news, as mounting an interpretative intervention against the reality from which it is drawn, and that it shapes and disseminates, to control and author reported reality. This tendency was Baudrillard’s central thesis of The Gulf War Did Not Take Place (1995): spectacles of war whose strategic value can primarily be identified as their reportage potential, rather than illustrating a routing of the enemy.21 Or, for Paul Virilio, a reading that collapses (Hollywood) entertainment into warfare – ‘this cinematic artifice of the war machine’: from showcasing military technology of the present and future, in the guise of entertainment, to equipping that technology to project its own fantasies, in the ‘decoy-image-cum-ship-image’.22 And hence the Retort collective’s expansion of Eisenhower’s term – from ‘military-industrial complex’ to ‘military-industrial-entertainment complex’.23 The weak point in the flow of the news broadcast comes in the sense of control: specifically, control of the broadcast images of crowds, the meanings of which are offered by the commentariat – those television pundits who specialize in expertise, or relatable reactions: one of the principal elements of the autopoieticism of infotainment. Such meanings are, extra-diegetically (that is, via voice-over), inscribed onto the images. What, then, becomes pervasive through this wrangling of meaning? Brian Massumi, writing of the post-9/11 colour-coded alerts of possible terrorist attacks in the United States, finds the pervasion of fear.24 And a fearful collective state, engendered through the obscurity and imprecision of the colour terror alerts, is both the basis for notions of a safer future to come, and the goal of the misinformation and paranoid flights of fantasy about amassed arsenals primed for assault on the homeland. Massumi, as with Baudrillard, Virilio and Retort, is concerned with the legitimation of imperial adventurism abroad and repression at home. For Berardi et al., this is an element of the media power of the contemporary media politician. My analysis retains a more modest focus: the partial basis of the legitimation, in the case of a minor player in post-1989 geopolitics. But a minor player that, nevertheless, romanticized imperial adventurism, between senses of the white man’s burden and the primacy of white history. So the potential of pervasiveness remains, through media re-enactments or mock-ups of historical/

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Royal matters: affective rearguard actions to whitewash crimes abroad. Perhaps the best context for this rearguard operation is provided by Niall Ferguson, who complains of the lack of aspiration in travel-shy graduates to engage in historical (rather than well-remunerated media) enterprises: ‘America’s brightest and best [graduates] aspire not to govern Mesopotamia but to manage MTV … [u]nlike their British counterparts of a century ago, who left the elite British universities with an overtly imperial ethos.’25 Royal legitimation offers example – imaginary possibilities for tomorrow’s graduate colonial masters: John Buchan over Bill Gates, social engineering over social media, nation building over product rebranding. This chapter will now briefly review something of the operation of making meaning, both in terms of what is presented as history in the making by the very few, and in terms of the ways in which this making eclipses the many – the massed individual subjects of this history. Considered in the light of multitude, this operation seems to strive to identify the materialization of aspects of the ‘political body’. Hardt and Negri note that one of the recurring truths of political philosophy is that only the one can rule, be it the monarch, the party, the people, or the individual; social subjects that are not unified and remain multiple cannot rule and instead must be ruled. Every sovereign power, in other words, necessarily forms a political body of which there is a head that commands, limbs that obey, and organs that function together to support the ruler.26

The media re-enactment or mock-up is this process as it ‘forms’. And, since ‘[t]he concept of the multitude challenges this accepted truth of sovereignty’,27 this review also looks for accidental or inadvertent evidence of such a challenge, in the processes around making meaning. This section concerns a lesser star in the Royal firmament: the Queen Mother, whose funeral was held on 9 April 2002. This analysis draws on just a few eventless minutes of BBC One’s television coverage, which lasted several hours across that afternoon. The year 2002 represents a pre–social media age, and therefore this operation of making meaning is bolder, since it is understood to be more absolute and less fragmented: this coverage as the media concerning this event. (For more recent Royal events, news and coverage has flooded out across social media too, as well as broadcast television – resulting in a fragmentation that would require an analysis quite different to the one presented in this chapter.) And the Queen Mother represented a figure less charged or freighted in terms of the idea of, as it were, a concept of history: this was not a beginning (as with a coronation or marriage), and not the passing of someone whose currency with the times was anything like that of Diana.28 Typically, the broadcast shuffled between outside shots of the cortege (cars, outriders), more general shots (places, people, crowds), and studio discussions, presided over by veteran presenter David Dimbleby. As expected, the studio discussion effectively shapes the feeds of ‘real world’ material but there is an ambiguity as to the relationship between the two. Which of these two aspects – the

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location shots/the outside, and the studio/the inside – carries the most weight? Or: what is it that we are meant to be primarily watching – the cortege or the commentators? While shots of a car on a motorway do not deliver much in terms of ‘television’, such footage must remain the focus of attention – the very raison d’être of the broadcast, structuring and determining it. Indeed, the commentators play up to their secondary role in this scheme, with modesty, polite behaviour and deference. What is most striking about the totality of the coverage is the silence of the masses, who have turned out to watch or be a part of or mourners for the event. At spectator events, sporting or cultural, ‘the people’29 can act as an amorphous hinterland of visceral gut reactions – spasms, convulsions, bursts of energy, the stillness of concentration. But the Royal funeral is public and so, as it were, for the people – the moment of the articulation of a popular mandate by the people, who are present to pay their respects. The silence of the people is broken by the isolated figures up above them, the presenter or interviewee, who now seem, in the flow of the coverage, to speak for them. Blain and O’Donnell, in respect to the commentators, note a telling rhetorical trope in this coverage: the continued use of ‘we’ – opportunistically merging the commentator with the people (those standing outside, and those watching the broadcast) into one common collective.30 On what authority does the presenter speak for the people, with what knowledge can she or he speak of them? Here, with this philosophical impasse, an invitation is needed – to the people, to step into the commentators’ cockpit. Or, in legal terms: we need to now hear from some witnesses. The examples of real people provided are clearly carefully screened: a controlled trickle of civic-minded busybodies and social ladder climbing charity groupies who schmooze with Royalty, often relating their one encounter with the Queen Mother, and are now seemingly auditioning for ennoblement. Here the fraction of the people speak to their media interlocutors (or even, effectively, translators). Talk lines are straightened out – person to commentator, everyman to expert. The people are not seen or heard to speak to each other – that ‘polyphonic narration’ or ‘exchanges among all the singularities in dialogue’ with which the multitude finds and generates the common.31 Thus prostrate subjects rewrite post-war history as they momentarily seize the means of (narrative) production, in their allotted 15 seconds (rather than the 15 Warhol minutes) of mass media fame.32 One brief interview is telling: an aged charity associate of the Queen Mother’s says, of her: ‘I think the Queen Mum was a wonderful person… -age.’ She seems to check herself after the first two syllables of the last word (per/son) and then adds the third syllable (/age) after an uncertain pause: enough of a delay for her to think of what she is saying, seemingly concluding that ‘a wonderful person’ is inappropriately colloquial, and so appends the ‘-age’ to achieve the right rather than the wrong kind of familiarity. The difference between the two is significant: in literal terms, a personage is an important person; a person is ‘just’ a person. In terms of this analysis, and recalling Kantorowicz too, the difference signals the significant leader figure, and the anonymous person of the people. But the nature of the deference to the monarchy is one that cuts in both directions: they are personages who are just

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like ordinary persons. And yet in the very ordinariness of their personhoods, they transcend just such everyday trivialities, becoming important.33 The very presence of these screened common people in the box with Dimbleby, remembering the Queen Mother, relating anecdotes, placing her in stories of their own lives and so on, testifies to this double determinant to the assumed greatness of the Royal. Such a speaking of or for the people is particularly grating in respect of the comments from the art historian Simon Schama, also present, who contrasts the ‘imperial’ areas (in this instance, upper class) to those of the ‘meat and potatoes’ areas (i.e. business and utilitarian environs of the working classes).34 Schama implicitly finds an appropriate grandiosity in the former, and a confirmation of the Queen Mother’s importance to the everyman in the latter. In this identification of common ground between different stratas of the people, as united in a shared deference to their betters, is the return of the notion of history as arising from a hierarchical class structure. And this notion has been a consistent theme in Schama’s work, from his study of the French Revolution, to commentary on the Queen herself as dampening down dangerously emotive public reactions to Diana’s death through a pseudo-rhizomatic, or cosmic, but certainly Kantorowiczian, connection to the mass psychology of her subjects: The crisis [of royal authority, in the wake of Diana’s death] was rescued by a speech made by the queen, striking for its informality and obviously sincere expression of personal sorrow. The tidal wave of feeling that swept over the country testified to the sustained need of the public to come together in a recognizable community of sentiment, and to do so as the people of a democratic monarchy.35

Schama’s line is found too in an arresting speculative argument, made in passing in a discussion of Royal family portraiture: that the ‘domestication of majesty’ (in the shift from a regal to a family mise-en-scène for public images of royals) could be considered as a pre-emptive attempt to stave off executions by the people, by appealing to their humanity. The domestication, in the visions of harmonious family life, directly reflects ‘the solid middle class on whom the throne rested’, and this reading is then understood to have established the presentation of contemporary royals, now ‘the family of families, at once dynastic and domestic, remote and accessible, magical and mundane’.36 Even the unofficial status title, of the ‘Queen Mother’, arises, for Schama, from this domestication dynamic.37 So the funeral footage is effectively repurposed by Schama as a verification of his thesis. Schama’s inferred concept of history – looking to individuals, as a leader class, determining onward progression, which may be derailed by the masses – requires, for such an occasion, something of an immediate delivery. So history is identified as tactile, individualized, all around, tangible or even feel-able within, and see-able without – and the footage and the commentators are seen to resonate with these feelings.38 Such empathy for a sense of live history is particularly welcome in the longueurs of the coverage. A funereal, dignified slowness – that of a time for reflection over

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action – is achieved in the pace and rhythm of the montage. Such a slowness of tracking shots, and the slowness of the movement of the camera in general, is fairly unique in television (outside the static shots that are required for some sports matches). Even ‘dead air’ – the most conventionally unacceptable thing in broadcast television – is tolerated; moments when voices cease, when cut-away shots impart or add virtually nothing. With such rule-breaking slowness, in the context of the Queen Mother’s funeral, comes gravitas – of and for the idea of history in the making, when history is understood as, finally, an essentially unperturbed (that is, revolution-free) continuum, manifest in this contemporary ‘democratic’ status quo. This slowness aligns the aesthetic with the ‘end of history’ (of the ideological position of Fukuyama).39 That is: the BBC reportage represents the plastic form of such an inactive, immobilized concept of history: of who we are, read into, or projected onto, a supposedly historical event – the passing of a Royal figure. Thus in this funereal slowness is the meeting of the concepts of history as a personality cult, and of history as monarchical, successionist, demanding the sacrifice of our most extraordinary personages’ lives, for this history’s renewal: a history that is bigger than can be managed or manipulated by us, in crowds. We, the people, should be respectful, thankful and silent – and at one remove, since we no longer determine history, or need to: that phase has ended. This is a history to be pondered rather than intervened in, hence this lulling, meditative slowness, ennobling the low language of news reportage. To discuss these strategies in operation is to give an impression, in this analysis, that would seem to be rather pessimistic: the forces of reaction and their control of the means of narrative or meaning production in the mediatized society. But in both the totality of the broadcast, and often in shorter segments too, another impression is given altogether, and one which is emblematic of television engagements with the Royals. Since there is an unavoidable paucity of imagination to the whole, in reality a numbing tedium rather than gravitas, the very self-regard of the funereal slowness strains any sense of passive mourning. Even to briefly entertain the idea of a semiotic analysis of this ‘living history’ genre suggests the inadequacy of the imagery: roads, cars, the people, buildings, overcast skies. For Manghani, in respect of his ‘image critique’ of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the semiotic analysis prompted a complex interplay of meanings and images – ‘a site and a sight of critical importance’ holding out the promise of ‘re-citing/sighting history’.40 The fact that this dividend of live history has to be constantly flagged up by the Queen Mother commentariat suggests the failure of the texture of this footage to function in a comparably ‘historical’ way. Time and again the commentators use mute shots of large crowds to offer observations along the lines of: ‘this, surely, proves the monarchy is alive and well!’41 This happens so often and compulsively, as if neurotically, that it does not take a sustained recourse to psychoanalytical thought to know that the fear is that the very reverse of this position must be true; if the monarchy was not already finished as an institution, and untenable without this media life-support machine, then these nervous refrains, citing the silent people’s accord, would not be necessary.

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What is silenced in these shots is the sense of the agency of the massed, in the suggestion that they have massed just to amass: they line the roads, standing, viewed en masse, as if they have arrived and wait at their destination, as if their story arc is complete. But to think beyond this is unavoidable: the people are gathered in the imperial centre. For Miéville, to be physically present in this centre is to, he recounts of his own excursion, encounter a London ‘buffeted by economic catastrophe, vastly reconfigured by a sporting jamboree of militarised corporate banality [the then coming 2012 London Olympic Games], jostling with social unrest, still reeling from riots [of August 2011]’, so that ‘[t]he place is presomething’.42 And those riots, in terms of the people, baffled commentators. Those who optimistically saw the uprising of the oppressed classes, and even glimpsed the contours of multitude, also had to acknowledge the consumerist impulse of the looting (trainers, designer goods and so on). Those who saw straight criminality run riot also had to acknowledge the quite precise, and highly politicized, origins of the moment – a march by family and friends of Mark Duggan (shot and killed by the London police on 4 August 2011), to Tottenham Police Station, chanting, ‘we want answers’. Hardt and Negri found in the events a correlation between this ‘burning and looting’ and ‘the power of commodities and the rule of property, which are themselves, of course, often [also, as with the Duggan shooting] vehicles of racial subordination’, irrespective of the lack of any socialist ethos in a limited ‘struggles for the common’.43 Such media bafflement itself prompted Berardi to imagine accompanying Pier Paolo Pasolini to Tottenham – thinking back to Pasolini’s counterintuitive position on the rioting Italian students of 1968, in which he declared support for sons of the poor (that is: the police) against the sons of the wealthy (that is: the students). Berardi wishes to disagree, and yet acknowledges that the sons of the wealthy, despite their revolutionary activities, came to be as Pasolini had described them, to a degree, once they assumed positions of institutional power (further to the successful post-1968 strategy of the ‘march through the institutions’). Thus ‘a large part of that social body that we called “the Movement” has shown that Pasolini was not entirely wrong on this point’.44 It is this interpretative challenge of uncertainty, in relation to the massed people, that is shirked in the mass media. The crowd footage is eminently pliable: impose silence, depose the multitude and pose a thesis instead – a people, a deference, therein a mandate, therefore a verification of a natural democratic default to leader figures for the, as the Invisible Committee puts it, ‘court society’.45 This, then, is the first kind of void felt in the funeral footage. When the people are massed, the reportage says, they yearn for a leader to fill an otherwise chaotic or anarchic void. One leader steps back, another leader steps forward: mark the transition – hear some opinions – feel part of it – even applaud. This is, of course, the very negation of Hardt and Negri’s concept of multitude – in terms, for example, of their discussion of the media’s grappling with mass protests: The foreign press corps searched desperately in Tunisia and Egypt for a leader of the movements [in 2010/11]. During the most intense period of the Tahir Square occupation, for example, they would each day presume a different figure

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was the real leader … What the media couldn’t understand or accept was that there was no leader in Tahir Square. The movements’ refusal to have a leader was recognizable throughout the year but perhaps was most pronounced in [Occupy] Wall Street. A series of intellectuals and celebrities made appearances at Zuccotti Park, but no one could consider any of them leaders; they were guests of the multitude.46

In the funeral footage, the multitude is presented as the guest of the leaders: as the people assembled at the behest of their leaders. This is the second void: they are devoid of meaning, autonomy – voided into a zombie assembly, who have surrendered all claim to the common in favour of a ‘collective will’ of subservience. Such a strategy then avoids an idea of immanence by curtailing their narrative. Hardt and Negri note that the concept of the multitude ‘is based not so much on the current empirical existence of the class [of class struggle] but rather on its conditions of possibility’, so that the question is ‘not “What is the multitude?” bur rather “What can the multitude become?”’47 Such a state of becoming is voided or avoided in this spectacle of the people: they have already become. The ‘possibility of the multitude’ is effectively returned to that which Hardt and Negri are at pains to claim it is not – ‘merely some abstract, impossible dream detached from our present reality’,48 with ‘the people’ as a ‘hypostatic reduction of the multitude’ whereby ‘sovereignty claimed to have its basis in the people and transferred its image to them’:49 the multitude as trounced by the people. In this, some answer to the concerns of Nairn, Billig, Blain and O’Donnell, and Cannadine is possible: the democratic aberration occurs at the ‘end of history’ – so the ritual, devoid of autonomy, is comfortably accommodated in the era of the ideological endpoint of Western liberal democracy. So who or what, then, are the commentators trying to reassure? Such media coverage seems desperate to set up or re-establish or just identify that ‘public sphere’, to use Habermas’s term, from which the Royals’ mandate springs – but a public sphere without the traction of any members of the actual public. It is as if, at all costs, the public must not be allowed to publicly discuss these matters, or to autonomously populate their own space, in their own ways. Why not? Because it could reasonably be surmised that the weight of the commentary is too much for the cortege to bare: the spectacle is insufficient for the belief in heraldry, for a sense of the natural continuum of a monarchy, for the idea and look of an evolving and living history, for the ‘Britain’ that we ‘believe in’ as Schama says, for the shoring up of the feeling of the social importance of the monarchy, and for a reaffirming of national identity in and through this ritual. That is: the Royal family fails in the role of a concept of history. From this vantage point the funereal slowness seems self-deluding, or an elaborate filibuster. Perhaps Baudrillard overestimated the affective potential of television, when it was the hegemonic visual medium? This televised pomp and circumstance mourns not an individual, but itself: its nostalgic mode is one which harks back to a time when questions of legitimation were not raised, and did not need to be answered – when the broadcast flow was smooth and interpretation

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convincing, before the ontological uncertainties of being ‘pre-something’.50 At this moment, at least, the ‘communicative production and the construction of imperial legitimation’ fails to ‘march hand in hand’51 and the machine’s autopoietic functioning stumbles. In these respects, Turnock’s maxim can be reversed: it is not we who seek comfort from television, but television that seeks comfort from us, where the ‘us’ is meant to be the people – the voided multitude.

Notes 1

José Ignacio González Faus, ‘Anthropology: The Person and the Community’, in Mysterium Liberationis: Fundamental Concepts of Liberation Theology, ed. Ignacio Ellacuría and Jon Sobrino (New York: Orbis Books, 1993), 506. 2 Neil Blain and Hugh O’Donnell, Media, Monarchy and Power (Bristol and Portland: Intellect, 2003), 179. 3 Tom Nairn, The Enchanted Glass: Britain and Its Monarchy (London: Verso, ([1989] 2001), 19–25. Further data can be found in Michael Billig, Talking of the Royal Family (London and New York: Routledge, 1992), 7–8. Billig also addresses those things Nairn finds hard to explain; he has a chapter called ‘The Continuing Mystery’ (56–85) in his sociological study of the British Royal family. For an overview of data on popularity around late 1960s/early–mid-1970s, see Fred I. Greenstein, Valentine Herman, Robert N. Stradling and Elia Zureik, ‘The Child’s Conception of the Queen and the Prime Minister’, British Journal of Political Science 4:3 (July 1974): 257–87. 4 Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Declaration (New York: Argo-Navis, 2012), 44. 5 Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (London: Harvard University Press, 2001), 34. 6 Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire (London: Hamish Hamilton, 2005), 99. 7 Hardt and Negri, Multitude, 101. 8 Hardt and Negri, Multitude, 62. Hardt and Negri have also considered the non- or anti-multitude, in terms of the mob of the right, and points of overlap between fascist and anarchist/insurrectionary strategies of assembly, occupation and action – the ‘dark mirror of right-wing movements’; see Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Assembly (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 47–57. 9 Nigel Dacre, ‘The Funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales’, in The Court Historian 18:1 (2003): 85, 86. 10 On the ‘mixed constitution’ of Empire, which contains elements of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy, and shuns circumscription within the strictures of the nation-state, see Hardt and Negri, Empire, 304–24. 11 Survey data on other groups possibly representing of British liberal thought, and who may not have been enamoured with the state of the Royal family, can be gleaned from Greenstein, Herman, Stradling and Zureik, ‘The Child’s Conception of the Queen’, 258, footnote 5. This is in respect to members of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in the late 1960s, and those listed in Who’s Who in the early 1970s: roughly, respectively, those critical of the establishment to a sufficient degree to join a campaigning group, and those very much embedded within the establishment, and declared notable.

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The question of perception was commonly placed between two poles at this moment, both of which arose from television schedules of June 1969: either the regal maximalism of the investiture of the Prince of Wales in Caernarfon Castle, or the regal minimalism of the documentary The Royal Family, directed by Richard Cawson, which sought to show the family as much like any other. The documentary, for obscure reasons, has remained unseen since 1972. 12 Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? (London: Zero Books, 2009). 13 Walter Benjamin, ‘Theses on the Philosophy of History’, in Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt (New York: Schocken Books, [written 1940] 1969), 253–64. The essay has also been translated as ‘On the Concept of History’, but neither ‘theses’ nor ‘concept’ appears in Benjamin’s original writing. 14 The classic analysis of the fictional and relatively recent nature of such ‘Olde Worlde’ posturing (and set design) is David Cannadine, ‘The Context, Performance and Meaning of Ritual: The British Monarchy and the “Invention of Tradition” c. 1820–1977’, in The Invention of Tradition, ed. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 101–64. This is a theme too of Patrick Keiller’s London essay films (London, 1994; Robinson in Space, 1997; Robinson in Ruins, 2010) and much psychogeographical writing, particularly one of the foundational texts: Iain Sinclair, Lights Out for the Territory: 9 Excursions in the Secret History of London (London: Granta, 1997). 15 Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi, Marco Jacquemet and Gianfranco Vitali, Ethereal Shadows: Communications and Power in Contemporary Italy (New York: Autonomedia, 2009), 39. 16 And this reading also looks back to Ernst Kantorowicz’s The King’s Two Bodies, which traced, in Medieval theology, ideas of the regal figure as actual person (monarch) and symbolic figure, and/or embodied abstraction (as monarchy itself, represented in this monarch figure, and her predecessors and successors). The same theological ‘issue’ is also the basis of Steinberg’s reading of the figure of the infant Christ in Renaissance art: the consistency of prominently displayed genitals as emphatically illustrating the incarnation of God into the worldly realm. See Ernst Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, [1957] 2016); Leo Steinberg, The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and Modern Oblivion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). 17 Rob Turnock, Interpreting Diana: Television Audiences and the Death of a Princess (London: British Film Institute, 2000), 14; Turnock’s italics. As Clancy later argued, there is a body of thought that claims the very beginnings of television itself in the United Kingdom were effectively and essentially in relation to the monarchy, through the coverage of the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953. See Laura Clancy, ‘ “Queen’s Day – TV’s Day”: The British Monarchy and the Media Industries’, Contemporary British History 33: 3 (2019): 427–50. 18 Jeremy Paxman, On Royalty (London: Penguin, 2007), 15, 16. This rehearsed drill for the Queen Mother’s funeral then became, in the urgent circumstances, the template for the coverage of Princess Diana; see Dacre, ‘The Funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales’, 85. The Queen Mother was Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (1900–2002), the mother of Elizabeth II. 19 Turnock, Interpreting Diana, 20. 20 See Turnock, Interpreting Diana, 40–1. 21 Jean Baudrillard, The Gulf War Did Not Take Place (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995).

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22 Virilio here talks of the way in which naval defence systems include the projection of false ship images to the sensors of incoming missiles. Paul Virilio, War and Cinema: The Logistics of Perception (London: Verso, [1984] 2009), 62, 110. 23 Retort, Afflicted Powers: Capital and Spectacle in a New Age of War (London: Verso, 2005), 37. 24 Brian Massumi, ‘Fear (The Spectrum Said)’, in positions 13:1 (2005): 31–48. 25 Niall Ferguson, Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire (London: Penguin Books, 2005), 204. 26 Hardt and Negri, Multitude, 100; their italics. 27 Hardt and Negri, Multitude, 100. 28 Another analysis of the coverage can be found in Blain and O’Donnell, Media, Monarchy and Power, 179–92. 29 I use the term ‘the people’ here self-consciously and in bad faith – as denoting their presentation rather than constitution. However, more recent work has sought to reclaim the term itself, along the lines of unifying popular cultures, solidarity and belonging, and the right to assemble; see Alain Badiou, Pierre Bourdieu, Judith Butler, George Didi-Huberman, Sadri Khiari and Jacques Rancière, What Is a People? (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016). 30 Blain and O’Donnell, Media, Monarchy and Power, 24–8. 31 Hardt and Negri, Multitude, 211. 32 This is not a misanthropic reading but a sentiment predicated from an understanding of the screening – as in selecting – of those given the microphone at such moments. There is a fragment of proof of this: the sketch in the 1992 Chris Morris BBC news satire The Day Today in which the unseen interviewer engages with tourists and sightseers outside Buckingham Palace, seemingly elderly and frail, eliciting ridiculous responses to ever-more-ridiculous questions about how they would defend the Queen if she was under attack or even mildly imperilled. How far would they go in assaulting the assailants? 33 For further on the rhetorical dilemmas of speaking about Royals – between terms of deference and terms that denote their everydayness – see Billig, Talking of the Royal Family, 21–2. 34 His ‘meat and potatoes’ comment is noted too in Dacre, ‘The Funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales’, 89. 35 Simon Schama, A History of Britain: The Fate of Empire, 1776–2000 (London: BBC Worldwide Limited, 2002), 549. But as late as 1969 a poll for the Sunday Times included the response-eliciting statement that the monarchy was ‘making it less likely that Britain will have a violent revolution’, presumably in relation to both 1793 (with the execution of Louis XVI) and 1968; see Greenstein, Herman, Stradling and Zureik, ‘The Child’s Conception of the Queen’, 258–9, footnote 6. On the French Revolution, see Simon Schama, Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985). Eric Hobsbawm finds in Schama’s reading an ahistorical decontextualization, rendering the events as little more than ‘gratuitous horror and suffering’ (presumably the consequences of the anarchy that would ensure without class hierarchies), and Schama ‘a disenchanted chronicler of the crimes and follies of mankind’; E. J. Hobsbawm, Echoes of the Marseillaise: Two Centuries Look Back on the French Revolution (London and New York: Verso, 1990), 97, 98. 36 Simon Schama, ‘The Domestication of Majesty: Royal Family Portraiture, 1500–1850’, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 17: 1 (Summer 1986): 158. 37 Schama, ‘Domestication of Majesty’, 183.

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38 Observing the filming of the Netflix series The Crown in February 2020, with Manchester doubling as the New York of 1989, prompted the same conclusions in terms of the construction of populist history. Cameras tracked the comings and goings of the royals, in cars and convoys, breezing in and out of buildings. The extras, employed as crowds keen for a glimpse of Princess Diana, were utilized as so much set-dressing: grouped on streets and plastered against walls to enact their status as silent watchers and inactive witnesses to glamour and history, and standing in an orderly fashion in allotted areas – ‘seldom given much encouragement by directors and often treated as not much more than moveable scenery’, as Alan Bennett once observed. Their bulk presence signified one message: the verification that the arrival/ departure of this one individual matters. And so the cameras frequently soared high above on cranes, so as to amalgamate individuals into one, singular mass. The actual series mostly simply intercuts a soap opera-like narrative regarding the Royals with shots of crowds outside. Alan Bennett, Untold Stories (London: Faber and Faber, 2005), 207. 39 Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992). 40 Sunil Manghani, Image Critique & The Fall of the Berlin Wall (Bristol: Intellect Books, 2008), 35 and 54 respectively; Manghani’s italics. 41 Cannadine concludes as much of an earlier model: ‘the jubilee ceremonial [the 1977 Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II] was an expression of national and imperial decline, an attempt to persuade, by pomp and circumstance, that no such decline had really taken place, or to argue that, even if it had, it really did not matter.’ Cannadine, ‘Context, Performance’, 160. 42 China Miéville, London’s Overthrow (London: The Westbourne Press, 2012), 14. 43 Hardt and Negri, Declaration, 6. 44 Franco Berardi, ‘Pasolini in Tottenham’, in The State of Things, ed. Marta Kuzma, Pablo Lafuente, Peter Osborne (London: Koenig Books, 2012), 213. 45 The Invisible Committee, Now, trans. Robert Hurley (South Pasadena, California: Semiotext(e), 2017), 52; their italics. 46 Hardt and Negri, Declaration, 5; their italics. Arguably, during a moment of acute crisis for the Royal family, something similar occurred: the massed grievers outside Buckingham Palace seemed to successfully demand the Royal presence in the immediate aftermath of Diana’s death, prompting a walkabout by the family. The crisis was dramatized in Stephen Frears’s 2006 film The Queen, which incorporates news footage of angry vox pops outside the palace – where the wrangling of meaning was, temporarily, lost. Dacre notes this anger as arising from a disputed sense of ownership of the funeral (and so the life), between the Royal family and the ‘people [who] wanted to play a more personal and more active role in her funeral’; Dacre, ‘Funeral of Diana’, 87–8. But one could add to this tussle a third party exacting a claim too: Diana’s own family, the Spencers. Diana is buried on a private island in the Spencer’s Althorp estate. 47 Hardt and Negri, Multitude, 105. 48 Hardt and Negri, Multitude, 226–7. In terms of a later revisiting of the concept multitude, this trouncing can be placed more precisely – an immobilization, blocking the trajectory and development of ‘class – multitude – class prime’. In this respect, the inclusion of minority groups in the studio, to talk about royals, also seems to bolster immobilization: irrespective of any marginal status (ethnicity, sexual orientation, even gender), the Royal resonance is the same and so universal, so that a potentially insurrectionary ‘intersectional class’ is fjorded away from a ‘multitudinal class’;

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Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, ‘Empire, Twenty Years On’, New Left Review 120 (Nov/Dec 2019): 89. 49 Antonio Negri and Anne Dufourmantelle, Negri on Negri, trans. M. B. DeBevoise (New York and London: Routledge, 2004), 112. 50 Miéville, London’s Overthrow, 14. 51 Hardt and Negri, Empire, 34.

References Badiou, Alain, Pierre Bourdieu, Judith Butler, George Didi-Huberman, Sadri Khiari and Jacques Rancière. What Is a People? New York: Columbia University Press, 2016. Baudrillard, Jean. The Gulf War Did Not Take Place. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995. Benjamin, Walter. ‘Theses on the Philosophy of History’. In Illuminations, edited by Hannah Arendt, 253–64. New York: Schocken Books, [1940] 1969. Bennett, Alan. Untold Stories. London: Faber and Faber, 2005. Berardi, Franco. ‘Bifo’, Marco Jacquemet, Gianfranco Vitali’. In Ethereal Shadows: Communications and Power in Contemporary Italy. New York: Autonomedia, 2009. Berardi, Franco. ‘Pasolini in Tottenham’. In The State of Things, edited by Marta Kuzma, Pablo Lafuente, Peter Osborne, 199–221. London: Koenig Books, 2012. Billig, Michael. Talking of the Royal Family. London and New York: Routledge, 1992. Blain, Neil and Hugh O’Donnell. Media, Monarchy and Power. Bristol and Portland: Intellect, 2003. Cannadine, David. ‘The Context, Performance and Meaning of Ritual: The British Monarchy and the “Invention of Tradition” c. 1820–1977’. In The Invention of Tradition, edited by Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, 101–64. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Clancy, Laura. ‘“Queen’s Day – TV’s Day”: The British Monarchy and the Media Industries’. Contemporary British History 33:3 (2019): 427–50. Dacre, Nigel. ‘The Funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales’. The Court Historian, 18:1 (2003): 85–90. Faus, José Ignacio González. ‘Anthropology: The Person and the Community’. In Mysterium Liberationis: Fundamental Concepts of Liberation Theology, edited by Ignacio Ellacuría and Jon Sobrino, 497–521. New York: Orbis Books, 1993. Ferguson, Niall. Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire. London: Penguin Books, 2005. Fisher, Mark. Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? London: Zero Books, 2009. Fukuyama, Francis. The End of History and the Last Man. New York: Free Press, 1992. Greenstein, Fred I., Valentine Herman, Robert N. Stradling and Elia Zureik. ‘The Child’s Conception of the Queen and the Prime Minister’. British Journal of Political Science 4:3 (July 1974): 257–87. Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. Empire. London: Harvard University Press, 2001. Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire. London: Hamish Hamilton, 2005. Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. Declaration. New York: Argo-Navis, 2012. Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. Assembly. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.

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Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. ‘Empire, Twenty Years On’. New Left Review 120 (Nov/ Dec 2019): 67–92. Hobsbawm, E. J. Echoes of the Marseillaise: Two Centuries Look Back on the French Revolution. London and New York: Verso, 1990. Invisible Committee, The. Now, trans. Robert Hurley. South Pasadena, California: Semiotext(e), 2017. Kantorowicz, Ernst. The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology. Princeton: Princeton University Press, [1957] 2016. Manghani, Sunil. Image Critique & The Fall of the Berlin Wall. Bristol: Intellect Books, 2008. Massumi, Brian. ‘Fear (The Spectrum Said)’. positions 13:1 (2005): 31–48. Nairn, Tom. The Enchanted Glass: Britain and Its Monarchy. London: Verso, [1989] 2001. Negri, Antonio and Anne Dufourmantelle. Negri on Negri. Translated by M. B. DeBevoise. New York and London: Routledge, 2004. Paxman, Jeremy. On Royalty. London: Penguin, 2007. Retort. Afflicted Powers: Capital and Spectacle in a New Age of War. London: Verso, 2005. Schama, Simon. Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985. Schama, Simon, ‘The Domestication of Majesty: Royal Family Portraiture, 1500–1850’. The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 17:1 (Summer 1986): 155–83. Schama, Simon. A History of Britain: The Fate of Empire, 1776–2000. London: BBC Worldwide Limited, 2002. Sinclair, Iain. Lights Out for the Territory: 9 Excursions in the Secret History of London. London: Granta, 1997. Steinberg, Leo. The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and Modern Oblivion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. Turnock, Rob. Interpreting Diana: Television Audiences and the Death of a Princess. London: British Film Institute, 2000. Virilio, Paul. War and Cinema: The Logistics of Perception. London: Verso, [1984] 2009.

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Chapter 8 T H E G I L E T S J AU N E S A S U N I N T E N T IO NA L V A N G UA R D Marc James Léger

Something is happening with the Gilets Jaunes protest movement that erupted in France in the fall of 2018, but no one is quite sure what it is.1 It has been said that because they are supported by both the left and the right, because they refuse leaders and representation, because they are not organized around ethnic and national identity, and because they seem indifferent to the history of French radicalism, the Gilets Jaunes do not act as a class and cannot be described by recourse to traditional categories of political analysis. Even a historian of social movements, Stéphane Sirot, described the Gilets Jaunes as a ‘non-identified social object’.2 An answer to this enigma is readily provided by Italian ‘workerism’, or autonomist Marxism – a strand of ‘post-political politics’ that developed in the 1960s and 1970s that challenged the ideology of communist parties by emphasizing the new conditions of post-Fordist production as well as the libertarian spirit of 1960s protest movements, from civil rights, student activism, the anti-war and ecology movements, to countercultural lifestyles and identity-based struggles.3 A key concept that emerged from autonomist theory – the multitude – is defined by Paolo Virno as a feature of the contradiction between labour and capital, with the difference that in contemporary societies the working class has changed along with the new communication technologies that allow for creative self-valorization. However, because the multitude can no longer directly confront capitalism through labour strikes or through armed revolutionary upheaval, according to this theory, its politics are focused on the kinds of networked cooperation that are immanent to the new mode of production. This politics is defined in Foucauldian terms as biopower.4 The concept of the multitude is commonly associated with the work of the post-workerist theorists Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. Four years after their successful 2000 book, Empire, Hardt and Negri published Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire.5 The two books presciently adumbrated the struggles that encompassed the anti-globalization movement and the movement of the squares. Largely organized as grassroots movements against neoliberal globalization, the numerous G8, G20 and WTO summit protests mutated into town

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square occupations and encampments: Puerta de Sol in Spain, Syntagma Square in Athens, Taksim Square in Istanbul, the UK student strikes, the Arab Spring protests across North Africa and the Middle East, the Wisconsin protests, Occupy Wall Street and its many offshoots, the Quebec student strike, or Printemps Érable, the Brazilian Spring and Nuit Debout. Despite the postmodernists’ declarations of the end of meta-narratives, history and ideology, these protests gave people hope that leftist and popular resistance was still possible. In response to the rise of the anti-global left, the post-9/11 War on Terror and neoliberal austerity were pursued by liberal and conservative governments alike, giving way to an authoritarian rightist thrust unseen in Western countries since before the Second World War. If new social movements have taken a great deal of inspiration from anarchist modes of constituent organization and leaderless horizontality, the effort to rehabilitate the ‘idea of communism’ has also had its share of adherents. However, despite the verve of intellectuals like Tariq Ali, Alain Badiou, Bruno Bosteels, Jodi Dean and Slavoj Žižek, the broader academia tends to adhere to Foucauldian discourse theory, the schizo-anarchism of Deleuze and Guattari, and the anti-foundational post-structuralism and difference politics that provide a ballast for the expression of issue politics and activism, over and above any radical organization of the now educated and cultured masses. One could say that the energies and social forces that were mobilized in the ‘culture wars’ of the 1980s and 1990s culminated in the anti- and alter-globalization movement. In contrast, protests against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan came along at the same time as the widespread use of the Internet and laptop computers, kicking off, as Paul Mason phrased it, the movement of the movements and squares.6 In this ferment, the world witnessed a kind of ‘Eighteenth Brumaire’ of the left wing, with the renewal of traditional leftist identifications: anarchist, communist, socialist, democratic socialist, left-liberal and syndicalist. Much of the emphasis on macro-politics and political economy from this next wave has since been chastened by demands for attention to questions of privilege and diversity, as noticed after the wind-down of Occupy Wall Street and the advent of Black Lives Matter, MeToo, the Women’s March, March For Our Lives and similar hashtag crossovers where the 99 per cent can be hybridized with any number of issues and campaigns. The Gilets Jaunes emerged in the midst of this postmultitude era, wherein the networking of social movements through social media transforms grievances into pop-up political movements. They are an expression of radicalization in the age of networked activism. Whereas nationalist markers were once the hallmarks of such citizen populism, today’s anti-oppression politics emphasize identitarian categories and harness indignation rather than new principles of emancipatory universality.7 Rather than mobilize people in accordance with a left ideology, political programme and party organizations, populist citizens’ movements make demands to vested interests, institutions and governments. Most of the commentary about the Gilets Jaunes acknowledges that this postmultitude rebellion is a progressive populist movement. However, the Gilets Jaunes are not composed of the usual university-educated urban activists, but

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constitute an atypical working-class revolt against the state. In contrast to the ‘immediate’ riots of the French banlieues of 2005, to use Badiou’s terminology, the Gilets Jaunes have given ‘latent’ riots a ‘historical’ sense that represents the emergence of the working class as a political force in a developed country of the West, and in the context of the hegemony of a global, petty-bourgeois postpolitics and end of history ideology. In Badiou’s terms, the historical riots of recent times ‘indicate the possibility of a new situation in the history of politics’ and allow for a transition from immediate and limited localizations to the building of an enduring temporality and geographic extension across all of society.8 This is the reason why the government of Emmanuel Macron is determined to defuse the movement of the Gilets Jaunes, which he denounced early on as ‘ambient demagogy’ and ‘politically irresponsible’.9 An angry populace in revolt gives credence to Marxist analysis. My argument here, however, is that one of the reasons why postmodern post-politics is now taking a populist dimension beyond left and right is because revolutionary proletarian class struggle remains proscribed from even the political left.

Who are the Gilets Jaunes and what do they want from us? The Gilets Jaunes are named after the high-visibility vests that French motorists are obligated by law to keep in their automobiles in case of emergencies and which are otherwise associated with working-class occupations. Their most immediate grievance is a 20 per cent increase in fuel prices, which adversely affects rural and peri-urban populations as well as individual consumers who do not receive tax exemptions and therefore subsidize the public and private sectors. On the whole, the Gilets Jaunes are a grassroots populist movement that demands economic justice. The movement emerged unexpectedly from the other side of Richard Florida’s ‘creative class’ and David Harvey’s ‘rebel cities’.10 Although the fuel tax increases were initiated by the Socialist Party under François Hollande, the Macron government, which is widely considered to be a government for the rich, increased popular resentment by announcing projected price increases along with other austerity measures. Although Macron argued that the price hike would curb the use of fossil fuels, the Gilets Jaunes argued that the rural poor, many of whom can barely afford to get to work, are adversely affected by this society-wide problem.11 The revenue generated by the fuel tax could rather be derived from corporate taxes, or by rescinding the 70 per cent cut on taxes given by Macron to the millionaire class. Macron is a neoliberal politician but not a fascist politician like Marine Le Pen. In this regard, his election was perceived as a small victory in the era of Brexit and the administration of Donald Trump. However, his presidency was at the same time a victory for capitalist markets, and not for the working majority. The Gilets Jaunes protests began in November 2018 and were spurred by an online citizens’ initiative petition against austerity that garnered more than one million signatures on Change.org. This was supported by a nonpartisan Facebook group dedicated to protesting the tax on carbon fuels. During the first four months

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of protests, which occurred on weekends, rural and urban residents, motorists and non-motorists, blocked roads, boulevards, toll booths, roundabouts, fuel depots, international junctions and airports; they built barricades and destroyed the majority of traffic enforcement cameras. The urban protests, the most effective since May 1968, also caused the closure of department stores and supermarkets. Like Occupy Wall Street, the Gilets Jaunes sparked similar actions worldwide, with yellow vests being worn as protest gear across Europe, in China, Russia, Pakistan, Iraq, Israel, Egypt, Tunisia, Australia and Canada. The initial protests attracted more than 300,000 protesters, after which they varied in size depending on the date and the location. Unlike the movement of the squares, which was concentrated in large metropolitan centres, the Gilets Jaunes protests have taken place across France, from Paris, Marseille, Toulouse and Lyon, to Bordeaux, Rouen, Angers, Tours, Valence, Nantes and Caen, as well as places that most people have never heard of, such as Saint-Étienne, Villefranche-sur-Saône and Le Puy-en-Velay. From November 2018 to March 2019, popular support ranged from an initial approval rating of 85 per cent, down to 70 per cent or 40 per cent, depending on the news source, and this decline is likely due to a vast police mobilization, a considerable amount of destruction, several deaths and countless injuries.12 With regard to organization and coordination, a number of ad hoc leaders or spokespeople emerged, partially due to the need of the mainstream media and government authorities to find someone who represents the movement and through which they can negotiate some kind of solution. Some of these individuals sought to orient the movement towards political party structures by running candidates in elections. These individuals were fiercely criticized by other movement figures who reject all forms of representation and insist on leaderless horizontalism. Because most of the protesters are not organized in labour unions and do not wish to negotiate with political institutions, they have received mixed support by labour organizations like the General Confederation of Labour and Workers’ Force.13 Among some of the anomalies during the protests have been a women’s Gilets Jaunes mobilization in January 2019, a Foulards Rouges (red scarves) counterprotest, also in January, and in February a national day of action called by the CGT in support of the protests, followed by charges of racism after one incident wherein Gilets Jaunes protesters screamed anti-Semitic insults at the philosopher Alain Finkielkraut.14 The latter episode has been used by the state to dismiss the movement as anti-Semitic, a somewhat ironic accusation on the part of Macron, who has stated his admiration for rightist leaders like Georges Clémenceau and Philippe Pétain. The Socialist Party subsequently called for rallies to denounce anti-Semitism, thereby associating the Gilets Jaunes with neo-fascism. All of the mainstream parties, including the unions, came together to denounce the Gilets Jaunes for the rise in racism and xenophobia that is mostly the fault of the policies of the bourgeois establishment. Decades of austerity, imperialist war, accommodation of the fascist right and attacks on the socialist left have led the ‘extreme centre’ to target the Gilets Jaunes as a convenient scapegoat.15 The official government response to the demands of the Gilets Jaunes has been trivial at best and largely authoritarian. In a televised address on 10 December 2018, Macron

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pledged to increase the minimum wage, to increase year-end bonuses and to make some concessions for taxation on overtime work and for low-income pensioners. The main point of his speech, however, was to declare a state of emergency.16 Macron also launched a ‘Great National Debate’ of town-hall meetings on the economy, taxation, public services, the environment, immigration and political disengagement. On this last point, Macron warned against social chaos. Protesters considered these debates, which lasted from January to March, to be a means to redirect the political process towards the dead end of establishment institutions.17 With no major concessions to the protesters except a temporary stay on the fuel tax and electricity tariff increase, and with continuing weekly demonstrations, the French National Assembly approved new anti-riot laws that limit protest and increase police powers. It later mobilized French army units to protect government buildings and with rules of engagement that authorize soldiers to fire on Gilets Jaunes protesters – a measure that had not been used since the war against Algerian independence. Charges of anti-Semitism, similar to those levelled against Jeremy Corbyn as well as critics of Israeli government policies, have thus been proven to be a smokescreen for the expansion of police powers and the repression of leftwing rebellion among the working class. In the light of this theatre of class war propaganda, the question of the political identity of the Gilets Jaunes is indeed a most pertinent issue. The best overall assessment in this regard comes in two forms: the demands put forward and a demographic profile of the movement. One opinion poll discovered that 28 per cent of the Gilets Jaunes had voted for Mélenchon’s Unsubmissive France in the May 2017 election, and 36 per cent voted for Marine Le Pen’s National Front (renamed National Rally).18 Due to the involvement of right-wing populists, the Gilets Jaunes have been compared to the Five Star Movement in Italy as well as the anti-tax populist movement headed by Pierre Poujade in the 1950s. However, the demands made by the movement indicate that in policy terms the protesters are closer to the radical left than the right wing and are consistently against the policies of the neoliberal establishment. Although the Gilets Jaunes are said to include rightist elements, one would be hard-pressed to associate the movement with the anti-Enlightenment, anti-materialism and national socialist tradition of fascism in France.19 Insofar as the movement wishes to remain at a distance from party politics, it is not possible to say that there is at work a ‘red-brown’ alliance of left and right populism against liberal-democratic institutions. The Gilets Jaunes are therefore best understood in terms of new social movements in opposition to neoliberal globalization. A document issued in November 2018, titled ‘The Demands of the Gilets Jaunes’, gives the overall sense of an anti-austerity platform and includes: the Citizens’ Referendum Initiative (RIC), a Swiss-style means of representation by referendum; median salaries for elected officials; progressive taxation; laws favourable to small-town and small-size businesses, as against large corporations and urban commercial zones; increased corporate taxes; ecological housing; universality in social security; socialized wages and pensions indexed to inflation; better payment for the handicapped; rent control; government control of the energy sector; an end to tax increases on petrol and the implementation of

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hydrogen fuels; increased rail transportation; protectionism for French industries and public assets; protection of public and not-for-profit sectors, including schools, hospitals, elderly care centres and post offices; pensions at age 60 and 55 for physical workers; family assistance; investment in infrastructure; dismantling of the informal economy; employment security; the elimination of austerity policies against the poor; citizenship for immigrant workers and policies to defend against forced migration; progressive policy for asylum seekers.20 An important article published in Le Monde on December 11 and translated on the Verso Blog provided a demographic profile of the Gilets Jaunes based on questionnaires distributed by a team of researchers.21 The researchers determined that the protesters belong essentially to the working class and lower-middle class. The majority are of working age. Their average age is 45 and the majority of those active in the movement are between the ages of 25 and 65. The gender distribution is 54 per cent male and 45 per cent female; 20 per cent have university education and 29 per cent have high school education only; 85 per cent own a car. Their average household income (€1,700/month) is 30 per cent less than the median French average, which proves them to be among the most vulnerable layers of the population. About half were protesting for the first time in their lives; 90 per cent are against the tactic of property violence; 81 per cent are against the idea that the movement can be represented by political parties and 64 per cent are against the same by trade unions; 33 per cent consider themselves to be apolitical; 15 per cent are on the far left, 5.4 per cent are on far right, 42.6 per cent are on the mainstream left, 12.6 per cent are on the right and 6 per cent are in the liberal centre. Among the reasons given for demonstrating, 50 per cent stated low wages and the inability to make ends meet; 69 per cent complained of their tax burden; 20 per cent call for the resignation of Macron and another 20 per cent calls for institutional reform. Less than 1 per cent cited immigration to be a concern. The article concludes that a significant uniqueness of the Gilets Jaunes is the fact that it is not centrist and includes both left and right populist elements. It suggests that the movement does not have a typical profile because it is essentially focused on social demands. The researchers state: In short, this is indeed a revolt of the ‘people’ – as many of those interviewed claimed – in the sense of the working class and the lower-middle class, people on modest incomes. Consequently, in several ways the gilets jaunes movement presents a different kind of challenge from the social movements of recent decades.22

Before addressing the broader terms of analysis of citizen protest, a few comments on the Gilets Jaunes by well-known leftist intellectuals are worthy of mention. Former Situationist Raoul Vaneigem notes the dilemma of choosing to do nothing so as to avoid the inevitable disasters of tomorrow.23 According to him, the Gilets Jaunes are not a class but a kind of post-political expression by people around the world who wish to find intelligent solutions to the misery that has been planned for them by the ruling class. Jacques Rancière recommends that we

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look beyond the normal order of explanation for this disorder. The Gilets Jaunes are not defined by social class, he argues, but simply assert the fact of having been abandoned by the wider polity, much like the non-places of anonymous motorways they have occupied.24 It would be reductive in the extreme to think of such politics as mostly a question of material infrastructure – oil, automobiles, prices – as Rona Lorimer has suggested, and not a matter of political ideology.25 Their notion of democracy, Rancière says, is expressed as non-negotiation with the inequality imposed by the class of billionaires. Étienne Balibar has made a similar statement to that made by Emmanuel Wallerstein about Occupy Wall Street, which is that the movement will need to build some institutional support and organizational stability if it is not simply to be dismantled by the forces of state repression.26 He suggests that the situation should not become a matter of transformed collective subjectivity in the name of the multitude, but rather a conjuncture that involves three conditions for victory: (1) the avoidance of left-wing emotional populism and chains of intersectional equivalence among different struggles in favour instead of an active counter-populism based on the convergence of common social interests; (2) the avoidance of insurrectional violence; (3) the building of a power base, from the streets to local assemblies, premised on shared political principles determined by popular committees organized outside the frameworks of government representation. The limits of the Gilets Jaunes’ organizational form and tactics, and how these are dealt with by the state, will define the movement and the future struggles of the left. When political reform is no longer an option, Žižek has argued, the contradictions of demands that are articulated within a system that will not offer concessions become evident.27 A real change must be an alternative, therefore, to both populism and technocratic governance. Against the notion of immediate, non-representative direct democracy, as seen for instance with the Citizens’ Referendum Initiative, Žižek proposes creative leadership and a new political vision. His own solution would be a new kind of bureaucratic socialism that emphasizes a universality through which different ways of life can coexist. If the Gilets Jaunes are to have a vanguard function, in these terms, their emancipatory claims have to be recognized as universal claims, which, if the Gilets Jaunes do not compromise on their desire and pursue the struggle to the end, would make it a socialist vanguard. An interesting complement to Žižek’s analysis is Alèssi Dell’Umbria’s claim that the Gilets Jaunes achieved in six weeks what trade unions and left parties were unable to do in two decades.28 In autonomist terms, Dell’Umbria suggests that the blockades are an expression of defiance by the workers of a now global social factory, similar to the ZAD (Zone à defendre, or, Zone to Defend) camps against the construction of an airport in Notre-Dame-des-Landes.29 The plebeian character of the movement, he argues, is neither a ‘sub-Gramscian’ civil society, nor populism nor revolutionary struggle, but rather the immanence of the common beyond traditional class markers and outside the traditional workplace. The issue for him is whether the Gilets Jaunes network will be used to install a kind of Internet democracy, as proposed by the Five Star Movement. This prospect

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would close the movement in on itself through rightist demagoguery. Dell’Umbria opts for a mix of direct action, general assemblies and tactical coordination along with the best analysis available of post-Fordist labour conditions and the rise of fictitious capital so as to avoid fragmentation into local divergences. Not unlike Žižek, he thinks of the movement as a nascent communism, held together by a common hostility to the establishment and in a spirit of solidarity with similar struggles across the global social factory. The Gilets Jaunes have demonstrated this internationalism in their expressed solidarity with the protests in Algeria against the regime of Abdelaziz Bouteflika, in their support of Julian Assange and in their support of the movement of the Gilets Noirs, which has occupied public places in France in order to demand rights for undocumented migrants.30 The Gilets Jaunes also participated in the mass strikes of December 2019, in which rail, transit, airline, hospital and energy workers, as well as students, went on strike against pension cuts and other austerity measures imposed by the Macron government.31 After the advent of the movement of the squares, the Gilets Jaunes have anticipated the wave of mass protests in 2019 in Hong Kong, Czech Republic, Spain, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Algeria, Lebanon, India and Sri Lanka. All of these protests demonstrate that radical demands for social equality continue to define political ideology.

A spectre is haunting populism Insofar as movements like the Spanish indignados, Occupy Wall Street and the Gilets Jaunes are organized around common concerns about economic austerity, but are not organized around a centralized Leninist-type party, many commentators  have referred to them as populist movements. Žižek argues that the main problem with populism is that it has no specific political ideology. This would seem to give populism an advantage over leftist parties insofar as it more easily accommodates the diversity of contingent struggles. In order to function, however, populism tends to mobilize a minimum of ideological mystification in order to displace an internal antagonism onto a ‘pseudo-concrete’ enemy that is ‘reified into a positive ontological entity’ whose annihilation ‘would restore balance and justice’.32 The spectral entity that haunts today’s protest movements, I argue, is the communist left, along with its organizational practices and theoretical concepts, which are typically denounced by horizontalist new social movements as totalitarian and orthodox. Although the postmodern critique of meta-narratives has worn thin in the last two decades, today’s activists continue to guard against what one might refer to as leftist modernism.33 In many ways Italian post-workerists have excelled in this tendency. Hardt and Negri, for example, insist that the multitude is not the masses and not the working class because it cannot be reduced to a unity that submerges differences.34 Socialized biopolitical production results in immaterial projects, ideas and relationships, and therefore the common, rather than commodities. Do not expect Multitude to answer the question ‘what is to be done’, they write, nor to

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propose a concrete programme of action.35 Although Hardt and Negri’s Multitude has considerable descriptive power of the post-Fordist regimes of networked social production, their politics of distributed leadership through immaterial labour is hardly prescriptive, and in the fifteen years since it was written does little more than explain the bewilderment of a left that has come to think of global capitalism as the vanguard of social change. One could think of their immanentist and Spinozist rejection of sovereignty and autonomy as a ‘repressive desublimation’, to use Herbert Marcuse’s term, of the field of politics.36 Rather than ‘sublimate’ social tensions into a party apparatus and politics of internationalist class struggle, the decentring of plural points of constituent power enables neoliberal regimes to maintain the repressive hegemony of capitalist social relations. In this regard Hardt and Negri’s 2017 text, Assembly, is both more theoretically modest and more politically pragmatic. Although they begin Assembly with the familiar assertion that the days when a political vanguard could take power in the name of the masses are long gone, they argue that the postmodern left’s healthy response to organizational hierarchy has turned into an autoimmune deficiency. The postmodern left, they argue, is no longer able to tolerate the slightest amount of organizational structure and leadership, making a valid criticism of Stalinist parties into a political liability for the contemporary left. Today’s social movements, they now argue, must ‘devote more attention to its organizational and institutional forms’.37 This shift from spontaneous cooperation to the rethinking of leadership is part of a broader organizational turn, one might call it, after the Facebook and Twitter revolutions have failed to bring about significant reforms.38 Hardt and Negri’s main suggestion is to think of leadership as a question of tactics and to make strategy the prerogative of the general intellect of social movements – a dynamic of verticality and horizontality after the defeats of Syriza, Podemos, the Brazilian Workers’ Party and the Muslim Brotherhood. They continue, however, to reject the notion of populism as a unifying operation that limits itself to a critique of state power, compromising leftist movements through alliances with rightist factions. An ‘entrepreneurship of the multitude’ would instead emphasize cooperation through production processes, leading from work relations in the global social factory to a social strike against financial command and neoliberal governance. At this level, Hardt and Negri affirm that the social strike is in fact a class struggle, with socialized productive forces mobilizing coalitions to appropriate the commons of distributed property.39 To coordinate these counterpowers, they suggest a threepronged strategy: an anarchist exodus that withdraws from dominant institutions, a social democratic antagonistic reformism that engages with existing institutions, and a hegemonic communist strategy that seeks to take power and create new institutions.40 One might say, to paraphrase these authors, that the Gilets Jaunes are ‘an index of what assembly is becoming’.41 Although Hardt and Negri reject populism as a unifying politics that is derivative of modernist notions of political sovereignty, other scholars would likely include the Gilets Jaunes in this category of analysis. Social movement scholar Paolo Gerbaudo argues that since the protest wave of 2011–16, two tendencies have combined within populist movements.42 On the one hand, a

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neo-anarchist tendency emphasizes the self-management, online collaboration, horizontalist organization and direct action of autonomous and anonymous individuals. A second tendency is what he refers to as the left-wing populism of indignant citizens who sometimes appeal to identity and patriotism as part of their democratic critique of political and corporate elites. The two together produce a hybrid culture of ‘citizenism’ that substitutes libertarian individualism for the unified notion of ‘the people’ as well as notions of social class. Citizenism fights oligarchy and systemic crisis, marking what Gerbaudo considers to be a progressive version of the populist turn in contemporary politics and that excludes authoritarian and xenophobic tendencies.43 Unlike Jodi Dean’s rehabilitation of the notion of the communist party, these movements are ‘more concerned with the issue of democracy than with the overthrow of capitalism’.44 And in contrast to neo-anarchist theorists, Gerbaudo considers that citizen populism does not derive its politics from either a leftist ideology or from the mode of production, as argued for instance in Hardt and Negri’s emphasis on communication networks and digital commons. Gerbaudo’s notion of citizenism has its rejoinder in Chantal Mouffe’s plea for a leftist populism.45 Although Mouffe would agree with Gerbaudo that today’s ‘populist moment’ constructs a frontier between ‘the people’ and ‘the oligarchy’, she is more concerned that traditional leftist parties are being abandoned. The reason for this desertion, she argues, is the view that orthodox leftists have not been able to absorb the challenges of the New Left social movements that emerged in the 1960s and instead have remained stuck in an outdated class essentialism. While Mouffe’s and Ernesto Laclau’s Hegemony and Socialist Strategy argued for the contingency of class identifications and advocated an articulation of equivalent struggles based on gender, class and race, the conditions of neoliberal globalization have absorbed whatever social democratic energies were still possible at that time.46 Today, a technocratic centre-right and centre-left hegemonizes the political field, creating a post-political situation of disaffection with institutions. A leftist populism would challenge the neoliberal consensus while continuing to insist on heterogeneous demands that cannot be reduced to the concerns of traditional labour and the emphasis on the mode of production. In other words, what Hardt and Negri wish to bring together with the idea of the social factory – subjectivity and political economy – Mouffe wishes to distinguish. Ecology, sexism, racism and other forms of domination are deemed by her to lie outside the production process. It is the mistaken distinction between labour and everyday life that makes Mouffe’s critique of class essentialism populist, as discussed above with regard to Žižek, and which gives greater Marxist validity to Hardt and Negri’s approach. If one was to combine Mouffe with Hardt and Negri, however, one might arrive at something like Jan Pakulski’s notion of the new ‘class decompositions’ of postindustrial societies. With the collapse of industrial and organized capitalism, and along with this of occupational hierarchies as well as class parties and ideologies, intense social differentiation and individualization destratifies society into complex inequalities, flexibilized specializations, diversified consumption, blurred social distinctions and the discontinuous proliferation of symbols, services, needs,

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lifestyles and identities.47 Against this sort of obscurantism, Erik Olin Wright suggested that Marx long ago argued that middle and intermediary classes blur the lines of demarcation between the working class and the capitalist class.48 Today’s production of social subjectivity, including political subjectivity, can be understood in terms of relations of production and systems of exploitation that emphasize a division of labour across the global social factory, with cultural and knowledge markets developing alongside the offshoring of industry in search of ‘cheap labour’. Micro-level effects and hegemonic manoeuvring thus need to be associated with macro-level structures if one is to work out a revolutionary strategy. Wright’s analysis therefore maintains an appreciation of the systemic conflict between capitalism and socialism.49 Against populism’s narrow political vision, which falsely appears to be comprehensive, the Gilets Jaunes can thus be appreciated in the same terms as the 2018–19 wave of strikes and protests by environmental activists, teachers, civil servants, postal workers, nurses and care workers, Amazon, Walmart and fast-food industry employees, firefighters and police, transit, railway and airline workers, university adjunct faculty and staff, graduate students, high school students, student interns, auto industry employees, software engineers and tech industry employees, dockworkers, plantation and estate workers, musicians, museum staff and artists, maquiladora workers, miners, prisoners on hunger strikes and refugees fleeing their homes, all of whom are under attack by neoliberal policies. Class interests go beyond identity markers, occupational categories and national boundaries. The concentration of wealth and the rise in social inequality are the most visible features of an exploitative class system. In the context of climate change, scientists argue that the odds of humanity surviving through to the end of the twenty-first century are 50/50.50 In a nutshell, therein lies the class debate today and the essence of the Gilets Jaunes as one of many canaries in the global coal mine. If we are to prevent bankrupt politicians, global markets, corporations and shareholders from determining the fate of humanity, we will need to recognize radical left collectives, organizations and political parties as the vanguards who can orient and institutionalize revolutionary struggles. Our task, then, to put it in Kristin Ross’s terms, is ‘to fashion an internationalist conjuncture’, since, as she argues, the world of the Paris Commune is closer to us today than the affluent consumer world of the 1960s counterculture.51 In his book on the impasse between Syriza and the European troika, Badiou calls for a new emancipatory modernity that sustains the contradiction within global capitalism. To focus on capitalism as the enemy, to criticize the abuse of state power by socialist states, and to fight fascism on all fronts is equivalent to organizing collective life beyond capitalist social relations and identitarian categories.52 In this regard, the statistical and demographic profile of the Gilets Jaunes may be factual but does not, in and of itself, have any emancipatory significance. Badiou argues that workers today are more the living body of internationalism than they were in Marx’s time.53 Understood in these terms, the Gilets Jaunes are a minority detached from civil society and the capitalist interests that are legitimized by the state apparatus. The Gilets Jaunes are an

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unintentional vanguard formation that activates the political capacity of the majority of people who are excluded from official political processes.

Notes 1

This essay was written in March 2019 and revised in December 2019. Although the Gilets Jaunes were most active between the months of November 2018 and March 2019, this decentralized protest movement continues to be active in demonstrations against neoliberal austerity. Whereas the Gilets Jaunes are commonly known in English as the Yellow Vests and Yellow Jackets, I have retained the French term. 2 Cited in Margaux Baralon, ‘Comment les “gilets jaunes” ont bouleversé les codes de la contestation’, Europe 1 (19 November 2018): https://www.europe1.fr/politique/ comment-les-gilets-jaunes-ont-bouleverse-les-codes-de-la-contestation–3803714. See also Enzo Traverso, ‘Understanding the Gilets Jaunes’, Verso Blog (15 February 2019): https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4242-understanding-the-gilets-jaunes. 3 Sylvère Lotringer and Christian Marazzi, eds. Autonomia: Post-Political Politics (New York: Semiotext(e), 2007). 4 Paolo Virno, A Grammar of the Multitude: For an Analysis of Contemporary Forms of Life (New York: Semiotext(e), 2004). 5 Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000); Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire (New York: The Penguin Press, 2004). 6 Paul Mason, Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolution (London: Verso, 2012). See also Manuel Castells, Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012); Paolo Gerbaudo, Tweets and the Streets: Social Media and Contemporary Activism (London: Pluto Press, 2012); Rodrigo Nunes, Organisation of the Organisationless: Collective Action After Networks (London and Leuphana: Mute Books and PML Books, 2014). 7 See for instance Stéphane Hessel, Time for Outrage, Indignez-vous! (New York: Twelve [2010] 2011). 8 Alain Badiou, The Rebirth of History: Times of Riots and Uprisings, trans. Gregory Elliott (London: Verso, [2011] 2012), 27, 34. See also Joshua Clover, Riot. Strike. Riot: The New Era of Uprisings (London: Verso, 2016). 9 Adam Nossiter, ‘Tear Gas and Water Cannons in Paris as Grass-Roots Protest Takes Aim at Macron’, The New York Times (24 November 2018): https://www.nytimes. com/2018/11/24/world/europe/france-yellow-vest-protest.html; Emmanuel Macron, ‘Verbatim: Le discours d’Emmanuel Macron face aux “gilets jaunes”’, Le Monde (10 December 2018): https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2018/12/10/le-verbatimde-l-allocution-televisee-du-president-de-la-republique_5395523_823448.html. 10 Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class, and How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life (New York: Basic Books, 2002); David Harvey, Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution (London: Verso, 2012). 11 For background information and references on the causes and development of the Gilets Jaunes protests, see the Wikipedia entry under ‘Yellow vests movement’: https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_vests_movement.

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12 See Angelique Chrisafis, ‘Who are the gilets jaunes and what do they want?’ The Guardian (7 December 2018): https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/03/ who-are-the-gilets-jaunes-and-what-do-they-want; Angelina Rasconet and Gregory Viscusi, ‘France’s Yellow Vests Protests Abate as Fewer Take to Streets’, Bloomberg (22 December 2018): https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-22/driverdies-in-yellow-vest-related-accident-in-france-afp-says. 13 For a collection of writings in support of the Gilets Jaunes, see Éditions Syllepse, Gilets Jaunes: Des clés pour comprendre (Paris: Éditions Syllepse, 2018). 14 Charles Bremner, ‘Yellow vests scream antisemitic abuse at the philosopher Alain Finkielkraut’, The Sunday Times (18 February 2019): https://www.thetimes.co.uk/ article/yellow-vests-scream-antisemitic-slurs-at-the-veteran-philosopher-alainfinkielkraut-xb7hc5nx6. 15 Tariq Ali, The Extreme Centre: A Warning (London: Verso, 2015). 16 Alastair Jamieson and Linda Givetash, ‘Macron announces wage rise, tax relief after weeks of French Protests’, NBC News (10 December 2018): https://www.nbcnews. com/news/world/macron-address-france-after-protests-see-135-000-streets-n945881. 17 Cole Stangler, ‘What the Yellow Vests Have in Common with Occupy’, In These Times (12 February 2019): http://inthesetimes.com/article/21729/yellow-vests-occupymovement-paris-france-protests. 18 Elabe, ‘Les Français, les gilets jaunes et les mesures annoncées par Edouard Philippe’, Elabe (5 December 2018): https://elabe.fr/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/ rapport_20181205_elabe_bfmtv_les-francais-les-gilets-jaunes-et-les-mesuresannoncees-par-edouard-philippe.pdf. 19 See Zeev Sternhell, Neither Right Nor Left: Fascist Ideology in France (Princeton: Princeton University Press, [1983] 1986). 20 See Anon, ‘Les revendications des gilets jaunes’, (29 November 2018): https://www. scribd.com/document/394450377/Les-revendications-des-gilets-jaunes. 21 Le Monde, ‘Gilets jaunes: a pioneering study of the “low earners” revolt’, Verso Blog, trans. David Fernbach (14 December 2018): https://www.versobooks.com/ blogs/4180-gilets-jaunes-a-pioneering-study-of-the-low-earners-revolt. 22 Le Monde, ‘Gilets jaunes’. 23 Raoul Vaneigem, ‘Concerning the “Yellow Vests”: Everything is possible, even self-managing assemblies in the middle of street intersections, villages and neighbourhoods – An interview with Raoul Vaneigem’, trans. Not Bored; http:// www.notbored.org/yellow-vests.pdf. Originally published in Le Nouveau Magazine Littéraire (21 December 2018). 24 Jacques Rancière, ‘Les vertus de l’inexplicable – à propos des “gilets jaunes”’, Analyse Opinion Critique (8 January 2019): https://aoc.media/opinion/2019/01/08/vertus-delinexplicable-a-propos-gilets-jaunes/. 25 Rona Lorimer, ‘Yellow-Vest Diaries’, Commune 1 (Fall 2018): https://communemag. com/yellow-vest-diaries/. 26 Étienne Balibar, ‘Gilets jaunes: le sens du face à face’, Mediapart (13 December 2018): https://blogs.mediapart.fr/etienne-balibar/blog/131218/gilets-jaunes-le-sens-du-faceface. 27 Slavoj Žižek, ‘How Mao would have evaluated the Yellow Vests’, RT.com (21 December 2018): https://www.rt.com/op-ed/447155-zizek-yellow-vests-france/. 28 Alèssi Dell’Umbria, ‘Full Metal Yellow Jacket’, Lundi Matin (22 January 2019): https:// lundi.am/FULL-METAL-YELLOW-JACKET-Alessi-Dell-Umbria.

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29 See Mauvaise Troupe Collective, Defending the Zad (Paris: Éclat, 2015): https:// mauvaisetroupe.org/IMG/pdf/zad-en-a5.pdf. 30 See Anthony Torres and Kumaran Ira, ‘Sixteenth week of protests: French “yellow vests” support strikes in North Africa’, World Socialist Web Site (4 March 2019): https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/03/04/yell-m04.html; Ben Quinn, ‘US begins extradition case against Julian Assange in London’, The Guardian (2 May 2019): https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/may/02/us-begins-extradition-caseagainst-julian-assange-in-london; Camille Baker, ‘A “Black Vest” Movement Emerges in France to Protest Treatment of Undocumented Migrants’, The Intercept (27 October 2019): https://theintercept.com/2019/10/27/france-black-vests-gilets-noirs/. 31 BBC, ‘Macron pension reform: France paralysed by biggest strike in years’, BBC News (5 December 2019): https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe–50643323. 32 Slavoj Žižek, ‘Against the Populist Temptation’, Critical Inquiry 32 (Spring 2006): 553. 33 On this subject, see Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen, The Contemporary Condition: Hegel after Occupy (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2018). 34 Hardt and Negri, Multitude, 13–14. 35 Hardt and Negri, Multitude, 14. 36 See Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society (Boston: Beacon Press, [1964] 1991). 37 Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Assembly (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 6. 38 See for instance, Astra Taylor, ‘Against Activism’, The Baffler 30 (March 2016): https:// thebaffler.com/salvos/against-activism; Marc James Léger, Don’t Network: The Avant Garde after Networks (New York: Minor Compositions, 2018). 39 Hardt and Negri, Assembly, 190–3. 40 Hardt and Negri, Assembly, 274. The association of these three strategy points with the terms ‘anarchist’, ‘social democratic’ and ‘communist’ is my emphasis. 41 Hardt and Negri, Assembly, 293. 42 Paulo Gerbaudo, The Mask and the Flag: Populism, Citizenism and Global Protest (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). 43 Gerbaudo, The Mask and the Flag, 10. 44 Gerbaudo, The Mask and the Flag, 14. See Jodi Dean, Crowds and Party (London: Verso, 2016). 45 Chantal Mouffe, For a Leftist Populism (London: Verso, 2018). 46 See Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics (London: Verso, 1985). 47 Jan Pakulski, ‘Foundations of a post-class society’, in Approaches to Class Analysis, ed. Erik Olin Wright (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 175–6. 48 Erik Olin Wright, Classes (London: Verso, 1985), 8. 49 Erik Olin Wright, Understanding Class (London: Verso, 2015), 123. 50 Kerwin Rae, ‘Why it’s time to think about human extinction | Dr David Suzuki’ , YouTube (16 December 2018): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktnAMTmgOX0. 51 Kristin Ross, Communal Luxury: The Political Imaginary of the Paris Commune (London: Verso, 2015), 2–3. 52 Alain Badiou, Greece and the Reinvention of Politics, trans. David Broder (London: Verso, [2016] 2018). 53 Alain Badiou, ‘Twenty-Four Notes on the Uses of the Word “People”’, in What Is a People?, Badiou et al., trans. Jody Gladding (New York: Columbia University Press, [2013] 2016), 23.

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References Ali, Tariq. The Extreme Centre: A Warning. London: Verso, 2015. Anon. ‘Les revendications des gilets jaune’ (29 November 2018). https://www.scribd.com/ document/394450377/Les-revendications-des-gilets-jaunes. Badiou, Alain. Greece and the Reinvention of Politics. Translated by David Broder. London: Verso, [2016] 2018. Badiou, Alain. The Rebirth of History: Times of Riots and Uprisings. Translated by Gregory Elliott. London: Verso, [2011] 2012. Badiou, Alain, et al. What Is a People? Translated by Jody Gladding. New York: Columbia University Press, [2013] 2016. Baker, Camille. ‘A “Black Vest” Movement Emerges in France to Protest Treatment of Undocumented Migrants’. The Intercept (27 October 2019). https://theintercept. com/2019/10/27/france-black-vests-gilets-noirs/. Balibar, Étienne. ‘Gilets jaunes: le sens du face à face’. Mediapart (13 December 2018). https://blogs.mediapart.fr/etienne-balibar/blog/131218/gilets-jaunes-le-sens-du-faceface. Baralon, Margaux. ‘Comment les “gilets jaunes” ont bouleversé les codes de la contestation’. Europe 1 (19 November 2018). https://www.europe1.fr/politique/ comment-les-gilets-jaunes-ont-bouleverse-les-codes-de-la-contestation-3803714. BBC. ‘Macron pension reform: France paralysed by biggest strike in years’. BBC News (5 December 2019). https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50643323. Bremner, Charles. ‘Yellow vests scream antisemitic abuse at the philosopher Alain Finkielkraut’. The Sunday Times (18 February 2019). https://www.thetimes.co.uk/ article/yellow-vests-scream-antisemitic-slurs-at-the-veteran-philosopher-alainfinkielkraut-xb7hc5nx6. Castells, Manuel. Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012. Chrisafis, Angelique. ‘Who are the gilets jaunes and what do they want?’ The Guardian (7 December 2018). https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/03/who-are-thegilets-jaunes-and-what-do-they-want. Clover, Joshua. Riot. Strike. Riot: The New Era of Uprisings. London: Verso, 2016. Dean, Jodi. Crowds and Party. London: Verso, 2016. Dell’Umbria, Alèssi, ‘Full Metal Yellow Jacket’. Lundi Matin (22 January 2019). https:// lundi.am/FULL-METAL-YELLOW-JACKET-Alessi-Dell-Umbria. Éditions Syllepse. Gilets Jaunes: Des clés pour comprendre. Paris: Éditions Syllepse, 2018. Elabe, ‘Les Français, les gilets jaunes et les mesures annoncées par Edouard Philippe’. Elabe (5 December 2018). https://elabe.fr/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/rapport_20181205_ elabe_bfmtv_les-francais-les-gilets-jaunes-et-les-mesures-annoncees-par-edouardphilippe.pdf. Florida, Richard. The Rise of the Creative Class, And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life. New York: Basic Books, 2002. Gerbaudo, Paulo. The Mask and the Flag: Populism, Citizenism and Global Protest. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Gerbaudo, Paulo. Tweets and the Streets: Social Media and Contemporary Activism. London: Pluto Press, 2012. Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. Empire. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000. Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire. New York: The Penguin Press, 2004.

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Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. Assembly. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. Harvey, David. Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution. London: Verso, 2012. Hessel, Stéphane. Time for Outrage, Indignez-vous! New York: Twelve [2010] 2011. Jamieson, Alastair and Linda Givetash. ‘Macron announces wage rise, tax relief after weeks of French protests’. NBC News (10 December 2018). https://www.nbcnews.com/ news/world/macron-address-france-after-protests-see-135-000-streets-n945881. Laclau, Ernesto and Chantal Mouffe. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. London: Verso, 1985. Léger, Marc James. Don’t Network: The Avant Garde after Networks. New York: Minor Compositions, 2018. Lorimer, Rona. ‘Yellow-Vest Diaries’. Commune 1 (Fall 2018). https://communemag.com/ yellow-vest-diaries/. Lotringer, Sylvère and Christian Marazzi, eds. Autonomia: Post-Political Politics. New York: Semiotext(e), 2007. Macron, Emmanuel. ‘Verbatim: Le discours d’Emmanuel Macron face aux “gilets jaunes”’, Le Monde (10 December 2018). https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2018/12/10/ le-verbatim-de-l-allocution-televisee-du-president-de-la-republique_5395523_823448. html. Marcuse, Herbert. One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society. Boston: Beacon Press, [1964] 1991. Mason, Paul. Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolution. London: Verso, 2012. Mauvaise Troupe Collective. Defending the Zad. Paris: Éclat, 2015. Monde, Le. ‘Gilets jaunes: a pioneering study of the “low earners” revolt’. Verso Blog (14 December 2018). Translated by David Fernbach. https://www.versobooks.com/ blogs/4180-gilets-jaunes-a-pioneering-study-of-the-low-earners-revolt. Mouffe, Chantal. For a Leftist Populism. London: Verso, 2018. Nossiter, Adam. ‘Tear Gas and Water Cannons in Paris as Grass-Roots Protest Takes Aim at Macron’. The New York Times (24 November 2018). https://www.nytimes. com/2018/11/24/world/europe/france-yellow-vest-protest.html. Nunes, Rodrigo. Organisation of the Organisationless: Collective Action After Networks. London and Leuphana: Mute Books and PML Books, 2014. Quinn, Ben. ‘US begins extradition case against Julian Assange in London’. The Guardian (2 May 2019). https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/may/02/us-beginsextradition-case-against-julian-assange-in-london. Rae, Kerwin. ‘Why it’s time to think about human extinction | Dr David Suzuki’. YouTube (16 December 2018). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktnAMTmgOX0. Rancière, Jacques. ‘Les vertus de l’inexplicable – à propos des “gilets jaunes”’. Analyse Opinion Critique (8 January 2019). https://aoc.media/opinion/2019/01/08/vertus-delinexplicable-a-propos-gilets-jaunes/. Rasconet, Angelina and Gregory Viscusi. ‘France’s Yellow Vests Protests Abate as Fewer Take to Streets’. Bloomberg (22 December 2018). https://www.bloomberg.com/news/ articles/2018-12-22/driver-dies-in-yellow-vest-related-accident-in-france-afp-says. Rasmussen, Mikkel Bolt. The Contemporary Condition: Hegel after Occupy. Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2018. Ross, Kristin. Communal Luxury: The Political Imaginary of the Paris Commune. London: Verso, 2015.

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Stangler, Cole. ‘What the Yellow Vests Have in Common with Occupy’. In These Times (12 February 2019). http://inthesetimes.com/article/21729/yellow-vests-occupymovement-paris-france-protests. Sternhell, Zeev. Neither Right Nor Left: Fascist Ideology in France. Princeton: Princeton University Press, [1983] 1986. Taylor, Astra. ‘Against Activism’. The Baffler 30 (March 2016). https://thebaffler.com/ salvos/against-activism. Torres, Anthony and Kumaran Ira. ‘Sixteenth week of protests: French “yellow vests” support strikes in North Africa’. World Socialist Web Site (4 March 2019). https://www. wsws.org/en/articles/2019/03/04/yell-m04.html. Traverso, Enzo. ‘Understanding the Gilets Jaunes’. Verso Blog (15 February 2019). https:// www.versobooks.com/blogs/4242-understanding-the-gilets-jaunes. Vaneigem, Raoul. ‘Concerning the “YellowVests”: Everything is possible, even self-managing assemblies in the middle of street intersections, villages and neighbourhoods – An interview with Raoul Vaneigem’. Originally published in Le Nouveau Magazine Littéraire (21 December 2018). Translated by Not Bored. http:// www.notbored.org/yellow-vests.pdf. Virno, Paolo. A Grammar of the Multitude: For an Analysis of Contemporary Forms of Life. New York: Semiotext(e), 2004. Wright, Erik Olin, ed. Approaches to Class Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Wright, Erik Olin. Classes. London: Verso, 1985. Wright, Erik Olin. Understanding Class. London: Verso, 2015. Žižek, Slavoj. ‘Against the Populist Temptation’. Critical Inquiry 32 (Spring 2006): 551–74. Žižek, Slavoj. ‘How Mao would have evaluated the Yellow Vests’. RT.com (21 December 2018). https://www.rt.com/op-ed/447155-zizek-yellow-vests-france/.

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Chapter 9 T H E N E C R O P O L I T IC S O F R E P R O D U C T IO N : B L AC K F E M I N I SM , M O T H E R S A N D T H E D E AT H D R I V E Carina Brand

Introduction If our current era is defined by a ‘crisis of agency’ then one key question, in relation to making a critique of contemporary capitalism, is what determines contemporary subjectivity? Or, more pointedly: how is contemporary subjectivity shaped by cultures of multiplicity? In this chapter I propose that subjectivity is shaped by negation, and that this negation is activated not only in its relationship with capital but in the very process of coming into being: birth. To do so I begin by asking why the sphere of social reproduction and the female biologically reproductive body1 is missing from Achille Mbembe’s theory of ‘necropolitics’.2 Mbembe’s concept of necropolitics develops in conversation with Michel Foucault’s concept of ‘biopower’,3 and, like Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, he identifies that Foucault’s original concept of biopower is stretched to capacity when having to encompass war, state brutality, colonialism, slavery and extended regimes of extraction.4 Foucault’s concept of biopower observes a historical shift from the omnipresence of death to the maintenance of life.5 However, necropower presumes that not all is equal in the ‘bios’ and the management of life requires some death in the ‘states of exception’. This is why necropower is better equipped to unpack the historical contingencies on which biopower is enacted, and the increased and instrumentalized forms of slow death, or the ‘living dead’,6 under capitalism. What both fail to address, however, is how these lives (or deaths) come to be, in a proper assessment of reproduction. In Necropolitics (2003) Mbembe focuses on the public sphere, the polis and the labouring body, with its ensuing zones of war, violence and exploitation. However, within these same spaces and times the sphere of social reproduction is concurrently affected and structured by the necropolitical. The ‘subjugation of life to the power of death’7 within the camp, the plantation and the colony can only be articulated as such because of the limited, negated and destroyed states of social reproduction. I extend this reading of a necropolitics of reproduction further to posit that the sphere of social reproduction, the home, women’s biological, raced

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and/or sexually reproductive bodies have been, and still are a state of ‘exception’ within the sovereign, legal and capitalist state.8 Apparent in the everyday workings of gestation, birth, care, rape, sex and mothering are social and state-sanctioned worlds of death and violence. Each relation forges a subject position out of negation, that not only coexists with the biopolitical but constitutes it, producing a necro-collective experience. Such reproductive horrors are hidden behind the veils of marriage, the family and the state under modern capitalism, it is therefore within the necropolitical that the implicit horrors of reproduction become explicit. To develop this argument I use the insights of Black feminist writing with specific attention to the incidence of slave breeding to explicate its central role in the accumulation of capital, and the ongoing slave episteme. I claim it is the body of the women of colour, and not the man of colour, as Mbembe proposes, that are the norm in the necropolitical.9 Had Mbembe drawn on the rich tradition of necropolitics within Black feminist scholarship before penning his theory, he would have understood how central reproduction is to necropower. Lastly, in making the case that the sphere of reproduction is a state of exception I use Sabina Spielrein’s pre-Freudian concept of the death drive. Spielrein’s early psychoanalytic theory purports that sex and death are axiomatically linked, therefore placing the mother at the threshold of life and death. Leading me to ask if social and biological reproductions are the locus of life, are they not also the locus of death, and should a theory of death or the necropolitical actually be situated within the imposition of life?

The womb as the norm in the necropolitical In order to understand the shared state of living under a necropolitical order, and to ask what collective agency could be redeemed from such horror, we must ask first why is it that social and biological reproductions are missing from Mbembe’s necropolitics, Giorgio Agamben’s ‘bare life’ and in any specific form from Foucault’s biopolitics? The female body and its ‘unique’ job at making babies and their subsequent raising are entirely absent from their proposals. Is it because all philosophers are convinced or seduced by reproduction’s incumbent naturalness or indeed blindsided by the cunning ruse that it plays no part in political economic reproduction under capitalism? Social reproduction as a concept was initially theorized by Marxist feminists10 and was understood primarily as domestic and care work located in the home, cut off from production and performed by women. While domestic tasks have been performed by women prior to capitalism, the specific nature of gender and domestic labour under capitalism have led some to conclude that gender is intrinsic to capitalism,11 and therefore what we understand as ‘social reproduction’ develops concurrently with capitalism and therefore constitutes determining forms of subjection of the Many under capitalism. This social development has also maintained that biological reproduction and sex are also confined to this sphere and within the heteronormative framework. The creation of a proletarianized labour force solidified the ‘two spheres’12 ring-fencing

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the private and public, or waged and unwaged. Capitalism now not only has a free army of workers at its disposal but an unpaid army of social reproducers.13 This separation has subsequently disguised the link between the reproduction of labour power and the production of value.14 Necropower is also inextricably linked with capitalism; ‘racial capitalism’15 emerges at the same time as bourgeois ideologies of the family are cementing. Therefore, the states of exception of which Mbembe writes are all inherently connected with the modern capitalist state, its development,16 and its ongoing hegemony. While it may appear that social reproduction is all about life and necropower is all about death, I propose that the theory of necropower, not biopower, is better suited to conceptualize social reproduction under capitalism. As a system based on profit, accumulation and alienation capitalism can only permit life in terms of its profit capacity. And while capitalism does require fresh batches of willing labourers, it plays no hand in raising these lives, and as soon as bodies are sick or unable to work they fall out of the system, or die. It is this disinterestedness in life, a rejection of the bios that led me to purport that necropower not biopower is better equipped to understand capitalism. At the same time, theories of necropower need to better understand their ‘hidden abode of reproduction’.17 By opening up the rational and scope of necropolitics we don’t unmoor it from its theoretical lineage of race, slavery and the colony, but posit a more diaphanous ‘afterlife’,18 and complex pre-life that enables us to understand how embedded death worlds are within the logic of capital. Mbembe identifies the limitations of biopolitics, not only for the shortcomings of theorizing our current global neoliberal order, but also for understanding the role of ‘race’ during the formation to biopower. Under biopolitical regimes, where the maintenance of life is paramount, Foucault enquires, ‘how can you justify the need to kill people, to kill populations, and to kill civilizations?’ He answers this quandary by explaining that we turn to ‘the themes of evolutionism, by appealing to a racism’.19 This is echoed by Agamben when he explains that there comes a point in every (modern) state where a ‘decision on life can become a decision on death, and biopolitics can turn into thanatopolitics’.20 However, the examples used by Foucault and Agamben are both focused on Nazi Germany and Europe. There is no consideration of colonial history and of the Atlantic slave trade. John McMahon explains by way of Alexander Weheliye that both Foucault and Agamben have an ‘inability or unwillingness to consider the way “colonialism, indigenous genocide, racialized indentured servitude, and racial slavery” have a “historical relationality and conceptual contiguity with Nazism”’.21 Mbembe asserts that the transition to biopolitical rule was only possible by the coexisting systems of the necropolitical in colonial and slave regimes, and this ‘appeal to racism’ was already built into ideas of sovereignty in Europe long before Nazi Germany. Mbembe then sets out to explore the logic or unlogic of necropolitics across three discrete historical and political epochs: the plantation, the occupied colony and the Palestinian suicide bomber.22 Jared Sexton is critical of Mbembe’s attempt to try and reconcile a global/historical connection between these disparate and different examples.23 Sexton explains that by ignoring the specific anti-Black position established under Atlantic slavery

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Mbembe fails to recognize its uniqueness. However, in articulating necropolitics across different historical but interconnected regimes, we are able to understand that these events are part of the same logic of modern power, and importantly capitalism.24 Where I do concur with Sexton’s critique of Mbembe is that Mbembe’s reading of Atlantic slavery, and it’s after affects, is limited. As a systemic social relation of capitalism, the full commodification of bodies cannot be annexed as a historical moment. To execute this critique Sexton also brings forth the insights of Black feminist writers, as, while Mbembe references Sadiya Hartman, he seems to have missed her important insights, as Sexton explains via Hartman: it is the legal and political status of the captive female that is paradigmatic for the ‘(re)production of enslavement,’ in which ‘the normativity of sexual violence [i.e., the virtual absence of prohibitions or limitations in the determination of socially tolerable and necessary violence] establishes an inextricable link between racial formation and sexual subjection’.25

If Mbembe is cogitating on a theory of death or non-life, or death in life, surely he should be concerned with the status of non-life given to the slave by way of birth? To be born a slave ‘situates one in the category of non-life, without bloodline, kin or ontological status beyond that of property’.26 However, Mbembe’s articulation of necropower is focused entirely on the political, the public sphere, the work sphere and the male worker/soldier. To deny gender and the sphere of social reproduction that have been specific targets of both bio- and necropower is to avoid the epistemological reasoning for a politics of death, which ontologically begins with life. In each sphere/subject that Mbembe discusses (the colony, the plantation, the modern occupied state, the enclave and the suicide bomber), we are given a picture of how subjects live, move, labour and are controlled; the body becomes key to the analysis. Nonetheless, it is more often than not a public body, a body that has already (no matter how compromised) slept, eaten, made love, and is ready to be exploited again, akin to the analysis of as much in Karl Marx’s Capital.27 In ignoring what is prior to both power and in Marx labour-power, they fall into the trap of reproduction as ‘natural’. While Marx makes clear that the place of production is the loci of both extraction and resistance, Mbembe is less clear as to why necropower can only be enacted and witnessed in the public sphere. As we see above it is in the body of the female slave that the first categorical example of biopower, a power that with one hand gives ‘social death’28 to the subject, and on the other hand, makes paramount the existence of the child as commodity, as product. This same centring of biological reproduction extends across the raced regimes Mbembe explores. In the colony we find similarities to the plantation in the instrumentalization of rape, sterilization and the removal of children. The state of Israel specifically targets and destroys Palestine’s spheres of social reproduction – its schools, water supplies, hospitals and homes, but, as Jasbir Puar explains, the inverse is manifested in Israel by the intense investment in assisted reproductive technologies. In a pro-natalist stance Puar explains that Israel has the highest

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number of fertility clinics in the world and ‘the excelling of assisted reproductive technologies has a biopolitics of population racism intrinsic to its logic’.29 Puar then expands this idea by asserting that beyond the ‘right to kill’ Palestine’s occupation is structured around a ‘right to maim’. This proposition moves beyond Mbembe’s dualistic use of necro as true or complete death – a cessation, to a ‘will not let die’.30 Under the right to maim we find the ‘stretching of the horizon of life (what can bare life bear?) and the finality of death into perverted versions of life seem and feel like neither life nor death’.31 Without undermining the brutal oppression and domination of slavery and colonialism, I want to ask if we can propose that under patriarchal capitalism the sphere and subjects of social and biological reproduction be viewed as a spatial/ temporal zone of necropolitics. Put another way, do the home, the biologically reproductive body, and child function as an enclave where the right to live or die, or to sovereignty, is better understood through the lens of the necropolitical? Historically, under patriarchal capitalism, the role of the wife as property of the husband, the home as property of the husband, and children as having no free will outside of their parents creates a zone where subjects and objects are controlled – both biopolitically and necropolitically. While the spectre of death, and the power to put to death, is not an omnipresent force in the capitalist household, domestic violence, rape and murder are common historical and ongoing occurrences. Spheres of sexual reproduction outside of the household are also defined by increased mortality, violence and coercion. While for Mbembe, Foucault and Agamben the norm may be raced, gender and sex are not central tenets for understanding the dynamics with which power is wielded and disciplinary measures structured. However, as Ruth Miller explains, ‘rather than understanding men as the norm and women as artificial facsimiles of men, it makes far more sense in a biopolitical framework to understand women as the norm and men as their copies. It is the womb that has become the predominant biopolitical space’.32 ‘The camp’ for Agamben is the epitome of bare life, as a ‘zone of indistinction’, but again, the camp is defined by sex and gender, with women and children forming an increasing proportion globally,33 they are the new ‘norm’ of the camp. Or put more succinctly, they, along with LGBTQ individuals, face the necropower of the camp on their bodies first through violence, starvation, rape and pregnancy – social and sexual reproduction is the state of exception within the ‘states of exception’. Both Miller and Monique Devereaux34 have asserted that sex and sexual identities must not be neutered in debates about power, as violence and power in the axis of rape, sex, love and family are intertwined. It is to this ‘monstrous intimacy’35 in the context of Atlantic slavery that I now turn.

Black feminist writing on slavery: Necropolitics before Mbembe In the 1979 novel Kindred, Octavia Butler writes, ‘[t]hen, somehow, I got caught up in one of Kevin’s World War II books – a book of excerpts from the recollections of concentration camp survivors. Stories of beatings, starvation, filth, disease,

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torture, every possible degradation. As though the Germans had been trying to do in only a few years what the Americans had worked at for nearly two hundred.’36 In this passage we find the insight missing in Foucault’s (and Agamben’s) biopolitics, that the Nazi camp is logically part of the same ideological lineage and physical apparatus as Atlantic slavery. It is from this standpoint that I will expound a necropolitics before Mbembe, following a different theoretical lineage to arrive at the same, or as I argue, a more developed theoretical position. By sticking with a largely male theoretical framework, Mbembe manages to miss the first clear articulations of how the biopolitical was put to work under the frame of ‘race’ which had necropolitical consequences in the slave breeding plantation. It is in the work of Angela Davis, bell hooks, Hortense Spillers and fiction writers such as Toni Morrison, Gayl Jones and Octavia Butler that we find the first theorizations of the necropolitical. This Black feminist writing of the 1970–80s locates the unseen origins of a theory of the necropolitical that amends Mbembe’s concept to take into account the full cycle of reproduction and production. Missing from Foucault’s theories of power are clear formulations of resistance, an understanding that the mechanism of biopower, and the idea that the norm can be constitutive of forms of resistance through the production of power antagonisms.37 Importantly, Black feminist writers take the time to listen to the subjects within the seemingly undifferentiated bio and necropolitics of slavery. Inserting a theory of slave subjectivity, that does not justify or relish in oppression but illuminates that by reducing people to bio – to chattel, we find transformative conceptions of identity and of resistance. For Angela Davis it is paramount to centralize Black women within the reproductive conditions of capitalist slavery and its resistance.38 Davis illuminates the previously gender/sex blind reading of slavery, missing from both Black radical scholars and white historians. Both Davis and Hortense Spillers expose what they see in contrast to patriarchal white stereotypes of the ‘Black matriarch’39 as the unique position slave women endured – working the same hours, toil and punishment as her male counterpart yet also submitted to different sets of disciplinary measures, such as rape, pregnancy, slave breeding and its incumbent reproductive health issues. bell hooks writes that advertisements ‘announcing the sale of black female slaves used the terms “breeding slaves,” “child-bearing woman,” “breeding period,” “too old to breed” to describe women’.40 This sexually specific form of labour is written into documents, and contravenes the male ‘norm’ under biopolitics. Central to intensified practices of both the biopolitical and necropolitical is birth and gestation via violent and forced means. Davis writes, ‘rape was a weapon of domination, a weapon of repression, whose covert goal was to extinguish slave women’s will to resist’.41 Atlantic slavery’s unequivocal conditions led Spillers to theorize that kinship ‘loses meaning, since it can be invaded at any given and arbitrary moment by the property relations’,42 and ‘genetic reproduction becomes, then, not an elaboration of the life principals in its cultural overlap, but an extension of the boundaries of proliferating properties’.43 The most ‘valuable’ property being the ‘captive female body’ that marks ‘the flesh as a prime commodity of exchange’,44 demonstrating the shift from biopolitics (life

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affirming) to necropolitics – from living subject to dead commodity. However, this process entails a double death: once as a form of social death and secondly the death that occurs in the transformation to commodity. Under the slave household “‘reproduction’, ‘motherhood’, ‘pleasure’ and ‘desire’ are thrown into unrelieved crisis”.45 This crisis, Spiller explains, produces a transformational affect to flesh, a process that de-genders and actively obliterates any vestiges of the nuclear bourgeois family.46 Following Spillers, Brian Carr explains that because slavery de-sexes its subjects, psychoanalysis is unequipped to conceptualize or interrogate race in the slave context.47 If sex is the overarching structure in psychoanalysis, must we understand slave subjectivity outside of sex/gender? This proposal de-sexes/genders the necropolitical, meaning a reading of social and biological reproduction within the necropolitical is neutered. However, I challenge this proposition, as what we actually see in the process of slave breeding is that female slaves are moved or inserted in and out of the bourgeois sexual matrix. While a psychoanalytic reading that naturalizes sex and sexual traits is unhelpful when considering race and the slave, the imposition of sex as a means to both produce and control cannot be divorced from critical appraisals of ‘race’. The process by which bodies are desexed, and returned or reduced to flesh, takes place in the specifically sexual process of birth and subsequently it is ‘the heritage of the mother that the African American male must regain as an aspect of his personhood’.48 At the process of birth female bodies are made or made twice. It is fecundity that is valuable in the slave women and in the ongoing patriarchal order that makes women gestate for men. The value in this action (for capital) means that even under the matrix of race and ordering of bodies the woman/mother is not allowed the reprieve of this de-gendering prescribed as flesh. As Sadiya Hartman writes, ‘the harnessing of the body as an instrument for social and physical reproduction unmakes the slave as gendered subject or reveals the primacy of gender and sexual differentiation in the making of the slave’.49 To deny the central role of reproduction in the plantation is to ignore the female slave’s role as both worker and reproducer, because ‘the work of sex and procreation was the chief motor for reproducing the material, social and symbolic relations of slavery’.50 To atone for the historical erasure of female slave stories, Black female writers have inserted narratives and fictions that highlight the specific intergenerational negativity that comes with slave reproduction and subjectivity. Christina Sharpe explores Gayl Jones’ novel Corregidora in which the central character Ursa is ‘told by each of her foremothers that her duty is to “make generations to bear witness to the horrors of slavery”’.51 Each character’s body becomes like an archive, one that cannot be destroyed like historical documents, as bodies retain the physical and psychic evidence of ‘slavery’s extreme domestic violence’.52 What the novel and Sharpe’s reading of it achieve is that they illuminate the missing subject in biopolitics, one that has been hidden behind the assertion of power and the norm, one that has developed not only ways of resisting oppression, but of countering reproductive slavery at the epicentre of its genesis through reproductive strike. Many Black feminist writers explore the idea of slave resistance and the story of

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Margaret Garner is a guiding light in crystallizing the role of reproductive strike. The well-known story popularized by Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved recalls a slave woman who ran North to escape slavery with her children and once caught attempted to kill her children, only managing to kill her young daughter. While I will not go into Morrison’s important novel in detail, I want to put forward that in these pages, alongside Corrigedora, we find not only the necropolitics that Mbembe skims past, but a full reading of the transformative effect of slavery. Garner’s act of infanticide is significant, not only as it epitomizes what can be seen as the necropolitical – the generation and maintenance of death worlds – but her act, existing within the lineage of mothers, aunts, and midwives53 under slavery who used child killing and reproductive sabotage, is a concrete example of necropolitics and its resistance. Alys Eve Weinbaum explains with reference to Davis that the slave ‘woman is an active member of an unorganised collectivity whose amassed contributions to the slaves’ struggle against slavery were, by necessity, expressed through individual, intimate acts of refusal’.54 The combination of reproductive refusal, sabotage and suicide is coupled with the insertion of resistance in white plantation family’s homes through poisoning and acts of murder.55 In fact the role of political suicide highlighted by Mbembe in the suicide bomber has already been a weapon not only in the labouring body of the man, but in the fecund body of the pregnant slave, who kills not only herself but also the foetus. This form of resistance could only evolve in this biopolitical and necropolitical sphere where life is made simultaneously both valuable, and entirely worthless. This inherent contradiction, also integral to capitalism, is what makes Garner’s action both resolutely horrific and entirely necessary. There is an intimacy that both Hartman and Sharpe speak of with Black slaves made to live closely with white families that is endemic to the slave condition. This must be read through an alternative system of power that is not administered by the legal state (as Mbembe does), but that of a violent husband, father or other kinship relation. It is the untangling of slavery’s familial and incestuous afterlives that Morrison weaves throughout Beloved, where the protagonist never apologizes for what was necessary.

Reproduction as death and the mother at the threshold Mbembe asks, ‘what place is given to life, death, and the human body (in particular the wounded or slain body)? How are they inscribed in the order of power?’56 However, he only conceives of this body as a public body, a body of the polis, an active (no matter how compromised) agent of war and conflict. As I have outlined earlier, this neglects the questions of how this body becomes or comes to be, and how this relationship, ultimately structured by biopolitics, affects a body politics. In this section I propose the gatekeeper or sovereign of death is not state power but the figure of the mother. It is the mother/gestator that has the imposed state of making life or giving death in her role as gestator and/or carer. Therefore, can we correlate birth axiomatically with death? Claudia Dey writes, ‘no one had warned me that

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with a child comes death. Death slinks into your mind. It circles your growing body, and once your child has left it, death circles him too’.57 Jacqueline Rose also observes that the ‘the act of being born can act as an uncanny reminder that once upon a time you were not here’.58 The gestator faces a unique subject position, as always necropolitical. Andrea Long Chu uses the term ‘female’ to define a subject position where the ‘self is sacrificed to make room for the desires of another’, where one becomes an ‘incubator for an alien force’.59 This relationship of negation and inherent conflict produces the subject position: woman/female, and its material and psychic consequences.60 Being an incubator for an alien force is no small feat, whether physically or psychologically, as Sophie Lewis attests bodies are radically changed during gestation, the gestators’ lives threatened, as the foetus ‘eats away’ at the gestators body. Lewis writes: What particularly fascinates me about the subject is pregnancy’s morbidity, the little-discussed ways that, biophysically speaking, gestating is an unconsciously destructive business.61

This ‘destructive business’ often titled ‘mother’ creates a new identity; the pregnant person not only has their body thrown into jeopardy but instantly faces the social or commercial expectations of what this particular job entails.62 The identity of the pregnant person throws up a host of ethical and philosophical questions about the borderlines between gestator and foetus. Does the foetus have an identity? Is the gestator different for carrying the foetus? Are they separate entities? These polemical questions which are furtively deployed in current debates on abortion are relevant here as Bracha L. Ettinger proposes that the unborn foetus is not a subject precisely as it cannot live on its own outside of the mothers body, and she explains that: To not-bring-into human life is not to kill. The concept of the non-human-life of an organism is different from the concepts of human life and of death.63

If the foetus is a non-human life, pregnancy can be understood as the containment of death, or the not yet, but at the same time this not-yet-life can bring harm and kill its host if it is removed or even on its way out. In the work of psychoanalyst Sabina Spielrein, we find an important connection between reproduction and death. Spielrein emphasizes the ‘destructive component of the sexual instinct’,64 in her 1912 paper ‘Destruction as the Cause of Coming into Being’, influencing and pre-dating Sigmund Freud’s writing on the death drive.65 She refutes Freud’s ‘pleasure principal’66 by asserting that there is something in our depths that ‘as paradoxical as it may sound, wills self-injury’.67 She identifies a number of anxieties about sex, firstly the moral associations with sex and/or sexual abandonment, and secondly the neurosis in some patients on the basis of ejaculation as waste or a corruption of the body as individual. Spielrein explains that during the process of sex and reproduction we lose control of our individuality, we become ‘dividuals’ the ‘I’ is transferred into the ‘we’,68 and in the creation of a

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new subject/object the old dies making way for the new changed body/mind.69 Spielrein also emphasizes the central role of the gestator in her analysis, writing, ‘one is destroyed during pregnancy through the child that develops as a malevolent growth at the mothers expense’.70 Here she utilizes the fatal risks and unpleasant nature of gestation to emphasize the interconnection between Eros and Thanatos, and subsequently making the acute association between war and sexuality: Wartime events are associated strongly with the outbreak of neurosis, which is certainly based on a derangement of sexual life. Destructive images accompany war … images associated with the destructive component of the reproductive instinct will stir up deadly images of war.71

For Spielrein the process of reproduction is intimately connected with death, it touches death, and it changes those who come into contact with it. By bringing the idea of a war conducted in the polis into the intimate and bodily processes of sex and reproduction, she not only interrogates the affect of such events, but makes women’s bodies and reproduction a mirror image, a battle ground integral and inverted from war that is centralized in both Foucault and Mbembe’s readings. Sigmund Freud’s later theory of the death drive72 also centralizes a compulsion to repeat, to return to trauma, and we can connect aspects of this unrelenting drive with the cycle of capitalist accumulation. Consequently, Samo Tomšič explains that under capitalism two identities are formed, ‘a subject, whose being comes down to non-identity and loss, and a surplus-object, whose being is marked by intensification or increase’.73 Here subjects are formed by extraction and surplus in the sphere of production, but it is ‘females’ who’s identity is made up of loss, or lack and simultaneously their role in reproduction that enables the surplus-object to be produced. Subjects under capitalism are not initially formed in the factory but in the nuclear family, and it is here that the death drive compels and controls this endless reproduction. Therefore the process to ‘we’ that Spielrein describes as part of reproduction is constitutive of the proletariat; a worker denied ownership of their means of reproduction, in this case their own body, or as Long Chu explains their desires.74 This then creates a mass of alienated reproductive workers, and a psychic ‘lack’75 collective.76 While Freud’s Oedipal complex77 is focused on the bourgeois nuclear family and therefore unequipped to deal with systems that fall outside of this model,78 within Freud’s theory, the family’s relationship is coordinated around death, or the suspension of death: to let your mother or father/son/daughter live or to kill them. These same questions are echoed in both Foucault’s and Mbembe’s writing on sovereignty. It is through these familial relationships, no matter how compromised, that we can connect psychoanalysis and necropolitics. Not in an effort to seek out the Oedipal in the necropolitical, but to understand how the Oedipal informs power in systems of the necropolitical, whose success is by virtue of the fact that these sexual relationships are all oriented around death. This is not to purport that nuclear families are poised on the verge of murdering each other (they are), but that the focus on life within the nuclear family obscures the reality of death. Just as the death worlds of the plantation and Israel’s occupation counter

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intuitively produce ‘life worlds’ through slave breeding and the extensive use of reproductive technologies. Jacques Lacan identifies the female figure of Antigone as the ‘epitome’ of the death drive.79 Making her the subject of/for the necropolitical, or more specifically the socially reproductive under the necropolitical. The story of Antigone’s fallen brothers and the ruins of war sets us immediately in Mbembe’s terrain, but instead of asking what caused the ruins and where and how is power manifested, we ask, what do we do with the dead, how do we maintain grief, or how do we live in a death world? Antigone’s brothers are both dead, one the victor the other the enemy, one is buried and the other left to be devoured, so secretly Antigone gives Polyneices a burial. Adriana Cavarero explains that in Sophocles’ play ‘the body, here associated with the murky, carnal recesses of female power, is radically distinct from the polis, it’s tragic antithesis and exact opposite’.80 It is through the body and the connection of it with nature that we find the play’s transgression and it is precisely this prioritizing of the polis over the politics of bodies that troubles the theory of the necropolitical. If there were a story to unite the polis and the body via the dead and living it would be Antigone. Is not Antigone engaging an end to reproduction, a symbolic end in refusing to reproduce children or laws? In Lacan’s formulation Antigone’s act dismantles the Theban community and Creon’s law, they ‘die twice’81 once in body then symbolically, this being ‘the embodiment of the death drive at its purest’.82 This act of dying twice is similar to the social death suffered by the slave, or the death that is passed on to the unborn child of the slave mother. Antigone’s act is a double refusal, but, as I have discussed in relation to slave resistance, refusal is not always enough – sabotage or killing may be necessary. If we are to put reproduction on a continuum with death, then ‘the challenge to which we must rise involves affirming a politics that has a place for the killing of subjects’,83 or, as Ettinger explains, the maintenance of the not-yet, the cessation of the subject coming into being. This is why framing all reproductive apparatus and affects as necro-work allows us to remove the romantic bourgeois ideology of motherhood and pregnancy, and understand what reproduction is and how it functions under capitalism. Here we can identify a multitude of necroreproductive labour, a death collective. It is this constant and unequal necropolitics of reproduction that must undergird scholarship of both biopolitics and how we understand the Many under capital. Although death has always couched capitalist production, as we enter increasing states of environmental and political apocalypse, the stakes are increasingly higher, as the camp, the border-zone and the colony become the norm.

Notes 1

I interchange the use of women, female/s and gestator throughout the chapter, depending on whether the focus is on social roles, gestation, sex or subject position. ‘Women’, ‘mother’, ‘male’ and ‘female’ are not terms assumed as cis, or biological, but construed in specific forms under capitalist patriarchy.

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Achille Mbembe, ‘Necropolitics’, Public Culture 15:1 (1 January 2003): 11–40. And Achille Mbembe, Necropolitics (Durham: Duke University Press, 2019). Please note: all references below are to the original 2003 article. 3 Michel Foucault, Society Must be Defended: Lectures at the Collège De France 1975–76 (New York: Picador, 2003). And Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality: Vol. 1 (New York: Vintage Books, 1990). 4 Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Multitude (London: Penguin Books, 2005). And Foucault, History of Sexuality. 5 Foucault, Society Must Be Defended. And Foucault, History of Sexuality. 6 Mbembe, ‘Necropolitics’, 40. 7 Mbembe, ‘Necropolitics’, 39. 8 See also Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998). 9 The concept of ‘becoming black’ is developed by Mbembe in Critique of Black Reason, but the norm continues to be male, as is the scholarship consulted. See Achille Mbembe, Critique of Black Reason (Durham: Duke University Press, 2017). 10 See Lise Vogel, Marxism and the Oppression of Women (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1983); Silvia Federici, Revolution at Point Zero: Housework Reproduction and Feminist Struggle (Oakland: PM Press, 2012); Mariarosa Dalla Costa, ‘Capitalism and Reproduction’, Capitalism Nature Socialism 7:4 (1996): 111–21; Leopoldina Fortunati, The Arcane or Reproduction: Housework, Prostitution, Labour and Capital (New York: Autonomedia, 1996). 11 FTC Manning, ‘Closing the Conceptual Gap: A Response to Cinzia Arruzza’s “Remarks on Gender” ’, Viewpoint Magazine (May 2015), https://www.viewpointmag. com/2015/05/04/closing-the-conceptual-gap-a-response-to-cinzia-arruzzasremarks-on-gender/. And Marion W. Gray, Productive Men, Reproductive Women: The Agrarian Household and the Emergence of Separate Spheres During the German Enlightenment (New York: Berghahn Books, 2000). 12 See Gray, Productive Men. 13 Salar Mohandesi and Emma Teitelman, ‘Without Reserves’, in Social Reproduction Theory: Remapping Class, Recentering Oppression, ed. Tithi Bhattacharya (London: Pluto Press, 2017): 37–67. 14 Federici, Revolution; Dalla Costa, ‘Capitalism and Reproduction’; Fortunati, Arcane. 15 Cedric Robinson, Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition (North Carolina: North Carolina University Press, 2000). 16 See Robinson, Black Marxism, and the idea of racial capitalism, which posits that Atlantic slavery is not anterior to capitalism or exceptional but representative and embedded within it. 17 Fortunati, Arcane. 18 Saidiya Hartman’s concept is from: Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007). 19 Foucault, Society Must be Defended, 257. 20 Giorgio Agamben, Homer Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), 148. 21 John McMahon, ‘The “Enigma of Biopolitics”: Antiblackness, Modernity, and Roberto Esposito’s Biopolitics’, Political Theory 46:5 (2018): 756. 22 Mbembe, ‘Necropolitics’. 23 Jared Sexton, ‘People-of-Color-Blindness Notes on the Afterlife of Slavery’. Social Text 28: 2 (Summer 2010): 31–50. 2

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24 Robinson Black Marxism. 25 Sexton, ‘People-of-Color-Blindness’, 33. 26 McMahon, ‘Enigma’, 759. 27 Karl Marx, Capital: Volume One (London: Penguin Classics, 1976). 28 Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990). 29 Jasbir Puar, The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability (Durham: Duke University Press, 2017), 113. 30 Puar, Right to Maim, 139. 31 Puar, Right to Maim, 139. 32 Ruth A. Miller, The Limits of Bodily Integrity: Abortion, Adultery, and Rape Legislation in Comparative Perspective (Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge, 2007), 149. 33 The UNHCR’s data for 2017 puts 52 per cent of all refugees and asylum seekers as children and, of the adult and elderly population, women make up 50 per cent; UNHCR, ‘Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2017’, (2018), https://www.unhcr. org/uk/statistics/unhcrstats/5b27be547/unhcr-global-trends-2017.html. 34 Monique Deveaux, ‘Feminism and Empowerment: A Critical Reading of Foucault’, Feminist Studies 20:2 (Summer 1994): 223–47. 35 Christina Sharpe, Monstrous Intimacies: Making Post-Slavery Subjects (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010). 36 Octavia E. Butler, Kindred (New York: Doubleday, 1979), 126. 37 Devereaux, ‘Feminism and Empowerment’.; Angela King, ‘The Prisoner of Gender: Foucault and the Disciplining of the Female Body’, Journal of International Women’s Studies, 5: 2 (2004): 29–39. 38 Angela Davis, ‘Reflections on the Black Woman’s Role in the Community of Slaves’, The Black Scholar (November-December 1981): 3–15. 39 See Davis, ‘Reflections’.; Hortense Spillers, ‘Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book’, Diacritics 17: 2 (Summer 1987): 64–8. 40 bell hooks, Ain’t I A Woman: Black Women and Feminism (London: Pluto Press, 1982), 40–1. 41 Angela Davis, Women, Race and Class (New York: Random House, 1982), 24. 42 Spillers, ‘Mama’s Baby’, 74. 43 Spillers, ‘Mama’s Baby’, 75. 44 Spillers, ‘Mama’s Baby’, 75. 45 Spillers, ‘Mama’s Baby’, 76. 46 Spillers, ‘Mama’s Baby’, 80. 47 Brian Carr, ‘At the Thresholds of the “Human”: Race, Psychoanalysis, and the Replication of Imperial Memory’, Cultural Critique 39 (Spring 1998): 119–50. 48 Spillers, ‘Mama’s Baby’, 80. 49 Hartman, ‘The Belly of the World: A Note on Black Women’s Labors’, Souls 18: 1 (2016): 168. 50 Hartman, ‘Belly’, 169. 51 Sharpe, Monstrous, 30. 52 Sharpe, Monstrous, 31. 53 Jayne Boisvert, ‘Colonial Hell and Female Slave Resistance in Saint-Domingue’, Journal of Haitian Studies 7: 1 (Spring 2001): 61–76. 54 Alys Eve Weinbaum, The Afterlife of Reproductive Slavery: Biocapitalism and Black Feminism’s Philosophy of History (Durham: Duke University Press, 2019), 77. 55 Boisvert, ‘Colonial’.

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56 Mbembe, ‘Necropolitics’, 12. 57 Claudia Dey, ‘Mother as the Makers of Death’, Paris Review (14 August 2018), https:// www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/08/14/mothers-as-makers-of-death/. 58 Jacqueline Rose, Mothers: An Essay on Love and Cruelty (London: Faber and Faber, 2018), 25. 59 Long Chu states that ‘while all women are females not all females are women’ the same applies to the term ‘mother’; Andrea Long Chu, Females (London: Verso, 2019), 11. 60 The notion of ‘lack’ is used in the context of necropolitics and capitalism. The psychoanalytic proposition of females as defined by ‘lack’ of phallus is not fully accepted here; lack is born out of a relationship of negation; a full rehearsal of French feminist rejection of the concept is not within the scope of the chapter. 61 Sophie Lewis, Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family (London: Verso 2019), 1. 62 Both Lewis and Weinbaum connect slave breeding with the current surrogacy industry. 63 Bracha L. Ettinger, ‘Beyond the Death-Drive, beyond the Life-Drive: Being-towardBirthing with Being-toward-Birth; Copoiesis and the Matrixial Eros—Metafeminist Notes’, in Aberrant Nuptials: Deleuze and Artistic Research, ed. Paulo De Assis and Paolo Giudici (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2019), 204; Ettinger’s italics. 64 Sabina Spielrein, ‘Destruction as the Cause of Coming into Being’, Journal of Analytical Psychology 39 (1994): 157. 65 Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle (New York: Dover Publications, 2015). For a longer discussion around the differences between Spielrein and Freud’s approaches, see Angela M. Sells, Sabina Spielrein: The Woman and the Myth (New York: SUNY Press, 2017). 66 Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (New York: Basic Books, 2010). 67 Spielrein, ‘Destruction’, 160. 68 Spielrein, ‘Destruction’, 160. 69 Drawing on Donna Harraway, Lewis explains that the individual is never ‘reproduced’; Lewis, Full Surrogacy, 19. 70 Spielrein, ‘Destruction’, 167. 71 Spielrein, ‘Destruction’, 165. 72 Freud, Pleasure Principle. 73 Samo Tomšič, The Capitalist Unconscious (London: Verso Books, 2015). 74 Long Chu, Females. 75 Jacques Lacan, Seminar IV: The Object Relation and Freudian Structures: 1956–57. Trans. The Earls Court Collective. (Lacanian Works Exchange: 2019), https://static1. squarespace.com/static/5d52d51fc078720001362276/t/5d582db37399240001605e1f /1566059972319/19561121+Jacques+Lacan+Seminar+IV+%28Sessions+1-7%29++translated+Earl%27s+Court+Collective+-+Published+18th+May+2019.pdf. 76 For a proposal that the unconscious is proletarian, see Tomšič, Capitalist Unconscious. 77 Freud, Interpretation of Dreams. 78 Hortense J. Spillers, ‘“All the Things You Could be by Now If Sigmund Freud’s Wife Was Your Mother”: Psychoanalysis and Race,’ Critical Inquiry 22:4 (1996): 710–34.; And Carr, ‘At the Thresholds’. 79 Jacques Lacan, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: Book VII: The Ethics of Psychoanalysis 1959–1960. (New York: Norton, 1992). 80 Adriana Cavarero, ‘On the Body of Antigone’, in Feminist Readings of Antigone, ed. Fanny Söderbaäck (New York: SUNY Press, 2010): 46.

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81 Daniel Cho, ‘Thanatos and Civilization: Lacan, Marcuse, and the Death Drive’. Policy Futures in Education 4: 1 (2006): 27. 82 Cho, ‘Thanatos’, 25. 83 Lewis, Full Surrogacy Now, 140.

References Agamben, Giorgio. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998. Boisvert, Jayne. ‘Colonial Hell and Female Slave Resistance in Saint-Domingue’. Journal of Haitian Studies 7:1 (Spring 2001): 61–76. Butler, Octavia E. Kindred. New York: Doubleday, 1979. Cho, Daniel. ‘Thanatos and Civilization: Lacan, Marcuse, and the Death Drive’. Policy Futures in Education 4:1 (2006): 18–30. Carr, Brian. ‘At the Thresholds of the “Human”: Race, Psychoanalysis, and the Replication of Imperial Memory’. Cultural Critique 39 (Spring 1998): 119–150. Cavarero, Adriana. ‘On the Body of Antigone’. In Feminist Readings of Antigone, edited by Fanny Söderbaäck, 45–63. New York: SUNY Press, 2010 Dalla Costa, Mariarosa. ‘Capitalism and Reproduction’. Capitalism Nature Socialism 7:4 (1996): 111–21. Davis, Angela. ‘Reflections on the Black Woman’s Role in the Community of Slaves’. The Black Scholar (November-December 1981): 3–15. Davis, Angela. Women, Race and Class. New York: Random House, 1982. Deveaux, Monique. ‘Feminism and Empowerment: A Critical Reading of Foucault’. Feminist Studies 20:2 (Summer 1994): 223–47. Dey, Claudia. ‘Mother as the Makers of Death’. Paris Review (14 August 2018), https:// www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/08/14/mothers-as-makers-of-death/. Ettinger, B. L. ‘Beyond the Death-Drive, beyond the Life-Drive: Being-toward-Birthing with Being-toward-Birth; Copoiesis and the Matrixial Eros—Metafeminist Notes’. In Aberrant Nuptials: Deleuze and Artistic Research, edited by Paulo de Assis and Paolo Giudici, 183–214. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2019. Federici, Silvia. Revolution at Point Zero: Housework Reproduction and Feminist Struggle. Oakland: PM Press, 2012. Fortunati, Leopoldina. The Arcane or Reproduction: Housework, Prostitution, Labour and Capital. New York: Autonomedia, 1996. Foucault, Michel. The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at The Collège De France 78–79. Translated by Graham Burchell. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan Limited, 2008. Foucault, Michel. Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the Collège De France 1976–76. Translated by David Macey. New York: Picador, 2003. Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality Vol.1, Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage Books, 1990. Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. New York: Basic Books, 2010. Freud, Sigmund. Beyond the Pleasure Principle. New York: Dover Publications, 2015. Gray, Marion W. Productive Men, Reproductive Women: The Agrarian Household and the Emergence of Separate Spheres During the German Enlightenment. New York: Berghahn Books, 2000. Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. Multitude. London: Penguin Books, 2005.

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Hartman, Saidiya. ‘The Belly of the World: A Note on Black Women’s Labors’. Souls 18:1 (2016): 166–73. Hartman, Saidiya. Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007. hooks, bell. Ain’t I A Woman: Black Women and Feminism. London: Pluto Press, 1982. Jones, Gayl. Corregidora. London: Virago Press, London. King, Angela. ‘The Prisoner of Gender: Foucault and the Disciplining of the Female Body’. Journal of International Women’s Studies 5:2 (2004): 29–39. Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: Book VII: The Ethics of Psychoanalysis 1959–1960. Translated by Dennis Porter. New York: Norton, 1992. Lacan, Jacques. Seminar IV: The Object Relation and Freudian Structures: 1956–57. Translated by The Earls Court Collective. Lacanian Works Exchange: 2019, https:// static1.squarespace.com/static/5d52d51fc078720001362276/t/5d582db3739924000160 5e1f/1566059972319/19561121+Jacques+Lacan+Seminar+IV+%28Sessions+1-7%29++translated+Earl%27s+Court+Collective+-+Published+18th+May+2019.pdf. Lewis, Sophie. ‘Labour Does You: Might Thinking Through Pregnancy as Work Help us Radicalise the Politics of Care?’ New Socialist (26 December 2018), https://newsocialist. org.uk/labour-does-you-might-thinking-through-pregnancy-work-help-us-radicalisepolitics-care/ Lewis, Sophie. Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family. London: Verso 2019. Long Chu, Andrea. Females. London: Verso, 2019. Manning, FTC. ‘Closing the Conceptual Gap: A Response to Cinzia Arruzza’s “Remarks on Gender”’. Viewpoint Magazine (May 2015), https://www.viewpointmag. com/2015/05/04/closing-the-conceptual-gap-a-response-to-cinzia-arruzzas-remarkson-gender/. Marx, Karl. Capital: Volume One. London: Penguin Classics, 1976. Mbembe, Achille. ‘Necropolitics’. Public Culture 15:1 (1 January 2003): 11–40. Mbembe, Achille. Critique of Black Reason. Durham: Duke University Press, 2017. Mbembe, Achille. Necropolitics. Durham: Duke University Press, 2019). McMahon, John. ‘The “Enigma of Biopolitics”: Antiblackness, Modernity, and Roberto Esposito’s Biopolitics’. Political Theory 46:5 (2018): 749–71. Miller, Ruth, A. The Limits of Bodily Integrity: Abortion, Adultery, and Rape Legislation in Comparative Perspective. Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge, 2007. Mohandesi, Salar and Emma Teitelman. ‘Without Reserves’. In Social Reproduction Theory: Remapping Class, Recentering Oppression, edited by Tithi Bhattacharya, 37–67. London: Pluto Press, 2017. Morrison, Toni. Beloved. London: Vintage Books, 2005. Patterson, Orlando. Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990. Puar, Jasbir K. The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability. Durham: Duke University Press, 2017. Robinson, Cedric. Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition. North Carolina: North Carolina University Press, 2000. Rose, Jacqueline. Mothers: An Essay on Love and Cruelty. London: Faber and Faber, 2018. Sells, Angela M. Sabina Spielrein: The Woman and the Myth. New York: SUNY Press, 2017. Sexton, Jared. ‘People-of-Color-Blindness Notes on the Afterlife of Slavery’. Social Text 28: 2 (Summer 2010): 31–50. Sharpe, Christina. Monstrous Intimacies: Making Post-Slavery Subjects. Durham: Duke University Press, 2010.

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Spielrein, Sabina. ‘Destruction as the Cause of Coming into Being’. Journal of Analytical Psychology 39 (1994): 155–186. Spillers, Hortense J. ‘“All the Things You Could Be by Now If Sigmund Freud’s Wife Was Your Mother”: Psychoanalysis and Race.’ Critical Inquiry 22:4 (1996): 710–34. Spillers, Hortense J. ‘Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book’. Diacritics 17:2 (Summer 1987): 64–8. Tomšič, Samo. The Capitalist Unconscious. London: Verso Books, 2015. UNHCR. ‘Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2017’. (2018), https://www.unhcr.org/ uk/statistics/unhcrstats/5b27be547/unhcr-global-trends-2017.html. Vogel, Lise. Marxism and the Oppression of Women: Toward a Unitary Theory. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1983. Weinbaum, Alys Eve. The Afterlife of Reproductive Slavery: Biocapitalism and Black Feminism’s Philosophy of History. Durham: Duke University Press, 2019.

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Chapter 10 I N S OM N IA @ WO R K : B E T W E E N N E O - WO R K E R I SM A N D P SYC HOA NA LYSI S Lorenzo Chiesa

1 Insomnia (from the Latin ‘in-somnus’, literally ‘without sleep’) is defined as the state in which a person perceives that his or her sleep is insufficient and/or unsatisfactory.1 The 2013 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders describes it as a ‘complaint of dissatisfaction with sleep quantity or quality’.2 In other words, insomnia is a sleep disorder which may be diagnosed scientifically by means of polysomnographic and other evidence but is more often than not understood, even medically, as a patient’s positive answer to the straightforward question: ‘Do you experience difficulty sleeping?’ According to recent statistics, 58% of adults in the US experienced some symptoms of insomnia. When daytime impairment – or fatigue – is added as a criterion, including clinically significant distress in social, occupational, or behavioral functioning, the percentage of people affected by insomnia is still a staggering 10 to 15% of the population – with a much higher incidence among the poor, the female, and the elderly. In spite of the fact that it is predominantly identified and cured relying on subjective perception (up to the point that a considerable segment of insomniacs would actually experience so-called ‘sleep state misperception’ – i.e. sleep for normal durations yet severely underestimate the time they have slept), insomnia abounds in allegedly objective classifications. For instance, there is primary, secondary, or comorbid insomnia – depending on whether it is freestanding, dependent on another condition, or both. With regard to duration, we speak of transient, acute, or chronic insomnia. As for patterns, difficulty falling asleep (or ‘delayed sleep phase disorder’) is to be distinguished from trouble falling back to sleep and early morning awakening (where the latter is generally associated with depression). Insomnia can supposedly be prevented and treated. Prevention, or ‘sleep hygiene’, involves state-of-the-art practical advice such as ‘avoid caffeinated drinks before going to sleep’ and ‘the bed should only be used for sleep and sex’. Treatment is still widely reliant on sleeping pills and other sedatives, although it is now ascertained that they may lead to addiction and worsening of sleep. Advocates of cognitive behavioural

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therapy claim it appears to achieve better long-term results, especially by modifying purportedly counterproductive assumptions about sleep (for example, by thaumaturgically tackling so-called unrealistic sleep expectations – ‘I need to have 8 hours of sleep each night’ – and the amplification of the consequences of insomnia – ‘I cannot do anything after a bad night’s sleep’).

2 According to the Italian neo-workerist economist Andrea Fumagalli, contemporary capitalism should be reconceptualised from a Marxist perspective as ‘cognitive bio-capitalism’. Starting from the 1970s, the traditional Fordist mode of production has been gradually overcome, if not replaced, by a new post-Fordist mode of production, whereby ‘the process of accumulation and valorisation is no longer [primarily] based on the centrality of material production, the vertically integrated, large factory’.3 By the late 1990s, this new configuration of Capital – which still preserves the basic socio-economic tenets of capitalism (such as the role of profit, and the extraction of surplus value from the wage system) – has begun to coalesce around ‘knowledge’ and ‘space’ (both real and virtual) as commodities. The new economy is fundamentally a learning economy and a network economy. The former bases the growth in productivity on the creation of new knowledge (via new systems of communication and information technologies). The latter no longer uses space exclusively for production and distribution, but also, intersecting with the former, ‘as a vehicle of diffusion (and control) of knowledge and technological progress’.4 Labour has accordingly become more and more immaterial, or cognitive. At the same time, and without contradiction, precisely as cognitive, labour is increasingly entwined with the bare vital abilities of humankind. It more and more directly revolves around the ‘utilisation of the relational, sentimental, and cerebral faculties of human beings’.5 We can thus also speak of ‘bio-capitalism’. In short, for Fumagalli – but the same more generally holds for many neo-workerists thinkers – it is the life of the Homo sapiens species as such – its basic biological invariant as ultimately identifiable with language, communication, and cognition – that has been put to work by cognitive bio-capitalism. Life itself becomes value.

3 Fumagalli believes that this vast and on-going shift in the economical sources of valorisation and accumulation, as well as in the characteristics of labour, is also having enormous effects on a more explicitly sociological, and even anthropological, level. His thesis is equally simple and very tangible: under the new regime of capitalism the sphere of work-time cannot be separated from that of life-time.6 This does not simply mean that for a number of people work-time is no longer strictly regulated, nor proportionally remunerated, and can be stretched to any hour of the day or night (academia, especially in the UK, stands here as

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an emblematic example), but that apparent life-time is in turn, often unwittingly, being colonised by work-time. In other words, thanks to its immateriality, labour is subsuming all other kinds of human production. Productive activities could classically be divided into ‘labor’, ‘opus’, and ‘otium’. In Latin, ‘labor’ – from which the English ‘labour’ and ‘laborious’ derive – specifically referred to a productive activity that involved hard, and often forced, work, or also, strain and fatigue. The etymology has been preserved openly in certain Italian dialects, such as Neapolitan, for which ‘to work’ is ‘faticare’, i.e., ‘getting tired, or fatigued’.7 ‘Opus’ instead focused on performances that were carried out willingly, as a realisation of creativity. The French ‘oeuvre’ and the Italian ‘opera’ still attest to this origin by denoting artistic or cultural activities that are – at least initially – unrelated to the production of exchange value. As for ‘otium’, it indicated an occupation mostly devoted to intellectual activity, which was reserved to the educated elites. ‘Negotium’, as the literal negation of ‘otium’, non-otium, designated by contrast the obligation to look after one’s business (the Italian noun ‘negozio’ still means ‘shop’, or ‘store’), that is, the life-time that could not be dedicated to ‘otium’. Fumagalli highlights how after the emergence of a Protestant ethics and the subsequent onset of capitalism the semantic couple ‘otium/negotium’ underwent a moralistic reversal of meaning: for instance, ‘ozio’ now unequivocally means ‘idleness’ in Italian; the verb ‘oziare’ is often taken as a synonym for ‘to laze about’, or ‘to doze off ’. More importantly, Fumagalli dwells on how ‘opus’ and ‘leisure’ – as the aspect of ‘otium’ tolerated even by Fordist capitalism, with its statutory weekends and holidays – have only recently begun to be heavily exploited by capital. In cognitive bio-capitalism, not only is artistic production commodified to an extraordinary level, but we also continuously produce value in our ‘leisure time’, for example, by simply watching television – the audience of a show increases, and thus the value of advertising contracts increases – or surfing the Internet – the information we provide is stored and the analysis of our ‘user behaviour’ generates profit (while those who accumulate this profit can also lawfully evade taxation, as we have learnt in Europe with respect to Google).

4 Fumagalli concludes that, far from making us enter an age in which the disappearance of ‘labor’ qua hard work, strain, and fatigue would transform work into ‘opus’ and ‘otium’, the de-materialisation of production allowed by new systems of communication and information technologies is rather quietly imposing an unprecedented and pervasive model of immaterial ‘endless work’ (and, we should add, new related forms of fatigue). Legally, work is a free activity in our societies. Although most of us need to work in order to live, we nonetheless still choose to work. The overcoming of the regimented 9 to 5 working day and the possibility of part-time and flexible work would apparently enhance our freedom to manage work independently. But de facto what is really happening in the new economies through the valorisation of all forms of production is a process of expropriation

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of the very life of individuals for the sake of private accumulation. Life-time is more and more subsumed by work-time also and especially in the sense that ‘opus’ and ‘otium’ bio-cognitively produce value in a way that is not measurable and thus inadequately compensated.8 But if life-time is becoming identical with worktime, if we live to work, then, following Marx, what we are ultimately witnessing is nothing less than a silent return to serfdom, if not slavery. This is vividly attested by forms of quasi-feudal work that are today openly accepted as non-remunerated or almost non-remunerated (e.g. gratuitous internships, au pairs), and cynically promoted as a means to enhance employability.

5 No animal endowed with a brain goes without some kind of sleep. All animals suffer serious consequences as a result of lack of sleep. We humans normally spend around one-third of our life sleeping. Expanding on Fumagalli’s analysis of cognitive bio-capitalism, we should bluntly ask: is sleep, or better its lack, also currently being put to work? (Whether as involuntary insomnia or as voluntary sleep deprivation – the border between the two is evidently porous.) Are we actually being encouraged not to sleep, or to sleep only for a limited amount time? It would seem so. First, there is no doubt that we do not sleep as much as we used to in the near past: it is calculated that in 2012 people slept on average 20% less than in 1912. Today, an adult Homo sapiens sleeps about six and a half hours per day. By comparison, in evolutionary terms, a chimpanzee sleeps approximately eleven and a half hours per day. Second, it is a matter of fact that when we do not sleep we tend to work, either directly, e.g. by answering emails sent outside of nominal working hours, or indirectly, e.g. by entertaining ourselves in ways that nonetheless produce value. The nocturnal use of computers, tablets, social medias, and the television are widely recognised as both a direct cause of sleep problems and as a detrimental manner to try to obviate them; however, just under three quarters of Britons do regularly check Twitter or Facebook within half an hour of going to bed. Third, notwithstanding all this, some sleep experts now claim that sleeping more than 7.2 hours per day would damage our health and functionality (particularly in terms of loss of memory and lowered decisional skills). In addition, getting 8.5 or more hours of sleep per day would increase the mortality rate by 15%, while even sleeping only 4.5 hours per day is associated with very little increase in mortality. A 2015 study commissioned by the University of Arizona non-ironically infers that ‘our brain does not need to rest as much as we believe’. Capital-driven pseudo-science is one step away from openly promoting insomnia.

6 Jonathan Crary’s far from flawless, and rather politically naïve, 2013 book 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep has the merit of spelling out an important, and quite obvious, point that the rigorous economical investigations of Fumagalli fail to

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make: sleep stands for both the last evident bastion against capital’s unstoppable subsumption of life-time and, equally, for the battlefield on which the latter is more than ever determined to achieve yet another victory. Like Fumagalli, Crary dwells on how contemporary capitalism, which he refers to as ‘24/7’, rests on the ‘principle of continuous functioning’ aimed at incessant profit generation: there are by now very few interludes, if any, in our existence that have not been taken over by work-time.9 In this regard, Crary too pays attention to the dissolution of the border between private and professional time, leisure and work. As he succinctly puts it, ‘the planet has become a non-stop work site’.10 This is not only, or primarily, valid in the sense that there is no moment in which we cannot shop, consume, exploit, or be exploited, but it should be thought, first and foremost, in terms of how we subjectively relate to new information technologies and social media. The obliteration of contemplation, daydream, and ‘absent minded introspection’, would embed contemporary capitalist progress in the capture and control of personal experience, or, more specifically, in the intensification of the integration of one’s time in electronic exchange. According to Crary, the key to understanding the life-changing innovations brought about by 24/7 lies more in its capacity to forge through new technologies a ‘compulsory labour of self-management’11 than in the – modernist – fabrication of illusory needs and desires to be consumed. In his words, ‘reification has proceeded to the point where the individual has to invent a self-understanding that optimises or facilitates their participation in digital milieus and speeds’.12 Such a process would be accompanied and strengthened by the delusion that we can ‘outwit’ the system, paradoxically enough by enhancing our familiarity with it – hence the emergence of the mythical figures of the rebel hacker and blogger. Similar to Fumagalli, Crary argues 24/7 would amount to an epochal change in the process of valorisation, production, and accumulation, as well as in our everyday habits, unparalleled in history by previous technological inventions. Crary supplements Fumagalli’s examination of how cognitive bio-capitalism ultimately puts to work the biological invariants of our species by singling out the fundamental incompatibility between human time and the time of network systems. For Crary, it is precisely the mismatch as such, or ‘bioderegulation’,13 that is being put to work thanks to subjective complicity. In this light, our lives’ extreme exposure to new media and the new economy at large no longer marks a simple passage from one machinic system to another – which we could soon manage to master in an emancipatory manner – but our entering an unprecedented paradigm for which the change of system – to which we can never fully adapt – is itself continuous and becomes an end in itself. Although this state of affairs is presented as transitional, what underlies it is, according to Crary, a ‘calculated maintenance of a state of transition’,14 whereby relations of power within capitalism remain the same.

7 24/7 still faces a major obstacle: sleep. Working without pause, albeit immaterially, is unachievable unless capitalism cuts sleep loose from natural necessity. On the one hand, for Crary, ‘sleep will always collide with the demands of 24/7’.15 Although

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all other basic human needs have been successfully commodified (hunger, thirst, sex, and, more recently, even friendship and interaction with others), sleep has not, or only in a very limited way. In this sense, it could be seen as standing for the ‘durability of the social’,16 as a form of collective defence that counters the atomization of existence induced by capitalism, and cognitive bio-capitalism in particular. Ironically, the very intimate – and passive – experience of sleeping, in periodically releasing us from individuation, not only remains as such noninstrumentalisable, but, according to Crary, also allows us to still ‘inhabit a world in common, a shared enactment of withdrawal from the calamitous nullity and waste of 24/7 praxis’.17 This said, Crary has however to register that we are today no doubt witnessing an erosion of sleep. Sleep cannot be eliminated, but it can be debased by capital for its own productive purposes. For instance, over the last decades, there has been a ‘construction of scarcity’ in relation to sleep.18 In a profitable vicious circle, it is precisely capitalism’s attack on sleep that creates the insomniac demand for sleep: sleep must be bought in the form of hypnotics. More alarmingly, the military industry has been investing huge amounts of money to discover ways in which soldiers could function efficiently without sleep for up to two weeks (for instance, by studying a type of sparrow that can stay awake as long as seven days during migrations). As Crary observes, this research on, tellingly, so-called ‘augmented cognition’, will sooner or later be extended from the field of warfare to the broader social sphere: the sleepless soldier anticipates the sleepless worker and consumer. However, for Crary this remains, at least for the time being, a science-fiction scenario: it is primarily interesting insofar as the idea that our sleep can be ‘spied’ on already heavily influences popular culture, thus evidencing how, in the incipient age of advanced information technologies, we do already somehow aspire to homogenise our most inner experience with the contents of communication networks (e.g. turn our dreams into something as objectifiable, recordable, and downloadable as any media software). All in all Crary’s conclusion is nonetheless surprisingly optimistic and humanistically utopian: sleep as the ‘recurrence of a waiting, pause’, and postponement remains fundamentally non-exploitable.19 And, within sleep, it is dreams that would offer us a more specific paradigm of resistance against 24/7: dreams ‘will always evade’ technological appropriation; dreams are wishes to ‘exceed the […] self ’, projected towards the future, not the past; eventually, the common unproductive time of dreams provides us with an image of a ‘future without capitalism [that] begins as dreams of sleep’.20

8 In alleged support of his – loosely Agambenian and Blanchotian – eulogy of sleep and dreams as both integral to human life-time and anticipatory of future forms of social resistance against capitalism, Crary launches into a misleading and quite incomprehensible tirade against Freud. Freud and psychoanalysis would have promoted a devaluation of dreams, cordoning them off in an ‘arena of primitive

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irrationality’.21 In parallel, given his ‘bourgeois horror for the crowd’, he would have sponsored a ‘privatisation of dreams’.22 Last but not least, Freud’s proposals on dreams as repressed wishes would by now be irrelevant, since in 24/7 there are for Crary no longer unspeakable wishes and desires. The sheer poverty of this attack (not to mention the dangerous ingenuousness of its political conclusion about the state of desires in capitalist contemporaneity) speaks for itself, and does not need much discussion. Suffice it to note that, for Freudian psychoanalysis, first, the dream is far from irrational: it instead functions following a logic that is different from that of consciousness, albeit related to it. Second, what is mainly at stake in this unconscious logic is not a monadic repertoire of barely concealed ‘dirty thoughts’ of the individual psyche, but, especially for Lacan, the so-called discourse of the Other. That is, simply put, dreams as an emblematic formation of the unconscious are, due to the latter’s linguistic nature, not ‘interior’ but invariably ‘transindividual’.

9 Rather unexpectedly, neither Freud nor Lacan say much about insomnia. To the best of my knowledge, there is in Lacan’s oeuvre only one overt reference to it, when, in Seminar III, he discusses the symptoms that accompany the triggering of psychosis in President Schreber. Freud’s own explicit observations on the topic are themselves confined to a couple of rather trivial passages. Insomnia amounts for him to one among many other neurotic symptoms. In Three Essays on Sexuality, he predictably enough states that the cause of ‘nervous’ insomnia is a lack of sexual satisfaction.23 In Lecture XIV of Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis, insomnia in neurotic patients is said to be initially intentional, that is, caused by a conscious fear of weakening censorship whilst asleep. Perhaps more interestingly, in Lecture XVII, this intentionality is then associated with the child’s Oedipal opposition to his parents’ intercourse, and hence with the desire to stay awake so as to listen to what they are doing.24

10 When considering the relation between insomnia, sleep, new capitalist modes of valorisation and production, as well as possible models of resistance to them, we should not lose sight of an obvious fact (perhaps so obvious that it is very easy to overlook it): both Freud and Lacan resolutely and incessantly treat the dream as, first and foremost, a dreamwork (‘Traumarbeit’) – that is, as the opposite of any kind of more or less messianic ‘inoperativity’. The dream is something that in dreaming works in its own alternative way. It works when we consciously do not work, that is, sleep. This is for psychoanalysis definitely much more than a facile and innocent analogy. As Laplanche and Pontalis make clear, for Freud, ‘the dream is in essence the work that it carries out’: he stresses this precisely so

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as to warn analysts against an interpretative approach that favours a ‘mysterious unconscious’.25 The dream-work has precedence over both the latent dreamthoughts and the manifest content of the dream. The dream-work is ‘the whole of the operations which transform the raw materials of the dream’ – not only the latent dream thoughts as expressing one or more wishes or desires, but also bodily stimuli and the so-called day’s residues – ‘so as to produce the manifest dream’.26 For Freud, the dream-work should thus be regarded as ‘absolutely not creative’27 and, we should add, immaterial, in the sense that, strictly speaking, it does not add anything to the raw materials of the dream; it limits itself to transforming the raw material of the dream, mostly through condensation and displacement. The result of this immaterial and non-creative production is distortion, which satisfies indirectly a repressed wish or desire.

11 Lacan insists on the primacy of the dream-work over the other components of the dream even more than Freud does. This goes to the point that he submits the latent dream-thoughts concealed in the result of the dream-work – that is, in the manifest content of the dream that would indirectly satisfy a repressed desire according to Freud – to the dream-work itself. The process of dreaming therefore becomes not only immaterial and non-creative, as in Freud, but also generally not aimed at production (at producing satisfaction), at least as we normally conceive it. For Lacan, the dream-work expresses a more basic ‘desire for nothing’,28 lying at the intersection of nature and culture, in lieu of any supposed libidinal substance of dreams that would strive to be fulfilled. In Seminar II, Lacan stresses how for Freud himself, the dream’s desire cannot at all be ‘summed up in the form of a list’; it is not the ‘sequence of the dream’s latent thoughts’.29 If that were the case, dreams would be of ‘no interest’.30 True, Freud scrutinises the ‘thousand empirical forms’ desire can acquire in dreams, yet, ‘there isn’t a single analysis which ends up with the formulation of a desire’.31 Lacan thus infers, arguably going beyond Freud, that it is only ‘the stages of the dream-work that are interesting’.32 Why? Because it is precisely the dream-work as a complex ‘work [of] symbolisation’, with its laws of displacement and condensation (ultimately pointing at a meaningless overdetermination of signification), that allows us to identify ‘what we are looking for in the interpretation of the dream, this x, which in the end is the desire for nothing’.33 The unnameable x, which is what is primarily repressed, emerges only in the metonymic and metaphoric passages between what can transiently be named in interpretation on the level of the dream-work. But, interestingly, this desire for nothing also manifests itself concretely in our everyday life as a blunt ‘desire to sleep’,34 Lacan contends. To put it very simply, what we fundamentally desire as speaking animals is not the satisfaction of unavowable drives – in fact satisfaction rather occurs symbolically by having our desire acknowledged by others – but sleep. ‘All that [human] life is concerned with is seeking repose as much as possible while awaiting death’.35 In uncovering this, Lacan is certainly not

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trying to encourage us to sleep until we die, but to invent modes of production that, against the politics of the alleged ‘closure of satisfaction’ (which is always also a politics of ‘excessive work’ [‘travail en trop; plus-de-travail’]),36 constructively come to terms, like the dream-work does, with such an uncomfortable truth. All in all, the dream-work is somehow a truly inoperative and endless ‘opus’ that, however, does not pave the way to any kind of hedonistic and redemptive ‘otium’. It instead evidences the structural kernel of the symbolic incompleteness on which our operative ‘labor’ irrevocably rests.

12 The philosopher Paolo Virno, who also follows in his own way the workerist tradition, has investigated how the formations of the unconscious could contribute to thinking new ways of what he calls ‘innovative action’.37 Virno focuses exclusively on the ‘Witz’ and, although he discusses Freud at length, admittedly approaches the topic from a non-psychoanalytical perspective. However, his arguments could easily be extended to dreams as another formation of the unconscious; they could also be made to dialogue more openly and constructively with psychoanalysis. On the one hand, Virno tends to agree with Fumagalli that cognitive bio-capitalism is currently putting the biological invariants of human life to work. In his elegant formulation, what is at stake at the moment is an ‘always-already-just-now’: the ‘always already’ (human nature as characterised by verbal cognition, transindividuality, neoteny, and the lack of pre-determined instincts) has only ‘just now’ become the immaterial raw material of post-Fordist capitalist exploitation.38 On the other hand, Virno identifies a convergence between the mental species-specific resources of jokes and those of radical political praxis as a means of resistance to cognitive bio-capitalism. So, it is only just now that we can comprehensively develop an emancipatory politics of human nature, which the ‘Witz’ and its intrinsically ‘public’ dimension would help us to put into perspective.

13 Jokes are politically interesting, for Virno, not because they would transgress the rules, by ridiculing them through their irreverent content, but because their specific linguistic work makes manifest the – always present – gap between a rule and its application. In applying a rule in a distorted manner (through logical fallacies), jokes go back to what precedes the rule, namely, the decision to apply it, which is inassimilable to the rule. Virno contends that deciding is a ‘biological necessity’ for our species, since the rules through which we operate ‘do not contain in themselves any operational criterion’.39 To put it simply, we are fundamentally undetermined and flexible cognitive animals, whose apparently determined rules presuppose, as the only ‘regularity’40 of our species-specific behaviours,

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the decision to apply them. In this way, what jokes expose linguistically via their illogical resources are the traits common to the manifold operations with which we can infringe the state of equilibrium, that is, bring it back to a more structural – and biological – imbalance. Such a return from rules to regularity-qua-imbalance then allows us to ‘change discourse’,41 either by recombining existing elements in an original way, or by deviating towards further elements that are incoherent from the standpoint of the initial order of discourse. Jokes as a cognitive praxis that, like immaterial labour, does not produce any lasting object (for they coincide with their unfolding), and, like dreams, distorts their raw material (language), thus stand for the ‘diagram’ of innovative action.

14 Christian Marazzi, himself a neo-workerist economist, would probably dispute Virno’s claim that there still exist cognitive functions hardwired as invariants of our species – like the paradoxical regularity presiding to the logic of the ‘Witz’ – which have not yet somehow been subsumed by bio-capitalism, and could effectively oppose it. His most fascinating case study of the ever-expanding capture of our cerebral repertoire centres on the link between dyslexia and the new digital information-communication economy. Marazzi argues that dyslexia, traditionally regarded as a disability, has over the last decades become a prominent motor and beneficiary of new types of capitalist valorisation, production, accumulation, and profit. After being called the ‘disease of the century’, dyslexia today is more and more regarded as a ‘gift’, a precious talent to protect and valorise.42 For Marazzi, we cannot affirm, of course, that it is yet sufficiently known in the school system; the dyslexic’s learning difficulties still amount, in the majority of cases, to a subjective trauma. However, the fact remains that, in the last thirty years, the scientific evaluation of dyslexia has taken a dramatic turn, and the pandemic has expanded to the point of becoming a remarkable social phenomenon (it is estimated that around 20% of the population of the US might be affected by some form of dyslexia). Marazzi argues that this state of affairs can be interpreted with reference to the cognitive impact of the third industrial revolution: dyslexia is by now an ‘entrepreneurial skill’, and we can understand it through the nature of the digital economy.43

15 The personal histories of the dyslexic CEOs of companies such as Cisco or Kinko (so-called ‘dyslexic achievers’) show that their professional success is not due to somewhat effective processes of therapeutic normalisation but to the fact that their ‘gift’ could be put to use thanks to the specific kind of work required by the new economy. Dyslexics normally share an ‘ability to alter and

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create perceptions, an extreme awareness of the environment in which one is immersed, above-average curiosity, the ability to think through images, intuition, introspection, multidimensional thought and perception’.44 Put bluntly, dyslexics excel in ‘jumping’ conceptually from one point to another, and rapidly see the ‘big picture’, the context in which they operate. Their imagebased cognition – which we all possess as a species but subject to word-based cognition – is much faster than linear-verbal thought. Among other things, Marazzi argues that there is ‘an isomorphism between the continual flux of incremental innovation’ characterizing the new immaterial economy and the ‘evolutional thought of dyslexics’.45 In the virtual world of the digital economy ‘the economic value lies less in the commodities’ physical properties’ and always more in their susceptibility to potential modification and providing access to further immaterial tasks.46 When confronted with the linearity of verbal thought, dyslexics react by continuously ‘developing’ images that add new concepts at an incredible rate. This ‘disorientation’ can as such now positively be put to work in the digital economy. As John Chambers, the founder of the network communication systems giant Cisco, has it: ‘I imagine a game of chess on a dimensional cycle with different layers, and I can almost play it outside of my mind. But it’s not a game. It’s business. I never do one move at a time. I can usually predict the potential result and the place where the Y-s will be found along the way’.47 For Marazzi, capitalism has thus successfully coopted the specific talent of dyslexia as a new way of exploiting so far neglected, and even vituperated, aspects of the more general – multi-medial – faculty of human language.

16 The advent of the sleepless worker is in all likelihood a far more realistic and imminent scenario than Crary imagines. According to Marcelo Rinesi of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, within the next two decades military experts will crack the secret to needing only two hours of sleep per night without  – apparently – significant negative effects.48 Shortly after, productivity boosting machines combining electronic devices and chemicals will become available to civilians. The bioethicist James Hughes believes sleep technology is to be seen by now as our ‘new coffee’.49 It will however be, at least initially, very expensive. Only a restricted elite will be able to afford going without sleep. Researchers in the field predict that sleep technology will inevitably further widen the gap between the rich and the poor. It will also give more leverage to employers, especially as it is today already perceived that insomnia is associated with a substantial decrease of work performance. The wealthy will become wealthier and, according to some, they will have ‘a completely different biological experience of being alive’.50 A multitude of precarious workers, fatigued to the point of zombification, will feel the pressure to remain competitive.

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17 Is sleep the new frontier of class struggle? Could the work of the unconscious assist us in winning it? Or will the dream-work and the illogical logic of jokes themselves be ransacked by Capital?

Notes 1

An early draft of this article was presented at the Pembroke Center, Brown University, in March 2016. I wish to thank Joan Copjec for her invitation and suggestions as well as the participants of the lecture and seminar for their questions and comments. A second draft was presented at the Philosophical Anthropology and Contemporary Continental Philosophy workshop organised by Mike Lewis at Newcastle University in September 2017, a truly collaborative event that ignited passionate and still ongoing discussions. 2 American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th ed. (Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing, 2013), 363. 3 Andrea Fumagalli, ‘Twenty Theses on Contemporary Capitalism (Cognitive Biocapitalism)’, in Angelaki 16: 3 (September 2011): 7. 4 Fumagalli, ‘Twenty Theses’, 8. 5 Fumagalli, ‘Twenty Theses’, 10. 6 See especially Andrea Fumagalli, La vie mise au travail (Paris: Eterotopia France, 2015). 7 This is even more evident in the French ‘travail’ and the Spanish ‘trabajo’, which derive from ‘tripalium’, an instrument of torture involving three stakes. The same root is still present in the Italian ‘travaglio’, which, interestingly enough, means ‘labour pain’ during childbirth. The excruciating aspect of work is thus confined to woman. 8 Think here also of that particular form of ‘opus’ that is academic work: research leading to publication is increasingly carried out in our ‘free time’, and then accumulated and capitalised by universities through so-called research assessment exercises. 9 Jonathan Crary, 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep (London: Verso, 2013), 8. 10 Crary, 24/7, 17. 11 Crary, 24/7, 46. 12 Crary, 24/7, 99–100. 13 Crary, 24/7, 15. 14 Crary, 24/7, 37. 15 Crary, 24/7, 10. 16 Crary, 24/7, 25. 17 Crary, 24/7, 126. 18 Crary, 24/7, 18. 19 Crary, 24/7, 126. 20 Crary, 24/7, 98, 109, 128. 21 Crary, 24/7, 107. 22 Crary, 24/7, 108–109. 23 Sigmund Freud, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume VII (London: Vintage, 2001), 180.

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24 Sigmund Freud, Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (Parts I and II), in The Standard Edition, Volume XV, 218; Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (Part III), in The Standard Edition, Volume XVI, 268. 25 Jean Laplanche and Jean-Bertrand Pontalis, The Language of Psychoanalysis (London: Karnac, 1988), 125. 26 Laplanche and Pontalis, Language of Psychoanalysis, 125 (my emphasis). 27 Laplanche and Pontalis, Language of Psychoanalysis, 125. 28 Jacques Lacan, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. Book II. The Ego in Freud’s Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis. 1954–1955 (New York: Norton, 1991), 211. 29 Lacan, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. Book II, 211. 30 Lacan, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. Book II, 211. 31 Lacan, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. Book II, 211. 32 Lacan, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. Book II, 211. 33 Lacan, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. Book II, 211. 34 Lacan, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. Book II, 212. 35 Lacan, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. Book II, 233. 36 Jacques Lacan, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. Book XVII. The Other Side of Psychoanalysis (New York: Norton, 2007), 31, 20. 37 Paolo Virno, Motto di spirito e azione innovativa (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 2005), 7ff. Paolo Virno, ‘Jokes and Innovative Action: For a Logic of Change’, in Multitude: Between Innovation and Negation (Los Angeles: Semiotexte(s), 2008), 69–167. 38 See Paolo Virno, ‘Natural-Historical Diagrams: The ‘New Global’ Movement and the Biological Invariant’, in The Italian Difference. Between Nihilism and Biopolitics, eds. Lorenzo Chiesa and Alberto Toscano (Melbourne: Repress, 2009), 131–137. 39 Virno, Motto di spirito, 44. Virno, ‘Jokes and Innovative Action’, 106. 40 Virno, Motto di spirito, 49ff. Virno, ‘Jokes and Innovative Action’, 115–116. 41 Virno, Motto di spirito, 79. Virno, ‘Jokes and Innovative Action’, 148. 42 Christian Marazzi, ‘Dyslexia and the Economy’, in Angelaki 16: 3 (September 2011): 24. 43 Christian Marazzi, ‘Dyslexia’, 24. 44 Christian Marazzi, ‘Dyslexia’, 19–20. 45 Christian Marazzi, ‘Dyslexia’, 25–6. 46 Christian Marazzi, ‘Dyslexia’, 25. 47 Christian Marazzi, ‘Dyslexia’, 20. 48 See Nathalie O’Neill, ‘Sleep Tech Will Widen the Gap Between the Rich and the Poor’, available at https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/4xavaw/sleep-tech-willwiden-the-gap-between-the-rich-and-the-poor. 49 Nathalie O’Neill, ‘Sleep Tech Will Widen the Gap Between the Rich and the Poor’. 50 Nathalie O’Neill, ‘Sleep Tech Will Widen the Gap Between the Rich and the Poor’.

References American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition. Arlington, Virginia: American Psychiatric Publishing, 2013. Crary, Jonathan. 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep. London: Verso, 2013. Freud, Sigmund. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Volume VII (1901-1905): A Case of Hysteria, Three Essays on Sexuality and Other Works. London: Vintage, 2001.

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Freud, Sigmund. Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (Parts I and II). In The Standard Edition, Volume XV. London: Vintage, 2001. Freud, Sigmund. Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (Part III). In The Standard Edition, Volume XVI. London: Vintage, 2001. Fumagalli, Andrea. La vie mise au travail. Paris: Eterotopia France, 2015. Fumagalli, Andrea. ‘Twenty Theses on Contemporary Capitalism (Cognitive Biocapitalism)’. Angelaki 16:3 (September 2011): 7–17. Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. Book II. The Ego in Freud’s Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis. 1954–1955. New York: Norton, 1991. Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. Book XVII. The Other Side of Psychoanalysis. New York: Norton, 2007. Laplanche, Jean and Pontalis, Jean-Bertrand. The Language of Psychoanalysis. London: Karnac, 1988. Marazzi, Christian. ‘Dyslexia and the Economy’. Angelaki 16:3 (September 2011): 19–32. O’Neill, Nathalie. ‘Sleep Tech Will Widen the Gap Between the Rich and the Poor’. Available at https://www.vice.com/en/article/4xavaw/sleep-tech-will-widen-the-gapbetween-the-rich-and-the-poor Virno, Paolo, Motto di spirito e azione innovative (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 2005). Virno, Paolo. Multitude: Between Innovation and Negation (Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2008). Virno, Paolo. ‘Natural-Historical Diagrams: The ‘New Global’ Movement and the Biological Invariant’. In The Italian Difference: Between Nihilism and Biopolitics, edited by Lorenzo Chiesa and Alberto Toscano, 131–47. Melbourne: Repress, 2009.

Chapter 11 T H E M A R X I SM O F P O ST - M A R X I SM : P O L I T IC A L S U B J E C T I V I T Y A N D T H E M O N E TA RY L I N K B E T W E E N I TA L IA N O P E R A I SM O A N D C A P I TA L L O G IC Rebecca Carson

Introduction Within the Marxist tradition, theories of subject formation understood in relation to historical changes in the capitalist mode of production, from the post-war period to the present, reflect a pervasive reorientation from the commodity form to the money form as a primary locus of social organization.1 This shift to a focus on monetary theory in Marxist discourse (broadly speaking), with its aim to interpret the phenomenon of deindustrialization in the Global North, has a deeply tumultuous relationship to the Marxian tradition from which it develops. This tumultuous relationship, which has its roots in the reorientation of monetary analysis, entails significant consequences for how we understand the class relation and therefore collective political subjectivity in the light of historical economic changes and developments (such as changes to forms of income and work in the context of historically specific financial forms). By focusing on the gold standard’s abandonment, much Marxian theory has tended to examine money through a realist lens, undermining the fundamental dynamic of Marx’s critique: the contradiction between essence and appearance internal to capitalist social form that contains a dialectical relationship to its material referent. However, this malappropriation is far from a glaring misreading; rather, what I will argue is, it reflects an internal differentiation within Marx’s thought itself. In particular this ‘realist’ account of the money form is symptomatic of the very structure of the money form within Marx’s critique, which as a medium of circulation exists as a generality that is other to capitalist forms2 and hence why post-Marxist accounts can reject the labour theory of value and still theorize money from a Marxist perspective that does not stray from aspects of Marx’s theorization of the role of the money form (especially in its iteration as credit money). This is true of the literature developed from within the Italian Operaismo tradition.3 On the basis of a novel account of the money form, theorists within the Operaismo tradition came

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to establish a strictly post-Marxist discourse (discourse based on a rejection of the labour theory of value) that, through a focus on political collectivity where labour and therefore class is seen as more fluid and internally differentiated, has produced some of the most important work in understanding the forms of subjectivity and social relations produced by financial capital in the post–Bretton Woods world.4 However, much of the work produced within the Operaismo tradition evinces an inability to grasp the money form in its full complexity – as both independent from production and at the same time internal to production. This oversight has led to the neglect of the dynamic of rapid industrialization simultaneously occurring in the Global South and the ongoing extraction of surplus value at the heart of the capital relation structurally sustaining the independence of financial operations. This neglect led to failures within the social movements themselves (from the 1968 uprisings to the later Autonomist movements of the 1970s, and anti-globalization movements, all of which drew deeply on this tradition) due to political organization that was too strongly committed to the possibility of ‘political command’, seen to be represented by the money form and therefore the possibility of a political subject with a particular kind of agency, so underestimating the crushing strength of the persistent movement of the value form – an underestimation resulting from the corresponding neglect of a critique of abstractions. Nonetheless, Operaismo interpretations of the uncoupling of money and finance from the capital relation remain consonant with dynamics immanent to Marx’s account. The problem is that these accounts can only ever be partial, missing the essential methodological charge bequeathed by the Marxist tradition, which is to understand the implicit (ontological rather than political) structural co-dependency between production and circulation. Without this, analyses miss the fundamental insight of Marx’s social theory: the economy is not an objective realm of social organization but a totalizing social form, a social relation of production that determines action independently of conscious engagement. The conditions of production that structure the movement of capital determine the value of the money form, and not the other way around. One might repeat Marx’s rebuke to Proudhon (who thought that what was wrong with capital was the monetary system): ‘the doctrine that proposes tricks of circulation as a way of, on the one hand, avoiding the violent character of these social changes and on the other, of making these changes appear to be not a presupposition but a gradual result of the transformations in circulation.’5 This then would be a fundamental error and misunderstanding of the reality of capitalism. By looking at the development of monetary thinking and the corresponding political implications within the Operaismo tradition, this chapter aims to illuminate the way in which a robust theorization of the money form endows analysis with the conceptual tools to remobilize some of the meaningful insights from this tradition. With a strengthened understanding of the money form we might find a renewed perspective on the political theorization developed by this tradition, potentially surmounting the limits encountered in a one-sided construal of the money form.

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New laws for action In approaching an analysis of capitalist social relations from the point of view of the class relation rather than production, the Operaismo tradition became well known for departing from many of Marx’s formal presuppositions. Concerned with the inability of orthodox Marxism to represent contemporary life, the collection of theoretical contributions coming out of this tradition privileged the attempt to understand the changing dynamic of labour taking place in what was Operaismo’s present: the Italian post-war period. The changing dynamic of labour at this time was addressed through the deployment of the term ‘class composition’, used to understand the re-composition of labour and class under different societal formations. This showed how historically specific forms of class formation are implicated differently in the potential destruction of the capitallabour relationship. These changes in class-composition were understood as not merely resulting from shifts in production but, rather, as influenced by broader changes in the governmentality of society: from forms of monetary circulation, and technological change to consumption. The thematic of ‘class composition’ was used as a means to identify what Mario Tronti referred to as ‘laws of development’ and respectively ‘new laws for action’6 – a theoretical approach that evinced a particular understanding of the development of capital and the corresponding actions that could be taken thereagainst. The point was to address the way in which actions will carry different meaning based on different historically specific class formations or compositions, as dictated by both production and consumption, the state and the bank. Characterized by attention to mass production, the assembly line, automation and the role of finance in production, Operaismo was unified7 by the insight that industrialization engenders mass production. This insight went hand in hand with the phenomenon of mass consumption. That is, since commodities are made cheaply and sold cheaply en masse by a large population of workers, the workers themselves are buying these commodities and therefore the very consumption of society as a whole, including that of the working classes, is fuelling the need for the objects produced in the factory. The result is increasing automation, producing menial roles to be carried out by workers, combined with mass consumption. Consequently, it was theorized, the realm of the factory has entered the realm of society, while both sides (the factory and society) were seen to be increasingly devoid of human meaning and sentiment. In Operaismo theory, this dynamic, in reference to the post-war American variant of mass production and consumption, was referred to as Fordism.8 Italian Operaismo based its revolutionary project on the idea that the social organization of Fordism was a form of social organization wherein the collective political subject resides: the mass worker. This particular subject was seen to provide what Tronti called new laws for action. As Steve Wright has observed, Tronti proposed to identify laws of development ‘through which the economic input labour-power periodically constituted itself as the political subject working class, able to challenge the power of capital – and ultimately, the operaisti hoped,

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the continued reproduction of the capital-relation itself ’.9 Tronti claimed there were times when the particular class formation can be more or less able to constitute itself as a political subject, where (to paraphrase) ‘new laws of development’ could then lead to ‘new laws of action’. Because a given factory was made up of thousands of workers, trained with particular technological characteristics, the Operaismo theorists claimed that the mass worker figure, who lived in a society that mirrored their production through mass consumption, contained a latent revolutionary subjectivity. Since the factory provided these workers with their means of subsistence and objects of use, the workers became interconnected with the system as both a wage earner and a consumer. It is significant that in this particular form of labour, the structure of a worker’s pay cheque was complex; they had both a base wage, and a variable wage that was linked to their productivity, as there were also items that corresponded to contractual gains like pace with inflation, family allowances, overtime, production bonuses, compensation for night work and hazardous work, etc. [while] … the organisation of Fordist production was not only the dominant system within the factory, but also projected its rigid structure onto society, onto urban and suburban mobility, housing settlements, shopping houses.10

The variable wage gives the mass worker a modicum of freedom. However, this freedom was formally reduced to narrow forms of consumption permitted within Fordist societies. The form of consumption available to the mass worker mirrored the alienated form of the work. Operaismo responded to this phenomenon by reading through the ways in which this kind of social formation leaves the working population more susceptible to politicization as an antagonistic subject. As Sergio Bologna recalls, ‘thousands of workers left the factories early in the morning after working the night shift, while many others were already outside waiting at the gates to enter for the first morning shift, [and] this was the best moment to distribute and spread the flyers of Classe Operaia and Potere Operaio.’11 Not only was this form of social organization particularly open to the efficient distribution of knowledge on a grand scale, since mass amounts of people worked together in the same factories, but also the workers were not isolated from one another since they were accustomed to working collectively in the context of the factory. Therefore this mass contained not only antagonistic subjectivity, as the class of labourers under capitalist social relations, but also both the socialized and intellectual elements necessary for politicization. An awareness of this condition underpinned Tronti’s theorization of the ‘autonomy of the political’– an idea that claims that if the mass workers collectively refuse work as the source of providing one’s means of subsistence, they consequently become a collective political subject opposed to capital (and so an autonomous form). In rejecting work as the place where one claims a means for subsistence, this class becomes a political force, not merely an economic force; it is able to command the mode of production and circulation to different ends than that of capital. Importantly, Tronti argued that ‘autonomy involved an historical process, in which the autonomy of the political emerges as

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a consequence of the fully accomplished rationalisation of the economic’.12 This is precisely what the Operaismo saw in the mass worker: an accomplished rationalized form of social organization that is endowed with the technological specificity that would enable them to become a political class. This political class presupposes an adequately rationalized state apparatus, and putting politics in command of social production and circulation rather than capital. Here we find that theoretical practice takes a point of view that ‘requires one-sidedness in order to grasp the whole [being: the] anteriority of the workers struggle to capitalist development’.13

Classe Operaia literature The journals Quaderni Rossi and later Classe Operaia were initiated for the purpose of providing a means for circulating Operaismo literature. In practice these journals not only provided the context for publication of Operaismo literature, but facilitated a political and cultural foundation for a new movement on the left. This new movement broke from the dogmatic applications of Marxist thought seen on the official Italian left at the time and that, rather than analyse the empirical specificity of social life, clumsily imposed Marxist categories onto social life. Broadly, the aim of the journals was to ‘develop political strategies based on theoretical assumptions and practical experiences out of the concrete struggles of the 1960s’.14 With the first issue of Quaderni Rossi, printed in 1961, and the final issue of Classe Operaia, in 1967, Italian Operaismo literature was a product of the sum of these journals that were often co-authored by Operaismo theoreticians and factory workers. Initiated by Raniero Panzieri, Mario Tronti, Alberto Asor Rosa and Massimo Cacciari and others, Quaderni Rossi set out to analyse society through a research method that involved the collaboration between intellectuals and workers who both first and foremost sought to understand the current empirical conditions of life from the point of view of the working class, without overdetermining such a position via the imposition of a ready-made Marxist position. The journal was made up of Weberian sociologists from Turin, interested in the dynamics of the changing industrial society, and a group of young intellectuals around the Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI) in Rome, who were rejecting what they saw as a strong division between social research and political intervention.15 The journal was conceived with the purpose of creating non-sectarian work responding to what they jointly considered to be ‘a crisis in the relationship between the “conditions of struggle” and the “politics of the parties”’.16 In 1963, further to a conflict between members in relation to how they thought political intervention in class struggle should be conceived, Quaderni Rossi fell apart, and the journal Classe Operaia emerged. Headed by Tronti, this journal included contributions from Toni Negri, Alquati and Asor Rosa. In particular, Classe Operaia aimed to relay tactical discussions that addressed changing power relations. Classe Operaia came to a decisive end in 1967 when it appeared to the group that their project was quickly turning into either ‘a politics of mere survival or its recycling in sectarian experiences’17 and therefore it became clear to the contributors that their ideas would not take on the mass form on which their theoretical stance relied.18

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It was not until 1972 that another journal, Primo Maggio, appeared. In line with the Operaismo programme, the journal emerged within the editorial collective Calusca in Milan. The bookseller Primo Moroni – who opened the Librarie Calusca, which continues to be a landmark of the extra-parliamentary left – supported the publishing of the project, assisting in its relatively vast readership. The very first issue of the journal sold 1,700 copies, the second 2,300, circulating in universities, prisons, and even amongst the top managers of the Italian Central Bank.19 Significant contributors to the journal include Sergio Bologna, Lapo Berti and Christian Marazzi. Marking a new generation within the operaia tradition, Primo Maggio was initiated with a renewed project in mind, which was mainly to understand the relationship between money and labour within the context of a world that was undergoing rapid financialization. While the method to achieve this comprised the purpose of ‘changing the social role of political intellectuals by innovating the methodology of historiography, sociology, economics and political science’,20 Primo Maggio paid specific focus to the Marxian analyses of money in relationship to monetary disorder occurring in the 1970s, where ‘the 1971 disconnection of dollar from gold and floating exchange rates opened the way to a fragmented international monetary system, and made accelerated inflation the new form of the crisis of overproduction’.21 This increased focus responded to the growing role of monetary intervention in Italian social life, manifest in proliferating financial operations and the destabilization of the social securities of Fordist factory work. In particular, the journal initiated a working group on money that responded to the elimination of the gold standard and the corresponding reorganization of class composition that was based on the replacement of the gold standard with the fiat money of the American dollar (a credited form of money issued by the state). In the Italian context the result was increased unemployment combined with a sharp rise in prices. In order to try to find possible modes of action against this dynamic, the project of Primo Maggio was to understand the function of money in the capitalist system. This was, for Wright, an attempt to ‘understand money as a privileged tool through which capital might outmanoeuvre the workplace-unrest of the period’.22 Here the concepts of ‘money capital’23 and ‘class composition’ were central to the inquiry and, further, were found to have a direct relationship between one another. This was, in its premise, nothing less than an articulation of a key presupposition for, and influential link to, the emergence of post-Keynesian monetary circuit theory that would later be developed in the work of Augusto Graziani in 1989.24 As Graziani claims, the circulation of money ‘does not solely exercise the function of permitting easier commercial relations, but also serves the much more relevant function of putting the class of capitalists in relation to the class of workers’.25

Credit Mobiliers The implementation of the working group on money as a subproject within the Primo Maggio editorial group is unsurprising as the journal, from its inception, was directed towards problems of overproduction and inflation related to the

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monetary crisis. The first issue contained an article written by Sergio Bologna on the problem of money, entitled ‘Money and Crisis: Marx as Correspondent of the “New York Daily Tribune”’. This article established the parameters for the project of Primo Maggio, arguing that the relationship between crisis and the money form ‘provides the key to a re-interpretation of political institutions from the standpoint of monetary organization, and of the laws of value seen from the viewpoint of a stage of capitalist development now in its maturity’.26 By looking to Marx’s analysis of the monetary crisis of 1857, Bologna developed the problem of the relationship between money as capital (money that is used to acquire more money) and money as commodity (money as containing a direct link to labour), a differentiation posited as the presupposition for the monetary differences between the sphere of production and that of finance. By initially establishing the relation between monetary command and class composition, the working group on money took capitalism to be a ‘monetary production economy’. The monetary production economy specifically pertains to the role of credit money, which accords with the presentation of credit money in Volume III of Capital. The group aimed to show how those who are able to command money through the mediation of credit control the reproduction of the system where money is created endogenously within the financial sector (more money is created by means of money, which is the position taken by monetary circuit theory that places a heavy focus on Marx’s formulation for fictitious capital, M-M).27 Taking the standpoint that monetary ‘crisis is a result of political and institutional choices concerning the credit sphere’, Bologna, following Marx’s position on the function of Credit Mobiliers in his writings for the New York Daily Tribune (at the time an almost unknown text),28 named the crisis as ‘a revolution from above’. In this, he claimed that crisis functions to interfere with class composition as a way to prevent and reduce potential class conflict. Thus, following Lucarelli, the analysis ‘of money in these pages is linked to the new forms of capital organization, to the new bourgeois elites which were supplanting mercantile ones, to the new forms of governance which characterize the modern State, and, finally to class struggle’.29 The workgroup was based specifically on an analysis of the new forms of capitalist organization emerging as a reaction to the monetary crisis of the 1970s. In this analysis, we find the seeds to the later development in Italian heterodox economics in the shift to the idea that capitalism is a monetary production economy largely based on the function of credit. Their observation was that, increasingly, money is produced endogenously, or within the realm of finance through speculation on loans acting as investments, and not exogenously, in the realm of production. This tendency is something that had intensified at the time due to the deregulation of money from the gold standard, freeing the creation of money from gold in its commodity form as the point of reference for the monetary standard. This anticipated what Foucault meant by ‘governmentality’ – the theoretical implications of a monetary production society, drawn by the group, was that money began to act as a social institution, and so as a part of the governance of society. The Primo Maggio working group on money made the theoretical claim that, in this way, money was in command of class composition.

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This subject of money as a key link to understanding the Operaismo thematic of class composition is deeply engrained in the Operaismo tradition. As Wright pointed out, Tronti’s later novel argument in Operai e capitale, claiming ‘the secret to overcoming capital’s rule lay in labour refusing its function as labour power’,30 carries significant implication for the role of money. What Tronti implies is that labour is the measure of value due to the very nature of the working class as a condition of capital social relations. Mainly, then, money is central to how the law of value asserts itself and therefore if ‘only labour through its own struggles can determine the value of labour, then any working-class offensive of sufficient magnitude against capitalist command could threaten to undermine both the accumulation-process and the regulatory mechanism upon which commodityexchange is premised’.31 This regulatory mechanism is the law of value, with value able to circulate between different commodity forms by way of money. Money becomes implicated in labour through wages, functioning as an index of the relations of force between capital and a new class composition led by the massworker – ‘the human appendage to the assembly line’.32 Negri made a similar point when he claimed that the wage was the ‘ultimate independent variable’,33 due to, as Keynes pointed out, the ‘downward rigidity’ of wages.34 Therefore, the ultimate goal, to eliminate capitalist command over labour-power, would uncouple the relationship between productivity and income.

Money as capital ‘Denaro come Capitale’ (‘Money as Capital’) was the first of the very few articles written that represented the general position of the working group on money; this was written up by Lapo Berti, in Issue 2 of Primo Maggio.35 Consonant with Operaismo’s commitment to understanding money’s subordination to labour within the production process, this article addresses four key problems. The authors looked to why it is that a new politics of money is required; what was the new role of money and monetary institutions in the class dynamics of the post– Bretton Woods world; the role of inflation and, finally, the relationship between the rate of interest and the rate of profit.36 In openly claiming not to have a ‘systemic theoretical framework’,37 the observations that came out of the working group were intended to be theoretically provisional, with priority granted to their practical political function as a ‘reference for action’. From the outset, the authors issued the caveat that in order to account for the ‘overall unfolding of the crisis’38 there would need to be a more substantial study undertaken on the matter. As Berti describes it himself, the text is ‘conscious of the limits of its theoretical elaboration, [and] represented a kind of agenda, if not a manifesto’.39 The approach of the text was twofold. On the one hand, the analysis aimed to understand the current process unfolding, free from theoretical preconceptions. On the other hand, the text attempted to test a Marxian approach against empirical reality, without bending reality to support a Marxist reading. These two sides were interconnected. Berti claimed that ‘the new representation of the capitalist crisis was merging from a

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close confrontation between Marxian standpoints and real processes, as well as … instruments of analysis that belonged to the opposing field, that is, monetarism’.40 The article relied on the premise that the then current crisis in monetary mechanisms, on a global scale, represented the crisis of capitalist command in the context of preceding relations of force. Berti and the working group considered the fall in the dollar to be the product of class conflict, commencing from a crisis in the hegemony of American fiat money, and it was for this reason that they argued that there were central aspects of Marx’s theorization that no longer applied to the circulation of money in its current function. Most essentially, they claimed that the category of ‘commodity-money’ no longer corresponded to capitalist reality in any immediate way. Instead, the predominance of ‘the role of both national monetary institutions and international firms’41 could be seen. According to Berti: [t]he creation of money, with all the consequences that this process entails in terms of the distribution of income and the economy’s equilibrium, is now a process that depends, in a theoretically unlimited measure, upon the decisions of the [national] central bank.42

The modus operandi of money was taken by the working group to have substantially changed, particularly in regard to the international monetary system, where there was no longer a fixed exchange rate against the gold standard or any measure of value.43 In this regard, money was no longer a money-commodity; rather, money functioned only as capital (accumulated value) that could be transformed into productive capital when lent to purchase the workforce and other means of production. Further, it was thought that monetary policy had surmounted its previous boundaries, making more room for money to be instrumentalized for political ends. If money was free from direct or indirect conversion to a commodity standard, money could then be rendered a manoeuvrable variable: an instrument of governance. Berti claimed that ‘money had become an institution with a high political value’.44 If money could be said to be transformed into a governing instrument, monetary policy would then play a direct role in the struggle between classes. This is the central point that the working group aimed to uphold. To the working group, money could seem ‘like a political practice consisting of a redefinition of the laws governing money circulation. As a result, money cannot be an exclusive, exact representation of wealth; rather, it must be conceived as regulated money, both at a national and at an international level’.45 In this way, Berti argued, money ought to be understood as command before it is a measure; money was thus dislocated from its role as a bearer of value form in the automatic functioning of capital.46 Later, Berti undertook a case study aimed at showing how the governing nature of monetary flows was not a technical task but rather a political one, in the essay ‘Inflazione e recessione: la politica della Banca d’Italia (1969–1974)’ (Inflation and Recession: The Policies of Banca d’Italia (1969–1974)). This article represented money not as a neutral bearer of value but as something ‘maneuverable and maneuvered as an instrument in the repartition of revenue between wages and

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profits’.47 Central banks would therefore have the power to decide on the amount of money that would enter the system, granting for them the leverage to ‘interfere in the level of relative prices of, for example, goods and labor, and so this leverage could shift social balances in alleviate the pressure of wage claims’.48 Central banks retained a flexibility in order to coax economic growth in the national context through the juggling of interest-rates and money-supply and exchange rates that were ever in flux.49 The case study insisted that when the central bank loosened its credit flows it was to allow industries to borrow for the purpose of financing a renewed organization of the workplace where production was decentralized and new technology deployed. It is Berti’s charge that this loosening of credit was a reaction to capital’s inability to continue to hold command over labour within the production process, and that this was compensated by revolutionizing capital’s form of command to reinstitute control. Since the main problem for Italian capital was its lack of ability to command labour, it therefore reacted by using credit to effectively exert governance over labour based on a formal reconstitution of the very role of money. In this there is a shift in wealth on the side of the capitalist class, who transition from creditors to debtors; this represents that which Wright refers to as ‘a new order of capitalist power’.50 The submission of labour to capital entails a change in the balance of power. To follow the working group’s position to its logical conclusion, as Christian Marazzi (another key contributor to the working group) did, is to find that once money is no longer convertible into gold, money is no longer able to act as a general equivalent. The conceptual addition made by Marazzi was that if money is no longer a representation of commodity form (gold), then money is reduced to being a mere ‘money-sign’.51 This means that money does not represent the measure of value; rather, it becomes a linguistic sign that indicates a value, standing in for itself. It is then further argued that because money is unpegged from gold, money no longer has the capacity to be a general equivalent against other commodities, since this requires money to take on the commodity form. This also implies that money is no longer a measure of value because it is its ability to act as a commodity that facilitates the capacity for money to act as a measure of value. Yet, Berti et al. insist on understanding that this so-called money-sign is a sign that ultimately represents money-capital and therefore a form that still nonetheless exerts control over labour as an instrument of production of surplus value. So while money is no longer seen as a commodity, this sign nonetheless signifies social power, and therefore has the ability to command labour through its domination over labour in the form of circuit theory. In circuit theory, with money functioning as capital where money (M) is used to open the circuit of commodity (C) production (M-C-M), money both sets the economic circuit in motion, and closes it down with the realization of profit. This is a theory grounded ‘in the concept of money created ex nihilo’ and circulated through wages.52 That is, the capitalists will pay wages with the money that they have borrowed, from banks. These banks borrow that money from the central bank. Money created ‘ex nihilo’ (i.e. ‘out of nothing’) is credit money that is only replaced after the production process takes place. The fraction of this money that

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is profit is the only amount of money that actually becomes valorized because the credit money is replaced by a payment which accounts for the original sum lent. In this dynamic, we do not need money to pre-exist the payment of wages and, therefore, money is created based on the separation of capital and labour. While this reading is true of credit operations in a classical Marxian sense, this reading also attributes this dynamic to the whole of the money form, and not just its appearance as credit. The consequence of this position is that there is no longer a link to the measurability of value and its monetary equivalent, as Marazzi argues. If money is not a commodity, then it is also not a general equivalent. This is because it is money’s commodity form (that is, money’s ability to put other commodity forms in relation to each other through the measure of value, making money, in practice, a medium of circulation) that facilitates money’s nature as a general equivalent.

Capital logic critique For a 1975 conference at the Feltrinelli Foundation, Sergio Bologna and Suzanne de Brunhoff both contributed to the seminar ‘The Marxist Discourse on Money in Light of the Monetary Crisis’.53 This occasion triggered a rare dialogue on the then-current monetary crisis between the Italian Operaismo tradition and more classical Marxian readings. De Brunhoff maintained a commitment to Marxian value form in her reading of money for a paper that was staunchly critical of the theoretical presupposition of ‘money as capital’, as per Berti’s presentation of the working group’s efforts. De Brunhoff countered with a commitment to an understanding of ‘money as money’, as based on the many oversights she had found in the presuppositions used by the group. This presentation was published in issue 6 of Primo Maggio, and was accompanied by a response from Berti. De Brunhoff began by locating the monetary crisis as an acceleration in the rise in prices, and the depreciation of currencies, combined with a weak dollar on exchange markets. These elements converged in 1974, at which point the crisis was identified by a 10 per cent inflation rate in wealthier capitalist countries (bar West Germany). At the same time the dollar came under scrutiny in respect to its function as the ‘currency of currencies’.54 This crisis had prompted two different readings from Marxian theorists: a value form reading, and a class opposition reading with the premise of money as capital. According to De Brunhoff, while these responses are disparate, they are also, nonetheless, based on a common central idea: that, while the monetary crisis tells us something about the specific role of money in capitalist societies, this ‘something’ cannot be uncoupled from the implication that the role of money has in the realm of production. It is De Brunhoff ’s conviction that the point of view of ‘money as capital’ is based on a method that, with the reintegration of concepts used in bourgeois political economy, cannot grasp of the complex and multifaceted nature of money. For De Brunhoff, an understanding of ‘money as capital’ simply misinterprets the role money is really playing. And, in this, such

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an understanding undermines the legitimacy of the implications drawn from this reading – significantly, the working group’s understanding of money as an instrument of command over labour. The key to the disagreement between Berti and de Brunhoff is in their differing positions on that which actually constitutes money. These differing conceptualizations become visible when considering what happens to the relationship between value and labour with the abolition of the gold standard. How would a Marxist analysis deal with the movement from a commodity-money system to a state-credit monetary system? At stake in this are the significant implications of the understanding of the role money plays in relation to production, and the understanding of the political implications of the role of money more generally. In reaction to the elimination of the gold standard, monetary economics has largely developed through the rejection of the relationship developed by Marx between the value of money and money-commodity predicated on the extraction of surplus value from labour.55 This is precisely the line Berti et al. had followed: the replacement of the gold standard by state debt (the American dollar), serving as both a national unit of account and means of circulation, means that there is no longer a commodity represented by labour time working as the link between labour and the accumulation of value. On the other hand, for de Brunhoff, because the role of money as commodity put into place a historical social form, the elimination of the gold standard does not change the formal dynamics of the money form. Since money’s origins are in the gold standard (money as commodity), this brings into being its formal structure that nonetheless continues to define money regardless of whether we continue to use the gold standard or not. In contrast, the position upheld by Berti essentially argues that the elimination of the gold standard has resulted in the complete autonomy of money from the production process allowing money to act as a governing institution. Rather than having been extracted from labour, money exerts command over labour. This not only inverts the dynamic behind the tension between capital and labour, it also abolishes Marx’s labour theory of value. While both sides retain a commitment to analysis of money as playing a role that has a certain form of autonomy, de Brunhoff ’s argument instead holds the position that finance capital functions autonomously only within an immanent relationship to the value form, remaining dependent on the extraction of surplus value from labour. From this point of view, finance, although appearing to be independent from the production process, especially with the destruction of the gold standard, is always still a product of surplus value first extracted from the production process. From Marx’s point of view, any value created by finance itself is purely fictitious, regardless of the income generated through interest. While fictitious capital creates many new forms of income (well articulated by the project of Berti et al.), this should not be confused with autonomy from the production process as production and finance have always existed in relation to one another. Finance is not inherently a capitalist form of economics: it only becomes a part of a capitalist system when operating in relation to a process of production that accumulates value based on the exploitation of labour and therefore extracting

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surplus value from labour. Finance, a form of management of money, when put in relationship to capitalist production, becomes an agent of capitalist production.56 When put in relation with capitalist production, money capital becomes the source of the credit system.57 Interest derived from credit issued to facilitate the growth of the means of production is derived from the profit of production (surplus value). Money capital is the source of credit (fictitious capital) that then derives an income for the owner of money capital through extracting interest from a share of the profits extracted from the production process. Therefore, finance becomes only capitalist when coordinated with the management of money capital in the context of its affiliation with relations of production. Money capital as the source of the credit system in the capital relation causes a split in the form of capitalist accumulation: ‘capital property outside the production process’ and ‘capital in the production process.’58 This results in a division between finance and production (qualitatively different capital incomes). What this means is that although finance might characterize the historically specific mediation of capital, as emphasized by de Brunhoff, ‘this in turn rests on the appropriation of surplus value from the exploitation of wage labour, which, however, is obscured by emergence of different forms of income, for example, interest and profit of enterprise’.59 In contrast, it is Berti’s position that these new forms of income, rather than obscuring how we might understand the problem through generating an appearance that covers up the real relation, directly show, to us, how money functions as capital. De Brunhoff ’s position counters Berti through emphasis on how it is the case that the extraction of surplus value is obscured by these new forms, rather than reflecting directly realist phenomena. Therefore the basic relationship between capital and labour remains at work in the case of these new forms of wage, etc., yet hidden behind these appearances of money as fictitious capital. The theoretical dispute between Berti and de Brunhoff encompasses not only the question of the independence of finance, in the case of renewed social organization of production and consumption, but also the question of changes in monetary governance.60 From a Marxian point of view, it is only if money no longer can be said to be the universal equivalent that labour can be freed from its value form relation, resulting in the accumulation of value as autonomous from labour (and hence the separation of finance from production). It is on this basis that Primo Maggio’s working group claimed money itself became a governing force, rather than a formal mechanism or universal equivalent facilitating the passage of value. This position was informed by passages within the Grundrisse. In these passages, Marx referred to money as a governing force in the form of a ‘topdown revolution’. Here we find the dislocation of labour from value – not from the point of view of workers struggle, but rather from the point of view of the statesupported administrative function of the banks, which subsequently redistribute labour for their own means. In this case money comes to have command over labour. Additionally, to develop the standpoint that money takes command over labour as a governing form, the working group drew heavily from Bologna’s retrieval of Marx’s New York Daily Tribune work. Marx showed how Napoleon

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used the distribution of credit (socialization of credit) as a means to prevent class struggle during the crisis of 1857 through the creation of a bourgeois class; in operative terms, this was done through using credit-money as command over class composition. This was seen by Marx as an operation of socialization, where we find a communism of capital by way of banking credit, or the creation of new money by collaboration between the central bank and the state. Marx, in paying attention to the contradiction inherent in this dynamic, also showed how the distribution of credit led to the co-optation of the working class, through returning them to work during periods of crisis. According to Marazzi, ‘this is what he would develop later in the third book of Capital: the capacity of capital to expand and promote growth thought the forced socialization of credit.’61 This historical analogy became important for the working group on money, especially the institutional dimension that relays the interrelation between the state and the banking system and their role in controlling class composition. Clearly this points to a productive way of understanding how the socialization of credit re-inscribes class relations during times of economic depletion (rather than performing an ultimately emancipatory role). However, focus on this dynamic without its implicit contradiction (money’s stronghold as a commodity form relating to the sphere of production) leaves out the social form upholding this particular mechanism. It is only through relying on a conception of the dollar crisis as a development that excludes the relations of production that Berti can establish a direct link between credit and class struggle. The exclusion of production from the equation presents a one-sided focus that fails to understand why redistribution (i.e. the socialization of credit) cannot ultimately undermine the global persistence of the capital labour relation as social form. Moreover, the exclusion of production from Berti’s hypothesis does not allow us to explain capital when it appears in its monetary form. This form of capital allows for the purchase of labour power as distinct from credit money (a form that is not based on labour but on a relation to the central bank). Such a distinction regards the essence of the forms as being derived from either abstract-labour in the former case, and fictitious capital in the later. The incapacity to generate a meaningful theoretical distinction between these two leads to further problems in the analysis. For example, if we identify credit as money capital, we lose the distinction between money, credit and money capital: three distinct categories that are central to understanding the way in which capital circulates. The specificity of the respective formal roles further lays the ground for the specificity of the labour relation within the larger dynamic of circulation. At the same time, within circulation there are forms that, although reliant on surplus value extracted from labour, are also set apart from labour due to their ability to create ‘fictitious capital’ (capital that does not contain past surplus value but future surplus value extracted from interest) with credit. To ignore these formal distinctions is to also ignore Marx’s critique more generally and to rely on the use of concepts of money used in the tradition of classical economics. Due to their lack of criticality, such classical economic conceptions inevitably inhibit comprehension of the social relationships mediated by money and value forms. De Brunhoff emphasizes that

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cette présentation est confuse. Elle n’explique pas la forme argent du capital, qui permet l’achat de la force de travail, ni la fonction capitaliste de l’argent, qui suppose ‘dans l’acheteur un capitaliste et dans le vendeur un salarie’, c’est-à-dire un rapport de classe.62

What de Brunhoff claims we miss when we identify money with credit is the interworking of the social conditions that allow a use-value to become money; we miss the crux of the Marxist enterprise: to show how commodity production is based on the social validation of labour incorporated in the commodity. This labour put into the creation of the commodity provides the commodity with its social character. And generalized social labour becomes so only when the commodity is sold and is given a price that represents an amount of money. It is this generalness (homogenous social labour), imposed onto the commodity, that makes it exchangeable with money since money represents the general equivalent, or the expression of the relative value that expresses all other values. That is, la monnaie apparait ici comme la merchandise dont la matière exprime la valeur relative de toutes les autres, comme un équivalent général. La vente contre monnaie a le caractère d’une sanction sociale du travail privé.63

And therefore, by abandoning the capital logic understanding of money, the working group also abandons a critical reading of political economy where money as general equivalent is a representative of social relations in the abstract. What de Brunhoff significantly calls for is a re-evaluation of the working group’s conclusions in the light of a capital logic reading that is able to account for the inclusion of production, combined with a critical application of economic categories. The working group’s focus on the management of money by the bank and the state, which offers a truly significant reading of the historical changes in the management of production and consumption on the part of finance, might regain its political charge if interpreted alongside a renewed commitment to the critical categories developed by Marx. An exhaustive account of the role of money within Marx’s critique would make the productive linking of these seemingly disparate sides of Western Marxism possible.

Conclusion Primo Maggio’s theoretical presuppositions ultimately result in a rejection of the interpretation that subjection in capitalist societies occurs in relation to value form. This is a conceptual move that eliminates the Hegelian metaphysical basis of Marx’s critique, and so prompts a realist understanding of monetary functions. However, these theoretical presuppositions also return the political subject to a central position, whereby the individual life engages in practice. The value form tradition often fails to fully grasp or articulate the centrality of practice and politics. This can be attributed to the fact that in the capital logic reading,

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capital accumulation is not primarily understood from the point of view of class struggle, or the political. Rather, capital accumulation is understood from the point of view of social form, as constituted by the value form. In this, we find an emphasis on money as an ‘abstract’ expression of the value substance (and the resulting centrality of commodity exchange), and this largely ignores the social mediations that structure the analysis of value form.64 Such an orientation leaves out the lived implications (such as actions that are effects of structures, or psychological effects and identity-based differences) of the subjects as defined by these forms. The resulting separation of individual life from subjection to form results in an evacuation of the form itself; without the individual subject, form loses its meaning. While there are two quite different understandings of subjectivity and subjection, these two disparate focuses are not mutually exclusive in Marx. It is on the basis of a robust account of the money form that we can provide a central link between the competing perspectives: abstract self-movement of the value form, and the political subject produced in relation to the circulation of credit money. Attention to the range of complexities internal to the money form engenders an ability to retrieve the central insights of both sides. This includes the breadth of analysis of forms of income and work in the context of historically specific financial forms offered by the Operaismo tradition on the one hand, and the ontological foundation carried through in the value form tradition on the other. The synthesis of these two hitherto distinct sides may bring us much closer to an adequate analysis of the complexity of the modes of subjection operating in practice, begetting theoretical tools to re-examine the limitations and possibilities of political subjectivity in the present.

Notes 1

2 3

As we will see, in the Italian context this includes the Operaismo tradition that comes to understand money as a form of political command and linguistic determination, rather than a value form relation (always understood as and or in relation to the commodity form), exemplified most pointedly in the work of Christian Marazzi. The focus on the deregulation of the gold standard, ‘financialization’ and credit more generally (especially since the financial crash of the early twenty-first century) is exemplary of this change in focus, reflected in the works of disparate thinkers working within or surrounding the Marxist tradition, including Wolfgang Streeck, Mark Fisher, David Graeber, Thomas Piketty, Augusto Graziani, David Harvey, Giovanni Arrighi, Costas Lapavitsas and Richard Wolff, to name only a few. This focus is ubiquitous and vastly internally differentiated. See Suzanne De Brunhoff, Marx on Money (London: Verso, 2015). The Italian Operaismo tradition, also referred to as ‘workerism’, is a body of Marxist literature coming out of Italy, largely in rebellion from the standard theoretical line of the Italian communist party. Operaismo, associated with the writings of Mario Tronti and Antonio Negri, reads mid twenty-first-century capitalism in Italy from the point of view of workers’ struggle, where the working class is

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understood as active and capital reactive. The movement set out to read Marx as a tool to understand current conditions leading to establish a ‘post-Marxist’ line of thought. This was especially true of the way in which the literature was developed by subsequent thinkers associated with Autonomia such as in Antonio Negri’s later works and the writings of Maurizio Lazzarato, Paolo Virno, Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi and Christian Marazzi, who broadly rejected the social reality of the labour theory of value for other theories of subjectivation associated with governmentality and linguistics. Far from a unified theory, Operaismo reflects a broader encounter with political and social processes that base themselves on transformation, conflict and dissent as a means to understand the changing nature of capitalism in the postwar period up until the present. A common root to this body of literature is in its specific attention to subjectivity, without construing a unified political subject. See Roberto Nigro, ‘Workerism’, Krisis: Journal for Contemporary Philosophy 2 (2018): 173–5. 4 In 1971 the United States terminated the US dollar’s convertibility into gold and with that ended the Bretton Woods system. The result was that the dollar became fiat currency that nonetheless continued to function as the standard of currency within the global banking system of the West. The Bretton Woods system itself was a system existing on the basis of executing the decline of the gold standard. Since 1933, increasing demonetization of currency was replaced by state debt, which was a trend further imposed by the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement. See de Brunhoff and Foley (2007). 5 Karl Marx, Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy (London: Penguin Classics, 1993), 122. 6 Mario Tronti, Workers and Capital (London: Verso, 1971), 89, 15. 7 The multiple interpretations associated with this movement vary from monetary circuit theory through Tronti’s political ontology (i.e. Workers and Capital), to Negri’s Spinozism. 8 This is a term that, problematically, is often used for the sake of historical periodization, rather than describing a particular labour relation that was specific to certain Western countries, cities and suburbs. 9 Steven Wright, ‘Revolution from Above? Money and Class-Composition in Italian Operaismo’, in Beyond Marx: Theorising the Global Labour Relations of the TwentyFirst Century, ed. Marcel van Der Linden and Karl Heinz Roth (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2014), 369. 10 Sergio Bologna, ‘Workerism Beyond Fordism: On the Lineage of Italian Workerism’, Viewpoint Magazine (2014), https://www.viewpointmag.com/2014/12/15/workerismbeyond-fordism-on-the-lineage-of-italian-workerism/. 11 Bologna, Workerism Beyond Fordism. Classe Operaia and Potere Operaio were the names of the journals containing the output of early workerist literature. 12 Sara R. Farris, ‘Workerism’s Inimical Incursions: On Mario Tronti’s Weberism’, Historical Materialism 19: 3 (2011): 44. 13 Michele Filippini and Emilio Macchia, Leaping Forward: Mario Tronti and the History of Political Workerism (Maastricht: Jan van Eyck Academie/Centro per la riforma dello Stato, 2012), 7. 14 Filippini and Macchia, Leaping Forward, 8. 15 Filippini and Macchia, Leaping Forward, 10. 16 Filippini and Macchia, Leaping Forward, 10. 17 Filippini and Macchia, Leaping Forward, 11.

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18 Stefano Lucarelli, ‘The 1973–1978 Workgroup on Money of the Journal “Primo Maggio”: An Example of Pluralist Critique of Political Economy’, The International Journal of Pluralism and Economics Education 4: 1 (2013): 30–50. 19 Lucarelli, Workgroup, 1. 20 Lucarelli, Workgroup, 1. 21 Riccardo Bellofiore, ‘Suzanne de Brunhoff ’, The Royal Economic Society (2016): https://www.res.org.uk/resources-page/january-2016-newsletter-suzanne-debrunhoff.html. 22 Wright, ‘Revolution from Above?’ 371. 23 This refers to accumulated value containing surplus value, existing in the form of appearance of money that can be used to fund and therefore determine the means of production – and therefore command over labour. 24 See Augusto Graziani, The Theory of the Monetary Circuit (London: Thames Polytechnic, School of Social Sciences, 1989). Monetary circuit theory has been taken up, in recent years, by Riccardo Realfonzo, Guiseppe Fontana and Riccardo Bellofiore as in his 2005 essay ‘The Monetary Aspects of the Capitalist Process in the Marxian System: An Investigation from the Point of View of the Theory of the Monetary Circuit’, in Marx’s Theory of Money, ed. F. Moseley (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 124–39. 25 Augusto Graziani, ‘Let’s Rehabilitate the Theory of Value’, International Journal of Political Economy 27:2 (1983): 22. 26 Bologna, S. ‘Moneta e crisi: Marx corrispondente della New York Daily Tribune, 1856–57’, Primo Maggio 1: 2 (1973). 27 Fictitious capital is the accumulation of more money from money without the mediation of the production process and is created through credit. 28 Berti Lapo, P. Davoli and E. L. Rustichelli, ‘Marx, Money and Capital: Interview with Lapo Berti, economist, writer for the magazine “Primo Maggio”.’ (Creative Commons: Rizofera, 2016). 29 Lucarelli, Workgroup, 5. 30 See Wright, Revolution from Above? 371. 31 Wright, Revolution from Above? 371. 32 Guido Baldi, ‘Theses on Mass Worker and Social Capital’, Radical America 6: 3 (1972): 11. 33 Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Labor of Dionysus: A Critique of the State Form (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1994). 34 Hardt and Negri, Labor of Dionysus, 44. 35 See Wright, Revolution from Above? 381. 36 Wright, Revolution from Above? 381. 37 Lapo Berti, ‘Denaro come Capitale’, Primo Maggio 3: 4 (1974): 9. 38 Berti, Denaro come Capitale, 9. 39 Berti, Marx, Money and Capital, 18. 40 Berti, Marx, Money and Capital, 19. 41 Wright, Revolution from Above? 382. 42 Wright, Revolution from Above? 382. Berti is quoted by Wright here. 43 Berti, Denaro come Capitale, 9–18. 44 Berti, Marx, Money and Capital, 19. 45 Lucarelli, Workgroup, 36. 46 Capital, when understood as reproducing itself on the basis of the movement of the value form (and therefore the labour theory of value), is understood to circulate ‘automatically’, imposing its movement on human bearers of the form.

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47 Berti, Marx, Money and Capital, 20. 48 Berti, Marx, Money and Capital, 21. 49 Wright, Revolution from Above? 382. 50 Wright, Revolution from Above? 382. 51 Christian Marazzi, ‘Money and Financial Capital’, Theory, Culture & Society 32:7/8 (2015): 43. 52 Marazzi, Money and Financial Capital, 43. 53 Berti, Marx, Money and Capital, 22. 54 Suzanne De Brunhoff, Les Rapports d’Argent (Grenoble: Presses Universitaires de Grenoble, 1979). 55 De Brunhoff, Rapports d’Argent, 202. 56 In just the same way that money has multiple histories, one capitalist and others which are non-capitalist, so too does finance. 57 De Brunhoff, Alternative Monetary Economics, 199. 58 Marx, Capital Volume III, 375. 59 De Brunhoff, Alternative Monetary Economics, 199–200. 60 The elimination of the gold standard brought with it other forms of institutional deregulation and the way in which production was financed vastly changed; there is an increasing internationalization of productive relations as well as an increasing amount of fictitious capital controlled by banks and bankers, essentially giving the banking system heightened institutional control over the financing of production and property ownership. This change is also a result of technological development surrounding the way in which money is invested, traded and lent through speculation. 61 Marazzi, Money and Financial Capital, 41. 62 De Brunhoff, Rapports d’Argent, 186; in English: ‘The presentation [of ideas] here is confused. It explains neither capital in its money form – which enables the purchase of labour power – nor the capitalist function of money, which supposes “the buyer as a capitalist and the seller as a wage-earner”; that is to say a class relationship.’ 63 De Brunhoff, Les Rapports d’Argent, 186; in English: ‘Money appears here as a commodity whose material expresses the relative value of all other values as a general equivalent. The sale of a commodity for money has the nature of a social sanctioning of private labour.’ 64 Alfredo Saad-Filho, The Value of Marx (London: Routledge, 2001), 29.

References Baldi, Guido. ‘Theses on Mass Worker and Social Capital’. Radical America 6:3 (1972): 3–21. Bellofiore, Riccardo. ‘The Monetary Aspects of the Capitalist Process in the Marxian System: An Investigation from the Point of View of the Theory of the Monetary Circuit’. In Marx’s Theory of Money, edited by F. Moseley, 124–39. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Bellofiore, Riccardo. ‘Marx after Hegel: Capital as Totality and the Centrality of Production’. Crisis & Critique 3:3 (2016): 31–64. Bellofiore, Riccardo. ‘Suzanne de Brunhoff ’. The Royal Economic Society (2016). https:// www.res.org.uk/resources-page/january-2016-newsletter-suzanne-de-brunhoff.html.

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Berti, Lapo. ‘Denaro come Capitale’. Primo Maggio 3:4 (1974): 9–18. Berti, Lapo. ‘Risposta a Suzanne de Brunhoff ’. Primo Maggio 6 (1975): 39–45. Berti, Lapo, P. P. Davoli and E. L. Rustichelli. ‘Marx, Money and Capital: Interview with Lapo Berti, economist, writer for the magazine “Primo Maggio”’. Creative Commons: Rizofera, 2016. Bologna, Sergio. ‘Moneta e crisi: Marx corrispondente della New York Daily Tribune, 1856–57’. Primo Maggio 1 (1973): 1–15. For an English translation, see Bologna, Sergio: ‘Money and Crisis: Marx as Correspondent of the New York Daily Tribune, 1856–57’. Common Sense 13 (1993): 29–53. Bologna, Sergio. ‘Workerism Beyond Fordism: On the Lineage of Italian Workerism’. Viewpoint Magazine (2014). https://www.viewpointmag.com/2014/12/15/workerismbeyond-fordism-on-the-lineage-of-italian-workerism/. De Brunhoff, Suzanne. ‘Punti di vista marxisti sulla crisi monetaria’. Primo Maggio 6 (1978): 47–51. De Brunhoff, Suzanne. The State, Capital and Economic Policy. London: Pluto Press, 1978. De Brunhoff, Suzanne. Les Rapports d’Argent. Grenoble: Presses Universitaires de Grenoble, 1979. De Brunhoff, Suzanne. ‘Marx’s Contribution to the Search for a Theory of Money’. In Marx’s Theory of Money: Modern Appraisals, edited by F. Moseley, 209–21. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. De Brunhoff, Suzanne. Marx on Money. London: Verso, 2015. De Brunhoff, Suzanne and Duncan Foley. ‘Karl Marx’s Theory of Money and Credit’. In A Handbook of Alternative Monetary Economics, edited by Philip Arestis and Malcolm Sawyer, 188–204. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2007. Farris, Sara R. ‘Workerism’s Inimical Incursions: On Mario Tronti’s Weberism’. Historical Materialism 19:3 (2011): 29–62. Filippini, Michele and Emilio Macchia. Leaping Forward. Mario Tronti and the history of political workerism. Maastricht: Jan van Eyck Academie/Centro per la riforma dello Stato, 2012. Filippini, Michele and N. Boyd. The Autonomy of the Political: Concept, Theory, Form. Maastricht: Jan can Eyck Academie, 2012. Graziani, Augusto. ‘Let’s Rehabilitate the Theory of Value’. International Journal of Political Economy 27:2 (1983): 21–5. Graziani, Augusto. The Theory of the Monetary Circuit. London: Thames Polytechnic, School of Social Sciences, 1989. Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. Labor of Dionysus: A Critique of the State Form. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1994. Lucarelli, Stefano. ‘The 1973–1978 Workgroup on Money of the Journal “Primo Maggio”: An Example of Pluralist Critique of Political Economy’. The International Journal of Pluralism and Economics Education 4:1 (2013): 30–50. Marazzi, Christian. ‘Money and Financial Capital’. Theory, Culture & Society 32:7/8 (2015): 39–50. Marx, Karl. A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. New York: New World Paperbacks, 1970. Marx, Karl. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Volume One. New York: Penguin Books, 1990. Marx, Karl. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Volume Two. New York: Penguin Books, 1993.

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Marx, Karl. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Volume Three. New York: Penguin Books, 1991. Marx, Karl. Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy. London: Penguin Classics, 1993. Nigro, Roberto. ‘Workerism’. Krisis: Journal for Contemporary Philosophy 2 (2018): 173–5. Saad-Filho, Alfredo. The Value of Marx. London: Routledge, 2001. Tronti, Mario. Workers and Capital. London: Verso, 2019. Wright, Steven. ‘Revolution from Above? Money and Class-Composition in Italian Operaismo’. In Beyond Marx: Theorising the Global Labour Relations of the TwentyFirst Century, edited by Marcel van der Linden and Karl Heinz Roth, 369–94. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2014.

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Chapter 12 ‘I L F AU T C O N T I N U E R ’ : A LWAYS - O N C A P I TA L I SM AND SUBJECTIVITY Alexei Penzin

1 In a number of recent publications, and conference talks, I have proposed the term ‘always-on capitalism’ to contribute to the debates on the contemporary condition,  commonly referred to as ‘24/7’.1 This widely accepted numerical acronym introduces an idea of a socio-economic continuum that operates smoothly and  incessantly, twenty-four hours a day, and seven days a week. The essential feature of 24/7 regime is not difficult to summarize as an uninterrupted continuity of production, exchange, consumption, communication and surveillance. The  social and technological infrastructure of 24/7 includes the Internet, social media, ‘incessant social organizations’ and digital platforms providing various services, consumptive and leisure activities, nonstop global electronic trade, as well as control and ‘security’.2 However, 24/7 seems too neutral and technical term, since it is one that presents the social reality to which it refers uncritically – as something natural, technologically advanced and opening new opportunities.3 Of course, this condition may have some positive side effects, such as a continuous access to knowledge through online resources and platforms – even ‘off-line’ university libraries now want to be 24/7. At the same time, and far more devastatingly this condition creates new avenues for an almost unrestricted accumulation of capital, as manifested in an extreme violation of all anthropological limits of psychical and physical ability to withstand the exposure to incessant activities, and new forms of exploitation and exhaustion of workers.4 The term ‘always-on capitalism’ or, in its shorter variant, ‘the always-on’ is not just a reference to a permanent connectivity and ‘plugged-in-ness’ that is typical of contemporary technologies.5 It is also a reference to the way in which contemporary capitalism imposes the always-on continuities of production, exchange, consumption, communication, surveillance and algorithmic digital activity all over the globe. These multiple continuities are heterogeneous and of different scales: large and small, microscopic and macroscopic; they are embedded in various socio-economic, political and technological processes. Since this

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empirical diversity persists, it would be appropriate to explore a general model or a continuity-form that can be abstracted from the contents it shapes and modulates. The growing awareness of this formal dimension of continuity has become a subject of research in recent years. For example, the authors of a special issue of the journal Theory, Culture & Society, focused on topological aspects of contemporary culture, also single out this aspect of continuity. They see the proliferation of continuity’s forms as a growing trend, to the extent that they feel emboldened to make an ‘epochal claim’ about ‘a new order of spatio-temporal continuity for forms of economic, political and cultural life today’.6 However, the authors mostly discuss the implications for new computational and informational architecture, and decline to substantially explore the theoretical link between this ‘order’ and the social form of contemporary capitalism. Perhaps the best known work in critical theory that addresses this link, so far, is 24/7: Late Capitalism and Ends of Sleep by the North American art historian Jonathan Crary.7 The book presents a convincing diagnosis of a contemporary predicament, supported by many arresting examples of the devastating effects of the nonstop social universe of late capitalism driven by the new digital technologies. Crary’s work mentions a number of classical figures belonging to philosophical and critical-theoretical fields, ranging from Hobbes and Descartes to Marx and Hanna Arendt, Emmanuel Levinas, as well as Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault. But the author limits his scope by providing only brief comments on the ideas picked up from different époques, stretching from early modernity to contemporaneity. Though these miniature accounts contain illuminating points and references, some of these accounts are based on simplifications, even to levels of misreadings. One example: in several paragraphs about Emmanuel Levinas’s philosophical understanding of insomnia, Crary ignores, crucially, the difference between Levinas’s early (negative and radical) understanding of insomnia as an expression of a global and horrifying ‘ontological insomnia’, and his late use of insomnia (as a metaphor for ethical vigilance).8 Elsewhere, Crary does mention, in passing, a ‘principle of continuous functioning’ – that is, one of the main concerns of the present chapter – albeit without much further theoretical reflection on this theme. And, in linguistic proximity to the always-on, Crary mentions ‘a switchedon universe for which no off-switch exists’.9 Whilst acknowledging all significant aspects of Crary’s book, one has to emphasize that it ultimately fails to construct a systematic – critical and theoretical – genealogy of 24/7. To grasp the dimension of the capitalist always-on that dominates contemporary forms of life, one has to focus primarily on one specific philosophical question. This question can be formulated as the following: how did the form of continuous activity become the dominant paradigm in contemporary capitalism, and what kind of subject does this form presuppose? In this chapter I want to extend my research through the outlining of a hypothesis about the subjective dimension of the alwayson. But first I would like to recapitulate several theoretical hypotheses related to always-on capitalism and to another term, ‘continuity-form’. Both these terms are proposed in order to emphasize a violent imposition of specific socio-economic condition that, subjectively, appears as an imperative or command to continue, to ‘go on’, incessantly.10

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2 My first hypothesis in respect to the always-on draws on a philosophical reading of continuity as a non-teleological form of the social, economic, political and cultural processes within contemporary capitalism. The classical Marxist tradition usually mounts an enquiry into a possible scenario of the end of capitalist social formation – understood as a revolutionary transition to communism which is seen, dialectically, as a beginning of an authentic human history. However, in recent decades, after the collapse of the socialist experiments of the twentieth century, the end of capitalism is imagined in less utopian, inspiring ways than before, ranging from explosive, unpredictable technological acceleration, random catastrophes and ecological disaster, to more sober debates about the opportunities for a renewal of radical politics.11 Before asking such questions regarding the end of capitalism, it would be better to investigate the ‘no ends’ of capitalism’s contemporary continuities. My first hypothesis considers these continuities not only as an empirical reality of contemporary ‘24/7 societies’ but also as a substantial dimension of capitalist modernity in its entirety. It would be more precise to argue that this continuity – as a structural element of the capitalist mode of production – was rather rendered fully visible in the monotonous, non-teleological sequence that unfolded after the collapse of communist alternatives of the twentieth century. This period has been widely identified as that of the so-called end of history. The ‘end of history’ was, originally, a provocative hypothesis developed in the 1930s by the Russian-French philosopher Alexandre Kojève. This identification, in fact – in a manuscript written at the outbreak of the Second World War (i.e. after his famous lectures on Hegel’s Phenomenology, given in the 1930s at École Pratique des Hautes Études) – quite explicitly conceived this idea by way of advancing universal communism.12 However, in a footnote that can be found in his wellknown Introduction to the Reading of Hegel, published after the Second World War, Kojève also hints at an understanding of communism, in Marx, as the actual or proper end of history: Let us recall that this Hegelian theme, among many others, was taken up by Marx. History properly so-called, in which men (‘classes’) fight among themselves for recognition and fight against Nature by work, is called in Marx ‘Realm of necessity’ (Reich der Notwendigkeit); beyond (jenseits) is situated the ‘Realm of freedom’ (Reich der Freiheit), in which men (mutually recognizing one another without reservation) no longer fight, and work as little as possible (Nature having been definitively mastered – that is, harmonized with Man).13

For Kojève, who derived the idea of the end of history from his highly original reading of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, the main argument for this hypothesis is that ‘absolute Knowledge, which reveals the totality of Being, can be realized only at the end of History, in the last World created by Man’.14 This ‘last World’ would be marked by a ‘circularity’ of knowledge and modes of action: at the end of history, everything that can be said and done has already been said and done, and can be only repeated.15

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In debates concerning Hegel’s legacy, revived in recent decades, Kojève’s ‘circularity’ has a much more intense resonance than only being a dull and monotonous state after the presumed end of the historical-dialectical process.16 In his reading of Hegel, as developed in a number of his recent books, Slavoj Žižek argues that the circularity is immanent to dialectical processes. Hegel’s ‘Spirit’ is not an unattainable ‘One’ of a supreme totality, and not covered even by the Maoist slogan of ‘one divided into two’ but, rather, presents a paradoxical case of ‘two divided into one’, meaning that the two shape a contradiction intrinsic to the One.17 As Žižek argues, the Hegelian Spirit constitutes itself retroactively and is subject to a series of contingencies and inconsistencies. This process of constitution is retroactive: it is not an unfolding of the predetermined One, but the One’s erratic self-formation through the very process of division. In this, past moments shape the terrain of the present while the present acts upon these past moments, and shapes them in turn by making them recognizable and cognisable. Žižek compares this circularity between past and present moments with the Möbius strip – the well-known ring-like topological figure, which has only one side, and allows endless circular movement along its surface.18 He notes that ‘[i]t is thus only by way of fully accepting this abyssal circularity in which the search itself creates what it is looking for, that the Spirit “finds itself ”’.19 Whatever strains of idealization would seem to be present in Kojève’s ‘totality of Being’ in the light of new materialist debates, this totality is not something monolithic for him. Kojève’s ‘end of history’ involves the logic of retroactivity, more than half of a century earlier than the debates of the last decades. Indeed, for Kojève, the end of history has already begun to happen, but can only be recognized retroactively. According to Kojève, the end of history began at the time of the completion of Hegel’s Phenomenology in 1806, and the post-revolutionary rise of the Napoleon’s Empire, is therefore seen as a prototype of the post-historical ‘universal and homogeneous State’.20 However, for my hypothesis, as discussed here, the circularity, dialectically implicated in Kojève’s idea of ‘end of history’, is important not only as synonymous with retroactivity but also for its aspect of a continuous, non-teleological process. It is as if this circularity was indeed running along the surface of a Möbius strip – as if devoid of any goal except that of its own, quantitatively measured, continuation. Kojève’s understanding of the end of history has several other facets and so would require a longer engagement than that provided here. In a second edition of his lectures on Hegel, first published in 1962, Kojève revised and amended his footnote on the end of history. The footnote became far more conservative in its conceptions, identifying the post-historical paradigm with specific – American or Japanese – forms of life, which were de facto subsumed to capitalism in various historical ways.21 Ironically – with respect to Kojève’s earlier enthusiasm about communism – under the hegemonic neoliberalism of the 1990s, all alternatives to the capitalist order were considered definitive failures by mainstream politics and ideology, and liberal-democratic institutional and ideological frameworks became the very embodiment of the ‘end of history’. For the time being, I will place to one side a number of well-argued challenges to the idea of ‘end of history’ in order to

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suggest another reading, and indicate this reading’s relevance to a critical theory of always-on capitalism.

3 Paolo Virno presented perhaps the most original and well-articulated critique, and constructive rethinking, of Kojève’s concept in his book The Memory of the Present, first published in 1999.22 For Virno, the end of history appears not so much an ‘end’ but, rather, an opening of a ‘hyper-history’. This opening promises the emergence of a fundamentally new situation, in which the condition of possibility of history ceases to be hidden and becomes a part of actual history. Virno specifies that this opening marks the moment when historicity, potentiality and the other fundamental traits of human being that make possible the process of history become observable – like a root that has risen to the surface. As Virno notes: the ‘end of history’ is an idea, or state of mind, that arises precisely when the very condition of possibility of history comes into view; when the root of all historical activity is cast out onto the surface of historical becoming, and is evident as a phenomenon; when the historicity of experience is itself also manifested historically.23

According to the well-known claim advanced by Virno and other thinkers of the Italian post-Operaism (or Neo-Operaism), the contemporary form of capitalism extracts economic value from life in its entirety – that is, from life’s mental, affective, linguistic, performative and other elements, which constitute ‘human nature’ – and thus effectively makes this ‘root of all historical activity’ the vital part of actual production processes.24 One can disagree with this position, however: this point seems to presume that contemporary capitalism perfectly corresponds to ‘human nature’ (as it ‘puts to work’ this very nature) – and this position is, in a way, not so different from being a flipside of the neoliberal argument that presents the marketdriven society as something ‘natural’ to humans, i.e. corresponding to their ‘nature’. Moreover, from my perspective, always-on capitalism requires subjects whose capacity to endure exposure to continuous activities exceeds ‘human nature’, and thus always-on capitalism puts real human beings in a permanent and agonising crisis, with their ‘human nature’ besieged. Indeed, putting life to work creates a wide and widening space of universalized procrastination – a vast limbo, which is neither a properly creative, nor at least productive, work phase, in whatever sense – nor, even, a fulfilling leisure phase.25 At the same time, and in agreement with the general approach of Virno’s argument, one can argue that the continuity-form which was the fundamental, albeit implicit, condition of capitalist modernity becomes visible at this very moment: when ‘the very condition of possibility of history comes into view’ – at the empirical surface of the always-on social regime. In this sense, the monotonous formal continuity, purged of teleology, of being always-on, accurately reflects

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the current historical and ontological state of affairs. Kojève’s hypothesis, if we abstract this idea itself from its presumed political allegiances (be that communist or neoliberal), suggests the emergence of a post-historical continuity, with no end and no goal, since the end has already been eliminated. For this reading of Kojève it is more productive to emphasize one neglected aspect of Kojève’s hypothesis of the post-historical existence – the one which preoccupies me here – of a non-teleological sequence or ‘circularity’, structurally ‘without end’: a pure form of continuity, imposed upon society.26 According to this reading, Kojève’s paradoxical ‘circularity’ would be, rather, a new form of deactivation of the teleological dispositive (or dispositif, to use Foucault’s term here) embedded in European philosophy and theology. In contradistinction to the dispositif of historical teleology that captures any continuous activity or process into a presumed goal or outcome, the dispositif of pure continuity, which became visible on the ruins of ‘real socialism’, now subordinates any goal to an unfolding of incessant processes. Of course, once governed by this dispositif, concrete productive and reproductive processes have their specific goals and outcomes, but their general teleological horizon is devoid of any meaningful content, except of that formal imperative to ‘go on’. Boris Groys provides an insightful observation on this new dispositif with respect to art, in a recent book, In the Flow: Our real social, political, and technical programmes are oriented towards achieving a certain goal – and they are judged according to their efficiency or ability to achieve this goal. Art programmes and machines, however, are not teleologically oriented. They have no definite goal; they simply go on and on. At the same time, these programmes include the possibility of being interrupted at any moment without losing their integrity. […] Such an [non-teleological] action is conceived from the beginning as having no specific ending – unlike an action that ends when its goal is achieved. Thus artistic action becomes infinitely continuable and/or repeatable.27

In terms of the perspective outlined here, contemporary art, as an assemblage of the most advanced and anticipatory ‘machines’ of the capitalist culture, perfectly exemplifies the dispositif of continuity. According to Groys, ‘materialist theory’ makes us aware of our own finitude. This in turn provokes a sense of urgency and hectic activity, which is not ‘teleologically oriented’ because of our lack of time.28 Although Groys refers to a ‘materialist theory’ he links the non-teleological character of the artistic performance to the existential theme of human finitude and lack of time rather than with the ontological pressures of the capitalist continuity-form. As Groys pointedly notes, in updating his analysis by extending his observations to the field of the political, the contemporary forms of resistance and struggle – such as temporary and sometimes contingent occupations of public spaces – are quite similar to contemporary art practices, exactly because of their non-teleological character. These occupations can be stopped

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or interrupted at any moment. And yet, because they are not ‘teleologically oriented’, their temporary closures cannot be qualified as their defeats.29 This insightful parallel creates an important link between the continuity-form and its political and social repercussions. Similarly to Groys, Judith Butler defended the ‘episodic’ character of the movement that had no clearly identifiable goals derived from a specific list of demands but, rather, presented a case for a corporeal and performative alliance of the protesters: ‘if Occupy is episodic, then its target is not known in advance.’30 At this point, Butler had been considering Occupy as an opening of a new type of radical politics – one that flashes and then disappears, only to emerge at another spot, by way of an open-ended continuity of the episodic struggles. Instead of a mobilizing teleology, the episodic continuity of contemporary political movements has been considered by Butler similarly, as a sign of its efficiency, not of its defeat. Whatever value these debates may now retain, some years beyond the moment of Occupy, they are indicative of the political resonances of the continuity-form.

4 Contemporary always-on capitalism is fraught with political antagonisms, wars, infrastructural disruptions, and various states of emergency (or, states of exception). One has to recall here Walter Benjamin’s famous claim, made in On the Concept of History, that ‘[t]he tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the “state of emergency” in which we live is not the exception but the rule’.31 Recently Giorgio Agamben has theoretically enhanced this claim, arguing that the state of exception has now become permanent or continuous.32 For Agamben, the contemporary global state of exception presents an outcome of an autonomous political-theological sequence that unfolds from Classical Antiquity, independently from specific socio-historical formations. According to the well-known thesis of Agamben, the division of two types of life – one personal-biographic (bios) and another impersonal-vegetative (zoe) – had been introduced already in the Greek polis and then justified in philosophy and theology since Aristotle. Life as bios, a biographical life of an individual, had been a part of political and public life from Classical Antiquity. Only in modernity, life as zoe, i.e. impersonal-vegetative aspects of human corporeal existence, enters the field of politics, and creates a new, biopolitical condition. The state of exception, which originally meant a temporary suspension of law in situations of war, plague or disaster, gradually becomes permanent or indefinitely continuous since it facilitates the capture of entire human life into the tenets of biopolitical control. As Agamben notes, the state of exception is ‘the original structure in which law encompasses living beings by means of its own suspension’.33 From the perspective of the hypothesis of continuity-form, a different genealogy of the contemporary state of exception can be glimpsed at this juncture. This genealogy is closer to Michel Foucault’s position, which – in contradistinction to Agamben – materialistically admits that historically specific epistemic forms

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are predicated on their biopolitical preconditions.34 From this perspective, the situation of continuous state of exception is the outcome of an on-going and allembracing ‘continualization’ at work, in modern and contemporary capitalism. Even the juridical matrix, i.e. historically specific forms of law, can be related to the metamorphosis of capitalist value form, as the prominent Soviet theorist Evgeny Pashukanis first argued in the 1920s, followed by other Marxist legal theorists.35 If the process of value metamorphosis cannot be suspended and has to be incessant, this means that the juridical discourse and its applications are rendered, accordingly, in ways that adjust to dominant capitalist forms. The fluidity of contemporary legislation – its permanent editing, new incidents of ‘temporary’ or exceptional measures (including those which suspend basic human rights) – is predicated on the continuity-form of contemporary capitalism. At the same time, even that which is ‘urgent’ or ‘extraordinary’ – that which usually accompanies such states – is trivialized, today, by the continuous flow of media reports, corrections and updates that render all event-like ruptures in neutralized forms, or as ‘dead’ sequences and bits of abstract information and images. Remarkably, Agamben’s rethinking of Walter Benjamin’s legacy also includes another aspect related to the question of continuity – in his reading of ‘Capitalism as Religion’, a thought-provoking fragment from 1921.36 According to Benjamin’s fragment, the Christian doctrines were secretly germinating embryos of later capitalist practices, as a sort of a ‘parasite’ hidden within their sacramental, scriptural and liturgical corpus. Benjamin argues that religion is not simply one of the conditions of capitalism (as with Protestantism, according to the famous thesis of Max Weber, who argued that Protestant ethics is a precondition for the entrepreneurial ‘spirit’ of capitalism); capitalism is a religion itself. In his text Benjamin claims that capitalism is a purely practical cult – without any doctrinal element, except for some parodic resemblance to Paganism. However, in noting the importance and originality of Benjamin’s ideas, and providing his own interpretation of them (in terms of sacralization and ‘profanation’ as two opposite operations, and their contemporary collapse), Agamben somewhat neglects an important aspect of Benjamin’s argument. One of the key features of the cultic practice of capitalism for Benjamin is its ‘permanent duration’. According to Rodney Livingston’s translation, ‘[t]here is no day that is not a feast day, in the terrible sense that all its sacred pomp is unfolded before us.’37 Capitalism-as-cult thus functions as bypassing the distinction between workdays and holidays, in the sense of its nonstop ‘sacred pomp’ and ‘worship’ – that is, the incessant activity of capital itself. Although Benjamin does not provide any explanation of the ‘permanent duration’ of capitalist cult – which can be derived from Marx’s concepts of political economy, as I will argue shortly – his insights remain far-reaching. By the early 1920s Benjamin had already prefigured the limbo of the merging of work and leisure time in late capitalism. But, even more than this, for Benjamin the ‘permanent duration’ points towards a more fundamental continuity, as necessary for capitalist production.38 However, in a recent essay (and one that bears the same title as the Benjamin’s fragment) – and, again, with a different interpretative framework, which draws on the theological underpinnings of the notion of credit – Agamben notes: ‘Capitalism

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has no telos; it is essentially infinite yet precisely for this reason, incessantly in prey of crisis, always in the act of ending.’39 This never-ending ending – a bad infinity without end or telos – highlights another subtle facet of the capitalist continuity. This formulation – although being based on the notion of messianic time of ‘ending’ – provides a further insight into the idea derived from Kojève’s philosophical oeuvre: continuity without telos.40

5 At this point, and to advance to our second hypothesis, a crucial question has to be asked. What would constitute a historical and theoretical genealogy of contemporary capitalism’s empirically massive, obsessive continuities? At the centre of my argument here will be the nearly unnoticed discussion of continuity as a condition of capitalist production in several politico-economical works by Karl Marx. In his late works on political economy, Marx uses the word ‘continuity’ (Kontinuität) with a quite significant emphasis, especially in Capital, and other texts related to this fundamental project. In the second volume of Capital, Marx notes that ‘continuity is the characteristic feature of capitalist production and is required by its technical basis even if it is not always completely attainable’.41 By ‘technical basis’, Marx means the factory’s machinery – which, ideally, should run without interruption, in order to continue producing value. The notion of continuity is elaborated at greater length in Marx’s earlier draft of Capital, the Grundrisse, which was completed in 1858 and published posthumously only in 1939, in the USSR. The noun Kontinuität and the adjective kontinuierlich are used frequently in the Grundrisse, especially in the manuscript sections containing the short subchapters ‘Continuity of production presupposes suspension of circulation time’42 and ‘Fixed capital and continuity of the production process. Machinery and living labor’.43 In these texts, Marx systematically stresses the importance of ‘the continuity of production processes’ in their capitalist modes, and outlines three aspects of this continuity.44 The first two aspects of this continuity are found in the production process and circulation of capital, and they extend and enrich the notes on the continuity of production that briefly surface in the second volume of Capital. Marx’s argument, however, is more nuanced in the Grundrisse, where he claims that the continuity of production belongs to the very ‘concept of capital’ and can be an ‘externally compelling condition’ in which the reorganization of fixed capital or machinery plays a key role: Hence the continuity of production becomes an external necessity for capital with the development of that portion of it which is determined as fixed capital. For circulating capital, an interruption, if it does not last so long as to ruin its use value, is only an interruption in the creation of surplus value. But with fixed capital, the interruption, in so far as in the meantime its use value is necessarily destroyed relatively unproductively, i.e., without replacing itself as value, is the

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destruction of its original value itself. Hence the continuity of the production process which corresponds to the concept of capital is posited as conditio sine qua [non] for its maintenance only with the development of fixed capital; hence likewise the continuity and the constant growth of consumption.45

Elsewhere in the Grundrisse, Marx makes the same claim more abstractly, presenting it as the value form’s constant metamorphosis: The constant continuity of the process, the unobstructed and fluid transition of value from one form into the other, or from one phase of the process into the next, appears as a fundamental condition for production based on capital to a much greater degree than for all earlier forms of production.46

Therefore, continuity is specific to capitalist production itself, in Marx’s conception, critically distinguishing capitalist production from pre-modern, feudal and ancient social-economic formations. This feature of continuity has, as can be expected, now intensified, as the role of machinery in the production of value, including the information-processing technologies and the Internet, has become incommensurably more important. As machinery has been increasingly automated and less dependent on living labour – with the human body’s ‘natural’ anthropological limitations, causing breakdowns and interruptions in the continuous production process – continuity has the potential to emerge in its purest form. At this point it is possible to note post-Operaist readings of Marx’s so-called Fragment on Machines.47 This fragment was central for the thinkers of the Italian Autonomia, and partly overlaps with the sections of the Grundrisse noted above. This proximity is important since the Fragment also constructs its argument drawing on the premise of the growing importance of fixed capital, i.e. machinery, and, consequently, of scientific knowledge and the ‘general intellect’. Not having space to engage into further debate here, I only allow myself to note that the postOperaist reading overlooks the question and concept of Kontinuität. For example, in his reading of the Grundrisse, Antonio Negri briefly mentions ‘the continuity of value’ which ‘exercises its reign and, with it, the continuity of command’ and quotes the passage of Marx about ‘constant continuity of the process [of production]’.48 But Negri’s reading, preoccupied with other questions, never dwells on those points strategically. At the same time, contemporary value theorists who contest this reading are also neglecting this concept. In general, their critical interpretations argue that the position of this fragment is exceptional, rather in a bad way, with respect to Marx’s other mature writings on political economy. However, as we noted, the theme of continuity is present not only in the Grundrisse but also in Capital, which makes it appear as a more systematic and not an exceptional term.49 Marx’s third discussion of continuity in the Grundrisse is no less important. This discussion deals with credit, whose main function is to maintain the continuity by making money available to production processes: It thus appears as a matter of chance for production based on capital whether or not its essential condition, the continuity of the different processes which

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constitute its process as a whole, is actually brought about. The suspension of this chance element by capital itself is credit.50

Marx goes on to argue that continuity is also essential to capitalist production with respect to credit. In earlier modes of production, there was no true credit system, although acts of lending and borrowing, and the practice of usury, were exercised as primordial, ‘antediluvian forms of capital’.51 The simple acts of lending and borrowing do not amount to credit, however. In capitalist production, credit is necessary to the system since it secures the continuity of production and avoids all interruptions and contingences in the process of value metamorphosis.52 This aspect of Marx’s reflections on continuity sheds light on contemporary always-on capitalism which, from this perspective, can now be seen to have emerged historically as the solution, it would seem – and a temporary solution, at that – to the problem of continuity. Capitalist continuity-form has been constantly threatened by crisis, economic uncertainty, contingency, and other disruptive factors. These factors can be significantly reduced by multiplying financial instruments, meant to facilitate the smooth, incessant metamorphosis of value. But it also would seem that the role of pure chance in contemporary capitalism has been amplified by a strong speculative trend that can generate profits in one part of the globe while causing havoc and discontinuity in another. Perhaps we should identify this systemic continuity, or continuity-form as contemporary capitalism’s necessary condition, and one which, as Marx says, is ‘not always completely attainable’.53 That is: we should regard continuity-form as a hegemonic tendency, while admitting there are local displacements of continuity, caused by contingency, inevitable contradictions and speculative games. One can identify a symptom of the impossibility in achieving (so far at least) the ‘complete attainability’ of the ideal continuity-form. This symptom is that the striving is excessively symbolized – in the geometrical forms of countless graphs, curves, diagrams of economic growth and decline, market indexes and so on. Marx’s later interest in the calculation of infinitesimals, expressed in his baroque Mathematical Manuscripts, arguably points to his preoccupation with the task of formalising capitalist continuum.54

6 We now move beyond today’s damaging pressures of always-on capitalism and its discussion within Marx’s works, in order to address our third hypothesis. This hypothesis assumes that the theoretical link between subjectivity and capitalist continuity can be established if we delve into the period preceding Marx’s philosophical and political-economic works. For this, one can track the foundational debates on subjectivity and continuity back to the debates in philosophy of the seventeenth century, in predications or anticipations of the coming capitalist modernity.

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Since the early 1970s, several important Marxist interpretations of this historic period, by thinkers such as Balibar, Negri and Elster, emphasized connections between the emergent dynamics of capitalism and many aspects of seventeenth century philosophical thought. These aspects and connections include Locke’s concepts of ‘personal identity’, property and appropriation, Descartes’s cogito and its separation from the world (as reflecting the crisis caused by the imposition of the bourgeois State-Form on early modern society), and Leibniz’s ‘pre-established harmony’, as linked to the impersonal modality of emergent capitalist power. They also included important structural analogies between the understanding of divine creative acts in the philosophical theology of seventeenth century, and early capitalist entrepreneurial activity governed by the imperative of maximizing profits.55 Yet even in these innovative studies, the continuity of consciousness or thinking has not been related to Marx’s concept of continuity as necessary condition of emergent capitalist production. There are many instances, in the source texts, indicating the possibility of just such relations. The concept of ‘personal identity’ in John Locke – and, perhaps, the very invention of the crucial concept of consciousness – could lend to the idea of continuity of the (to use here Hannah Arendt’s later expression) ‘life of mind’.56 Thus continuity becomes an essential characteristic of consciousness and mental life. Even prior to Locke, Descartes’s cogito (that the grounding certainty of the very act of ‘I think’) bases itself on the idea that ‘the soul always thinks’. For Descartes, despite the illusions of the very opposite to thinking (brought about by fainting, sleeping, or lapses of memory), the ‘thinking substance’ cannot but think, and all the time, since this substance has only one attribute – to think. Gottfried Leibniz elevates continuity into a principle that embraces both the mental and material aspects of the universe, in introducing the so-called Law of Continuity (lex continuitatis), as applied to both nature and human mind. According to Leibniz, all the ostensible interruptions of continuity that can be observed, or encountered in our experience of the world, are only illusions created by the imperfection of our cognitive apparatus, which is not able to perceive, consciously, the infinitely divisible portions or ‘folds’ of matter.57 Whatever specific reasons and arguments may have been in operation for asserting the continuity of consciousness, classical thinkers of the seventeenth century all agree about one important constellation of ideas that combines a principle of continuity with the subjective ‘life of the mind’. For instance, for Descartes, the reason for continuity of mental life follows from his understanding of the two postulated substances, which he identifies as Thought and Extension. Res cogitans, or thinking substance, has only one attribute: to think. If thinking ceased, even momentarily, this substance, defined in this way, would also immediately perish: I saw on the contrary that from the mere fact that I thought of doubting the truth of other things, it followed quite evidently and certainly that I existed; whereas if I had merely ceased thinking, even if everything else I had ever imagined had been true, I should have had no reason to believe that I existed.58

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For Locke, the idea of ‘continued consciousness’ emerges from his debate with Descartes and his followers, the Cartesians.59 In his development of an empiricist epistemology in his Essays Concerning Human Understanding (1689), Locke fundamentally rejects the concept of innate ideas, as had been implied in the Cartesian concept of thinking substance. And, together with this rejection, Locke admits that we are not always-on in relation to thinking – exceptions may be found in such states as sleep and fainting, as well as in early infant years. However, there is a higher continuity than only the continuity of fragile, empirically understood thinking, and that is one of a consciousness, whose continuity is sealed, and kept intact, due to personal identity, which seamlessly connects the sequences of our daily experiences.60 And, finally, for this sequence of ideas: in 1704, Gottfried Leibniz attacks Locke, in his New Essays on Human Understanding. He introduces the idea of a continuum of mental activity that cannot be broken since our perceptive apparatus is based on ‘minute perceptions’ (‘les petites perceptions’) and that perceptive apparatus is always-on – even in such low-intensity states as sleep or fainting.61 In all this, therefore, it is reasonable to propose that the importance of the, or a, model of an incessant, continuous activity – the model that now dominates contemporary always-on capitalism – can be found in these subtle inventions of centuries before, by interpreting them (as Foucault’s concept of genealogy suggests) in the light of our historical present. One could, of course, go further back, and find the emergence of ideas on continuous intellectual activity in Aristotle (who first wrote on the problem continuity in Metaphysics and Physics) and then in Medieval theology, with its position on God’s ‘continuous creation’ (creatio continua) which effectively supplements the concept of the original creation, and is seen as a fundamental divine activity that provides an unfailing and incessant maintenance for the world.62 But, crucially, it was the philosophers of the seventeenth century who identified continuity as characteristic of the subject, not only of material universe. And it was this identification which first opened up the space for the philosophical justification of the modern form of permanently active subjectivity and incessantly operating social institutions. This subjective continuity eventually encounters the objective continuity (‘Kontinuität’) of the value-metamorphosis, which Marx first articulates in the Grundrisse. Thus Leibniz’s lex continuatis not only expresses continuity as a key principle of the material universe and subjective consciousness, but actively and powerfully affirms the extant conditions of continuity as of primary importance. Thus the incessantly conscious subject of early modern philosophy anticipates, and justifies, the social paradigm of continuous activity that will be fully objectified and established a few centuries later – as a pressuring imperative in the social reality generated by late capitalism.63

7 By way of conclusion, let me recapitulate the three hypotheses that have been outlined so far, and add a fourth.

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Firstly, via the discussion of Kojève’s concept of the ‘end of history’, the argument was advanced that capitalist continuity has become, today, a dominant social form, and one that has a non-teleological character. Secondly came the argument that continuity (Kontinuität) presents a ‘conditio sine qua non’ of capitalist production, apparent in Marx’s political-economic work. Thirdly I suggested that the philosophical discourse that emerged in early capitalist modernity emphasized a continuity of the ‘life of mind’ as a constitutive feature of subjectivity. And this then, in its encounter with the objective processes of the capitalist value-metamorphosis, came to constitute the paradigm of incessant activity. My fourth hypothesis will now be shaped by looking for other continuities, which would work against monotonous pressures of the capitalist always-on. In these brief closing notes I want to identify – broadly, and through the lens of the concepts discussed throughout this chapter – the two main forms of struggle against the capitalist continuum that have emerged, despite capitalist continuum’s strengthening in late modernity, together with their numerous, intense and sometimes overlapping variations. One form of struggle has honed in on a straight and non-teleological suspension of the continuous metamorphosis of value, and effected its violent disruption. Groups and strategies associated with this first form include Théorie Communiste, Tiqqun, and the Invisible Committee – which could be identified as insurrectionist in their approach to struggle.64 The second form of struggle is based on constructing another continuity altogether: the continuity of struggles and organizations, lasting comradeships, mutual care and support, and enduring political affects, strategies and aspirations. In terms of the specific shape of this form, the second model has been conceived as a continued collective and radical effort (a ‘permanent revolution’ no less), or a stubborn continuity of struggles in spite of any and all defeats. This form recalls the name of the radical 1970s Italian group, to which Pier Paolo Pasolini belonged: La Lotta Continua – ‘the struggle continues’. Even at the level of specific individuals, this continuity of struggles can be embodied as an incessant, sometimes feverish and self-sacrificial activity. For instance, Alexander Voronsky, describing his encounters with Lenin in a memoir, writes: ‘[s]ometimes he had been closing his eyes, being extremely exhausted, and these moments, very short, seemed to be enough to recover his forces and return to continuous activity again.’65 And, remarkably, in her recent book Comrade, Jodi Dean also emphasizes a similar form: one that connects individual and collective continuities, intrinsic to this important concept of the radical left political and intellectual legacy, and which she singles out from other forms of social and political belonging. As Dean writes (in drawing on a novel by the Soviet communist writer Andrei Platonov), comradeship is ‘the zero-point of relationality necessary to continue’.66 Let us consider, then, such a ‘permanent revolution’ mode, outside its intense political uses in the debates among various groups and tendencies of the radical left across the twentieth century – where this mode meant, mostly, the possibility of a growth of local democratic revolutions into a global socialist revolution. Even

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a very brief excursus from the viewpoint of the history of the concept ‘permanent revolution’ will be fruitful, revealing meanings that were marginalized in their later uses, and now seem relevant for the discussion here. The expression ‘permanent revolution’ was already recognized around the time of the French Revolution. It initially addressed the idea of a continuously unfolding assembly, and one which could not be dissolved by a sovereign decision.67 Marx first mentions a necessary permanence of revolutionary processes in his early Jewish Question (1843), and he elaborates further, together with Engels, in the Communist Manifesto (1848).68 Slightly later, in the most radical pronouncement of ‘permanent revolution’ of Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League (1850), which was written in the aftermath of the Revolution of 1848–9 in Germany, Marx and Engels emphasized permanent revolution as a ‘battle-cry’ for the workers.69 Among other things, they note a continuity that even exceeds the character of the revolution, as a singular event: the revolutionaries ‘must work to ensure that the immediate revolutionary excitement is not suddenly suppressed after the victory. On the contrary, it must be sustained as long as possible’.70 There is a more general political-philosophical concept that reflects the continuity of struggles that exceeds singular revolutionary events: le pouvoir constituant, or constituent power. This is a concept that also arose around the time of the French Revolution. In Insurgencies, Antonio Negri frequently emphasizes the ‘creative continuity of constituent power’,71 in a book which established an important theoretical link between the formal and juridical understanding of constituent power as a faculty of the general assembly of people, in order to create basic laws and constitution for their country, and the Marxist tradition of the class struggle. This continuous constituent process – as always present in society, even when in a weak or subterranean form at certain moments – reflects the ontological continuity of the power coming from the ‘Many’, and not from the sovereign ‘One’. This power can be understood as both insurgent political power and as the power of labour – that is: the power of the majority who create all social wealth. Another continuity that can be uncovered in this process indeed belongs to the collective subject of the ‘Many’ rather than the sovereign ‘One’. The sovereign power constantly attempts to disrupt the constituent power of the Many, in order to establish the abstract continuity of the capitalist value-metamorphoses. At the most general level, the very idea of communism has become the name for the ultimate and most radical expression of struggle against the imposed continuity of the capitalist value-metamorphosis, in its anticipation of a different social and ontological regime altogether. Even the ‘real socialisms’ of the twentieth century, in a sense, suspended (during the historical sequence opened in 1917) the incessant and catastrophic movement of the capitalist value-metamorphosis that celebrated its regained powers after 1991. The emerging new understanding of the ‘real socialisms’ of twentieth century then goes beyond the well-known clichés about their inner negativities, ideological deviations and political failures.72 It is precisely the ultimate unworkableness of the ‘command economy’, with its inexorable ‘inefficiency’, that has been the sole witness of an early attempt to counterbalance that economy’s incessant effectuation of the continuity-form.

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These radical experiments, in the name of communism, were dysfunctional attempts to suspend the capitalist continuum. Or, better yet, to turn it into another continuity – and one coordinated by the whole society, rather than by the elemental forces and flows of the market. Future radical endeavours to undermine the ontological-economic machine of ‘always-on capitalism’ will need to build on these radical experiments, and to develop their own scenarios.

Notes 1

2

3

4

5 6 7

See Alexei Penzin, ‘Always On: Capitalist Continuity and Its Discontents’, in Time, Forward! ed. Omar Kholeif and Karen Sarkisov (London: Prestel and V–A–C Press, 2019), 95–110, and Alexei Penzin, ‘Continuity-form and Counter-continuity’, in Glossary of Common Knowledge, ed. Zdenka Badovinac and Ida Hiršenfelder (Ljubljana: Moderna Galeria, 2018), 175–85. The current chapter revises and expands the arguments of these texts. An early version of this text was presented as a paper at the Rome Conference on Communism, organized by C17 – a network of the Italian researchers, political activists and writers – in January 2017. At various times, I have received stimulating comments concerning this research from Jodi Dean, Gerald Raunig and Michael Heinrich. I am also thankful to Benjamin Halligan for reading and commenting on the manuscript, and for his many editorial suggestions. The pioneering argument about ‘colonization of time’, ‘incessant organizations’ and emergence of the 24/7 temporality had already been made in the 1980s by the US sociologist Murray Melbin; see his Night as Frontier: Colonizing the World After Dark (New York: Free Press, 1987). One of the first works about the 24/7, published in late 1990s, was the book by Leon Kreizmann, based on his research, commissioned by the British Telecom. Kreizmann does not question the capitalist nature of the 24/7’s regime. His book, rather, praises new opportunities for productivity and flexibility, and the benefits of 24/7 for electronic commerce and the services sector. See Leon Kreizman, The 24 Hour Society (London: Profile Books, 1999). About the effects of tiredness and exhaustion, caused by the pressure of timetables, deadlines and technologically enhanced constant connectivity, see Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015). Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi’s many works consistently emphasize the link between the sensory ‘overload’ as an effect of contemporary ‘semio-capitalism’, and the widespread burnout, depression and various ‘psychopathologies’, or general social and political ‘impotence’. See, for example, Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi, Futurability: The Age of Impotence and Horizon of Possibility (London: Verso, 2019). I would like to thank Matthew Fuller for his suggestion to use ‘always-on’ as a term. See Celia Lury, Luciana Parisi and Tiziana Terranova, ‘Introduction: The Becoming Topological of Culture’, Theory, Culture & Society 29: 3 (2012): 4. Jonathan Crary, 24/7: Late Capitalism and Ends of Sleep (London: Verso, 2014). A number of recent philosophical and sociological works also reflect, rather indirectly, some aspects of the 24/7, such as Boris Groys, In The Flow (London: Verso, 2017), Maurizio Lazzarato, Governing by Debt (Los Angeles and New York: Semiotext(e), 2016) and Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013).

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See Crary, 24/7, 18–19. On the ontological insomnia, see Emmanuel Levinas, Existence and Existents, trans. Alphonso Lingis (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1978), 65. Further to this, see also the critical discussion of Crary’s misuse of Freud’s concepts in Lorenzo Chiesa’s chapter in this book. 9 Crary, 24/7, 8, 30. 10 The title of this chapter refers to the famous phrase by Samuel Beckett’s character from L’Innommable, ‘ … il faut continuer, je ne peux pas continuer, je vais continuer … ’ See Samuel Beckett, L’Innommable (Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 1953), 213. In Beckett’s own translation, this is rendered: ‘you must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on’, as per Samuel Beckett Three Novels (New York: Grove Press, 2009), 407. 11 See, for example, Wolfgang Streeck, How Will Capitalism End? Essays on a Failing System (London: Verso, 2016). 12 For a discussion of unpublished manuscript, see Alexei Penzin, ‘Stalin Beyond Stalin? A Paradoxical Hypothesis of Communism by Alexandre Kojève and Boris Groys’, Crisis and Critique 3:1 (2016): 301–40. 13 Alexander Kojéve, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989), 159. Kojève refers to the following passage from the third volume of Capital: ‘The true realm of freedom, the development of human powers as an end in itself, begins beyond it [i.e. beyond a realm of necessity], though it can only flourish with this realm of necessity as its basis.’ Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. 3, trans. David Fernbach (London, Penguin Classics, 1981): 959. 14 Kojéve, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel, 32; Kojéve’s capitalizations. As a contemporary commentator succinctly and correctly notes, the crux of Kojève’s interpretation bases itself ‘on the identification of time (die Zeit) and the concept (der Begriff) at the end of the Phenomenology of Spirit, suggesting that when the concept is fully realized, time, and thus history, is also complete’. Eric M. Dale, Hegel, the End of History, and the Future (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014): 81. 15 Kojéve, Reading of Hegel, 97. 16 I refer here to the debates in continental Hegelian-Marxist philosophy, as developed in the writings of Slavoj Žižek, Fredric Jameson, Catherine Malabou and several others authors. 17 Slavoj Žižek, Sex and the Failed Absolute (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019), 220. 18 Žižek, Sex and the Failed Absolute, 222–5. 19 Žižek, Sex and the Failed Absolute, 221. 20 Kojéve, Reading of Hegel, 44. 21 Kojéve, Reading of Hegel, 161–2. 22 Published in English as Paolo Virno, Déjà vu and the End of History, trans. David Broder (London: Verso, 2015). 23 Virno, Déjà vu, 33. 24 Elsewhere, Virno argues: ‘[w]ith a simplifying but not empty formula, we could even say that post-Fordism puts to work life as such.’ Paolo Virno, ‘Natural-Historical Diagrams: The New Global Movement and the Biological Invariant’, in The Italian Difference: Between Nihilism and Biopolitics, ed. Lorenzo Chiesa and Alberto Toscano (Melbourne: Re. Press, 2009), 146; Virno’s italics. 25 On this, see Alexei Penzin, ‘No Time: Contemporaneity between Time Pressure and Procrastination’, in More Light: Catalogue of the 5th Moscow Biennale, ed. Catherine De Zegher (Ghent: Mer Paper, 2013), 313–23. 8

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26 In this context, one reference to a Kojève as-yet-unpublished manuscript seems to be quite intriguing. The materials kept among twenty-one boxes in the Fonds Kojève, at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, apparently include a manuscript ‘on the problem of the continuum’ (written in German). See Jeff Love, ‘Introduction: Atheism and Politics’, in Alexandre Kojève, Atheism, trans. Jeff Love (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018), 12. 27 Boris Groys, In the Flow (London: Verso, 2016), 37. 28 Groys, In the Flow, 37. 29 See, for example, Line Spellenberg, ‘The Death of Spectator: An Interview with Boris Groys’. Kampnagel, May 2015, https://www.kampnagel.de/media/kosmos/ files/16_59b12204e4b1e.pdf. 30 Judith Butler, ‘So What Are the Demands? And Where Do they Go from Here?’ Tidal: Occupy Theory, Occupy Strategy 2 (2012): 11. Also see Judith Butler, Notes Towards a Performative Theory of Assembly (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2015). 31 Walter Benjamin, ‘On the Concept of History’, trans. Rodney Livingston, in Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, Vol. 4, 1938–1940, ed. Marcus Bullock and Michael W. Jennings (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2006), 392. 32 Giorgio Agamben, State of Exception (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005). 33 Agamben, State of Exception, 3. 34 See Foucault’s discussion of the ‘principle of exteriority’ as applied to analysis of epistemic formations, in Michel Foucault, Lectures on the Will to Know: Lectures at the Collège de France 1970–71 and Oedipal Knowledge (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 198. 35 See Evgeny Pashukanis, Law and Marxism: A General Theory (London: Pluto Press, 1987) and, for further commentary, Antonio Negri, ‘Rereading Pashukanis: Discussion Notes’, Stasis 5:2 (2017): 8–49. 36 For the English translation: see Walter Benjamin, ‘Capitalism as Religion’, trans. Rodney Livingston, in Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, Vol. 1, 1913–1926, ed. Marcus Bullock and Michael W. Jennings (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1996), 288–91. See Agamben’s essay ‘In Praise of Profanation’ in his Profanations (New York: Zone Books, 2007), 73–92. 37 Benjamin, Selected Writings, 288. 38 The theme of continuity in the earlier works of Benjamin is thoroughly explored in Peter Fenves, The Messianic Reduction: Walter Benjamin and the Shape of Time (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011). 39 Giorgio Agamben, ‘Capitalism as Religion’, in Creation and Anarchy: The Work of Art and Religion of Capitalism, trans. Adam Kostko (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2019), 74. 40 In his The Open: Man and Animal, Agamben intensely and directly engages with Kojève’s concept of the end of history, criticizing him for privileging ‘the aspect of negation and death’ while ignoring the biopolitical valorization of life. See Giorgio Agamben, The Open: Man and Animal (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), 12. 41 Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. 2, trans. David Fernbach (London: Penguin Classics, 1992), 182. 42 Karl Marx, Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy (Rough Draft), trans. Martin Nicolaus (London: Penguin Classics, 1993), 544–9. Although, as is well known, the Soviet editors of Grundrisse added headings for sections of the manuscript, the headings nevertheless reflect their contents reasonably well.

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43 Marx, Grundrisse, 702–5. 44 Marx, Grundrisse, 719. 45 Marx, Grundrisse, 719. 46 Marx, Grundrisse, 535; Marx’s italics. 47 Marx, Grundrisse, 690–712. 48 Antonio Negri, Marx Beyond Marx: Lessons on the Grundrisse (London: Pluto Press, 1991), 62, 114. 49 See Riccardo Bellofiore, Guido Starosta and Peter D. Thomas, eds., In Marx’s Laboratory: Critical Interpretations of the Grundrisse (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2014). See also Martin Spence, ‘Marx against Marx: A Critical Reading of the Fragment on Machines’, tripleC 17:2 (2019): 327–39. 50 Marx, Grundrisse, 535; Marx’s italics. 51 Marx, Grundrisse, 535. 52 For a further discussion of the concept of continuity in Marx, including its distinction from concepts of reproduction and ‘real subsumption’, and the discussion of interpretations of the Grundrisse (by Roman Rosdolsky and Alfred Sohn-Rethel, among others), see Penzin, ‘Always On’, 103–5. 53 Marx, Capital: Vol. 2, 182. 54 Karl Marx, Mathematical Manuscripts of Karl Marx (London: New Park Publications Ltd., 1983). In his letter to Engels of May 1873, Marx wrote: ‘The matter is as follows: you know tables in which prices, calculated by percent, etc. are represented in their growth in the course of a year etc. showing the increases and decreases by zig-zag lines. I have repeatedly attempted, for the analysis of crises, to compute these “ups and downs” as fictional curves, and I thought […] to infer mathematically from this an important law of crises’; Marx, Mathematical Manuscripts, 220. 55 See Antonio Negri, Political Descartes: Reason, Ideology and the Bourgeois Project (London: Verso, 2007), originally published in Italian in 1970; Jon Elster, Leibniz et la formation de l’esprit capitaliste (Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1975); Etienne Balibar, Identity and Difference: John Locke and the Invention of Consciousness (London: Verso, 2013), originally published in French in 1998. 56 For an analysis of consciousness and personal identity in Locke, see Balibar, Identity and Difference. Balibar also stresses connections between Locke’s thought and early capitalist modernity. Among the secondary literature on the history of early modern philosophy see, for example, Udo Thiel, The Early Modern Subject: Self-Consciousness and Personal Identity from Descartes to Hume (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). 57 See, for example, Richard T. W. Arthur, ‘The Labyrinth of the Continuum’, in The Oxford Handbook of Leibniz, ed. Maria Rosa Antognazza (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 276–89. 58 René Descartes, The Philosophical Writing of Descartes, Vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 127. 59 John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Kitchener, Ontario: Batoche, 2001), 278. 60 See the chapter ‘Of Identity and Diversity’ in Locke, Concerning Human Understanding, 262–80. 61 G. W. Leibniz, Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett, Leibniz: New Essays on Human Understanding (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 54–6. For commentary, see Larry M. Jorgensen, ‘The Principle of Continuity and Leibniz’s Theory of Consciousness’, Journal of the History of Philosophy 47 (2009): 223–48.

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62 For a useful overview of philosophical, theological and mathematical theories of continuity, see John L. Bell, The Continuous, the Discrete and the Infinitesimal in Philosophy and Mathematics (Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2019). Giorgio Agamben indirectly tackles this concept in his analysis of the ‘providential machine’ of the Christian theology. However, he does not discuss directly the paradigm of ‘creatio continua’ and its implications for the economic practice of capitalism. See Giorgio Agamben, The Kingdom and the Glory: For a Theological Genealogy of Economy and Government (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011). 63 By using the term ‘objectified’, I refer here to the way in which continuity, being originally a philosophical principle, becomes ‘objective’ in the sense that it acquires the status of a regulative principle that governs social and economic life in contemporary capitalism. 64 See Benjamin Noys, Communization and its Discontents: Contestation, Critique, and Contemporary Struggles (London: Minor Compositions, 2012). 65 Alexander Voronsky, Za živoj i mertvoj vodoj (Moscow: Common Place, 2019), 470 (my translation). For an abridged English translation, see Alexander Voronsky, Waters of Life and Death, trans. L. Zarine (London: Allen & Unwin, 1936). Voronsky was a Bolshevik activist before the October Revolution, and a literary theorist and a member of the Left Opposition in the 1920s. He was executed in the 1930s. 66 And Dean also notes a performative continuity of comradeship, with the observation that the Communist Party members ‘incessantly hail each other as “Comrade” ’; Jodi Dean, Comrade: An Essay on Political Belonging (London: Verso, 2019), 55, 96. 67 See Richard B. Day and Daniel Gaido, ‘The Historical Origin of the Expression “Permanent Revolution” ’, in Witnesses to Permanent Revolution: the Documentary Record, trans. and ed. Richard B. Day and Daniel Gaido (Leiden: Brill/Historical Materialism Book Series, 2009), 2. 68 In the Manifesto, Marx and Engels also note the permanent ‘revolutionizing’ character of their enemy (i.e. capitalism) itself, according to the famous dictum that ‘all that is solid melts into air’. From the point of view developed here, this chimes with ‘continuity-form’, which dissolves all solid social units and traditions by throwing them into its incessantly unfolding processes. 69 Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, ‘Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League’, Marxists Internet Archive, http://www.marxists.org/archive/ marx/works/1847/communist-league/1850-ad1.htm. 70 Marx and Engels, ‘Address of the Central Committee’. 71 Antonio Negri, Insurgencies: Constituent Power and the Modern State (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1999), 329. 72 On this new understanding, see Boris Groys, The Communist Postscript (London: Verso, 2009), and Alexei Penzin, ‘Stalin Beyond Stalin? A Paradoxical Hypothesis of Communism by Alexandre Kojève and Boris Groys’, Crisis and Critique 3: 1 (2016): 301–40.

References Agamben, Giorgio. The Open: Man and Animal. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003. Agamben, Giorgio. State of Exception. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. Agamben, Giorgio. Profanations. New York: Zone Books, 2007.

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Agamben, Giorgio. The Kingdom and the Glory: For a Theological Genealogy of Economy and Government. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011. Agamben, Giorgio. Creation and Anarchy: The Work of Art and Religion of Capitalism. Translated by Adam Kostko. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2019. Arthur, Richard T. W. ‘The Labyrinth of the Continuum’. In The Oxford Handbook of Leibniz, edited by Maria Rosa Antognazza, 276–89. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Balibar, Etienne. Identity and Difference: John Locke and the Invention of Consciousness. London: Verso, 2013. Beckett, Samuel. L’Innommable. Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 1953. Beckett, Samuel. Three Novels. New York: Grove Press, 2009. Bell, John L. The Continuous, the Discrete and the Infinitesimal in Philosophy and Mathematics. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2019. Bellofiore, Riccardo, Guido Starosta and Peter D. Thomas, eds. In Marx’s Laboratory: Critical Interpretations of the Grundrisse. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2014. Benjamin, Walter. ‘Capitalism as Religion’. In Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, Vol. 1, 1913–1926, edited by Marcus Bullock and Michael W. Jennings, translated by Rodney Livington, 288–91. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996. Benjamin, Walter. ‘On the Concept of History’. In Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, Vol. 4, 1938–1940, ed. Marcus Bullock and Michael W. Jennings, translated by Rodney Livingston, 389–400. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006. Berardi, Franco ‘Bifo’. Futurability: The Age of Impotence and Horizon of Possibility. London: Verso, 2019. Butler, Judith. ‘So What Are the Demands? And Where Do they Go from Here?’ Tidal: Occupy Theory, Occupy Strategy 2 (2012): 8–11. Butler, Judith. Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015. Crary, Jonathan. 24/7: Late Capitalism and Ends of Sleep. London: Verso, 2014. Dale, Eric M. Hegel, the End of History, and the Future. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Day, Richard B. and Daniel Gaido, editors and translators. Witnesses to Permanent Revolution: The Documentary Record. Leiden: Brill/Historical Materialism Book Series, 2009. Dean, Jodi. Comrade: An Essay on Political Belonging. London: Verso, 2019. Descartes, René. The Philosophical Writing of Descartes, Volume 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Elster, Jon, Leibniz et la formation de l’esprit capitaliste. Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1975. Fenves, Peter. The Messianic Reduction: Walter Benjamin and the Shape of Time. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011. Foucault, Michel. Lectures on the Will to Know: Lectures at the Collège de France 1970–71 and Oedipal Knowledge. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Groys, Boris. The Communist Postscript. London: Verso, 2009. Groys, Boris. In The Flow. London: Verso, 2017. Han, Byung-Chul. The Burnout Society. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2015. Jorgensen, Larry M. ‘The Principle of Continuity and Leibniz’s Theory of Consciousness’. Journal of the History of Philosophy 47 (2009): 223–48. Kreizman, Leon. The 24 Hour Society. London: Profile Books, 1999. Kojéve, Alexander. Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989.

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Kojéve, Alexander. Atheism. Translated by Jeff Love. New-York: Columbia University Press, 2018. Lazzarato, Maurizio. Governing by Debt. Los Angeles and New York: Semiotext(e), 2016. Leibniz, G. W., Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett, Leibniz: New Essays on Human Understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Levinas, Emmanuel. Existence and Existents. Translated by Alphonso Lingis. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1978. Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Kitchener, Ontario: Batoche, 2001. Love, Jeff. The Black Circle: A Life of Alexandre Kojève. New York: Columbia University Press, 2018. Lury, Celia, Luciana Parisi and Tiziana Terranova. ‘Introduction: The Becoming Topological of Culture’. Theory, Culture & Society 29:3 (2012): 3–35. Marx, Karl. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 2. Translated by David Fernbach. London: Penguin Classics, 1992. Marx, Karl. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 3. Translated by David Fernbach. London: Penguin Classics, 1981. Marx, Karl. Mathematical Manuscripts of Karl Marx. London: New Park Publications Ltd., 1983. Marx, Karl. Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy (Rough Draft). Translated by Martin Nicolaus. London: Penguin Classics, 1993. Marx, Karl, and Frederick Engels. ‘Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League’. Marxists Internet Archive, http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/ communist-league/1850-ad1.htm Melbin, Murray. Night as Frontier: Colonizing the World After Dark. New York: Free Press, 1987. Negri, Antonio. Marx Beyond Marx: Lessons on the Grundrisse. London: Pluto Press, 1991. Negri, Antonio. Insurgencies: Constituent Power and the Modern State. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1999. Negri, Antonio. The Political Descartes: Reason, Ideology and the Bourgeois Project. London: Verso, 2007. Negri, Antonio. ‘Rereading Pashukanis: Discussion Notes’. Stasis 5:2 (2017): 8–49. Noys, Benjamin, ed. Communization and its Discontents: Contestation, Critique, and Contemporary Struggles. London: Minor Compositions, 2012. Pashukanis, Evgeny. Law and Marxism: A General Theory. London: Pluto Press, 1987. Penzin, Alexei. ‘No Time: Contemporaneity between Time Pressure and Procrastination’. In More Light: Catalogue of the 5th Moscow Biennale, edited by Catherine de Zegher, 313–23. Ghent: Mer Paper, 2013. Penzin, Alexei, ‘Stalin Beyond Stalin? A Paradoxical Hypothesis of Communism by Alexandre Kojève and Boris Groys’. Crisis and Critique 3:1 (2016): 300–40. Penzin, Alexei, ‘Continuity-form and Counter-continuity’. In Glossary of Common Knowledge, edited by Zdenka Badovinac and Ida Hiršenfelder, 175–85. Ljubljana: Moderna Galeria, 2018. Penzin, Alexei. ‘Always On: Capitalist Continuity and Its Discontents’. In Time, Forward! edited by Omar Kholeif and Karen Sarkisov, 95–110. London: Prestel and V–A–C Press, 2019. Rosa, Hartmut. Social Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013.

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INDEX 24/7 175, 176, 177. See also continuity 1968 (events of) 65, 66, 73, 74, 81, 124, 128 n.35 and the ‘creeping May’ in Italy 67 and the ‘long ’68’ in Italy 40, 41 May 1968 136 post-1968 11, 124 activism 6–7, 9, 17, 64, 133–4 Adorno, Theodor W. 4 Agamben, Giorgio 15, 20 n.34, 41, 75 n.41, 154, 155, 157, 158, 176, 213–5, 224 n.40, 226 n.62 Algeria 137, 140 Alquati, Romano 64, 66, 72 Althusser, Louis 4, 19 n.28, 106 animal/animality 11–12, 25–6, 28, 35–40, 42–3, 49, 52, 57, 92, 174, 178, 179 anti-globalization movements 8, 63, 71, 133, 186 anti-Semitism 136, 137 Arab Spring, the 3, 9, 134 Assange, Julian 140 austerity 2, 9, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 140, 144 n.1 Autonomia, autonomism, autonomist Marxism, autonomist and postautonomist thought 12, 14, 64, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 73 n.5, 74 n.24, 26, 27, 28, 75 n.43, 97, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 133, 139, 186, 200, 201 n.3, 216. See also Operaismo and Workerism Badiou, Alain 4, 59 n.12, 134, 135, 143 Balibar, Étienne 111 n.10, 139, 218, 225 n.56 Baudrillard, Jean 119, 125 Benjamin, Walter 18 n.3, 25, 87, 117, 213–4, 224 n.38 Berardi, Franco ‘Bifo’ 117, 119, 124, 201 n.3, 222 n.4

Berlin Wall, the 42, 123 Berti, Lapo 190, 192–8 biocapitalism 176, 179–80 biopolitics, biopolitical 12, 14, 16, 18 n.3, 43–4, 140, 154–5, 157–60, 163, 213–14, 224 n.40 biopower 44, 133, 153, 155, 156, 158 Black feminist thought 154, 156, 157–9 Black Lives Matter 9, 134 bourgeois 14, 42, 86, 88, 135, 136, 155, 159, 162, 163, 177, 191, 195, 198, 218 Brick Lane (London) 103, 108 Butler, Judith 17, 213 Cacciari, Massimo 41, 189 Canetti, Elias 85–6, 96, 99, 100–1 capitalism 3–6, 8–9, 11, 13–16, 25, 31, 42–3, 64, 84, 95, 104–5, 107, 109, 133, 141–3, 153–7, 160, 162–3, 164 n.16, 166 n.60, 172–6, 179, 181, 186, 191, 200 n.3, 207–11, 213–15, 217–19, 222, 226 n.62, 63, 68. See also neocapitalism centaur 11–12, 35–45 Chiron 35–7, 40–1 ‘Il Centauro’ (journal) 41–3 Citizens’ Referendum Initiative 137, 139 civil society 2, 63, 94–6, 139, 143 Clapton (London) 103 class 1–5, 18 n.3, 65, 66, 69–70, 72, 87, 108, 116, 122, 128 n.35, 129 n.48, 133, 139, 142, 143, 185, 187–9, 192, 199, 203 n.62, 209 class composition 6, 7, 13, 64, 66, 104–8, 110, 187, 190–2, 198 class consciousness 104, 107, 110 n.3 class decomposition 13, 104–10, 112 n.24, 142 class recomposition 104, 187 class struggle (class antagonism) 64, 66, 105–9, 125, 135, 137, 141, 182, 189, 191, 193, 198, 200, 221

Index ruling class (capitalist class) 82, 88, 96, 122, 138–9, 143, 190, 194, 198 working class 3, 5, 65, 105, 106, 107, 108, 110, 122, 124, 133, 135, 137, 138, 140, 143, 187–90, 192, 198, 200 n.3 climate change (global warming) 93, 143 cognitive bio-capitalism 172–3, 175, 179 commons, the 69, 89, 141–2 communicative capitalism 13, 81, 87–8, 90–7 communism 20 n.34, 42–3, 89, 94, 103, 134, 140, 209, 210, 221, 222 communism of capital 42, 45–6 n.21, 198 communist party (as a concept) 39, 142 and the All-Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) 226 n.65 and the Italian Communist Party (PCI) 41, 64, 67, 74 n.26, 189, 200 n.3 competition 12, 44, 89, 92 conflict 11, 35–45, 49–51, 53, 57, 70, 143, 160, 161, 189, 191, 201 n.3 consciousness 5, 177, 218–19, 225 n.56 constituent power 141, 221 continuity and 24/7 10, 15, 16, 207, 208, 215, 218, 219, 224 n.38, 226 n.62, 66 and always-on capitalism 207, 208, 211, 213, 217, 219, 222 and continuity-form 208, 209, 211, 212, 213, 214, 217, 226 n.68 and human nature 211 and Lotta Continua 220 in Marx, Karl 215–17, 225 n.52 and permanent revolution 220–1 and the state of exception 213–14 of struggles 220, 221–2 and subjectivity 217–20 and value form 216 cooperation 31–2, 104, 133, 141 Corbyn, Jeremy 1, 3, 10, 137 cosmos 40–2 counterculture, countercultural 7, 66, 133, 143 Crary, Jonathan 15, 174–7, 181, 208, 223 n.8 crisis 2, 3, 9, 12, 16–17, 35–40, 43, 46 n.21, 72, 109, 118, 129 n.46, 142, 159, 189–93, 195, 198, 211, 215, 217, 218

231

crisis of agency 2, 3, 5, 9, 11, 15, 153 crowd 1, 2, 4, 12, 13, 81–92, 96–8, 99 n.25, 27, 32; 119, 120, 123, 124, 129 n.38, 177 culture wars 3, 8, 134 de Brunhoff, Suzanne 195–200, 201n.4 de Giovanni, Biagio 41, 46 n.22 Dean, Jodi 13, 18 n.5, 21, 98 n.1, n.3, n.5, 100 n.38, 101, 134, 146 n.44, 147, 220, 222 n.1, 226 n.66, 227 death drive, the 14, 153–4, 162–3, 166 n.63, 167 n.81 Deleuze, Gilles 4, 20 n.30, 22, 134, 166 n.63, 167, 208 Dell’Umbria, Alèssi 139–40, 145 n.28, 147 Descartes, René 208, 210, 220–1, 225 n.55, n.56, n.58, 227–9 dialectic 5, 18 n.3, 41, 53 dialectical 39, 41, 185, 210 dialectically 41, 53, 66, 67, 68, 209, 210 historical-dialectical 210 non-dialectical 53, 58 diversity 67, 88, 134, 140, 208, 225 n.60 division 11, 28–32, 85, 89, 96, 98, 107, 143, 189, 197, 210, 213 dyslexia 180, 181, 183 n.42–7, 184 ecology (environmentalism) 8, 9, 133, 137, 142, 209 Elster, Jon 218, 225 n.55, 227 emancipation 7, 25, 53 end of history, the 15, 123, 125, 129 n.39, 130, 135, 209–11, 220, 223 n.14, 224 n.40, 227, 229. See also Fukuyama, Francis Esposito, Roberto 20 n.32, 21, 37, 41, 45 n.5–7, 46 n.22, 164 n.21, 168 Facebook 17, 91, 94–6, 135, 141, 174. See also social media fascism 38–9, 76 n.48, 77, 99 n.32, 101, 136, 137, 143 feminism 6, 9, 18 n.17, 166 n.60 few, the 1–2, 9, 37, 89–91, 99 n.33, 102 fictitious capital 140, 191, 196, 197–8, 202 n.27, 203 n.60 Fisher, Mark 8, 19 n.26, 21, 117, 127 n.12, 130, 200 n.1

232

Index

Florida, Richard 135, 144 n.10, 147 Fordism, Fordist production 103, 105, 172, 173, 187–8, 190. See also postFordism, post-Fordist labour Foucault, Michel 4, 18 n.3, 20 n.32, 21, 153–5, 157–8, 162, 164 n.3–5, n.19, 165 n.34, n.37, 167–8, 191, 208, 212–13, 219, 224 n.34, 227 Freud, Sigmund 12, 15, 82, 98 n.5, 101, 154, 161, 162, 166 n.65–6, n.72, n.75, n.77–8, 169, 176–9, 182 n.23, 183 n.24, n.28, 184, 223 n.8 and dreamwork 177 Fukuyama, Francis 123, 129 n.39, 130. See also end of history, the Fumagalli, Andrea 172–5, 179, 182 n.3–6, 184

n.34–5, n.37, n.39–41, 147–8, 153, 164 n.4, 167, 202 n.33–4, 204 Harvey, David 135, 144 n.10, 148, 200 n.1 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 2, 5, 10, 20 n.29, 22, 41–2, 146 n.33, 199, 203, 209–10, 223 n.13–16, n.20–1, 227 hegemony 2, 4, 6, 19 n.18, 22, 39, 57, 88, 103, 135, 141–2, 146 n.46, 148, 155, 193 Hobbes, Thomas 3, 11, 35, 37–8, 43–4, 45 n. 8–9, 47, 56–57, 110 n. 2, 208 Hobsbawm, Eric 99 n. 27, 101, 127 n. 14, 128 n.35, 130–1 Holland, Eugene 89, 90, 100 n.35, n.39, 101 horizontality 89, 134, 141

Gerbaudo, Paolo 141–2, 144 n.6, 146 n.42–4, 147 Gilet Jaunes 13, 63, 133–41, 143, 144 n.1–2, n.9, n.11, 145 n.12–13, n.18, n.20–2, n.24, n.26, 147–9. See also Yellow Vests, the Gilets Noirs 140, 146 n.30, 147 globalization 8–9, 12, 42–43, 63, 71, 116, 133–134, 137, 142, 186 gold standard, the 101, 185, 190–91, 193, 196, 200 n.1, 201 n.4, 203 n.60 Gramsci, Antonio 11, 38–9, 41, 44, 45 n.10–12, 46–7, 139 Groys, Boris 19 n. 29, 21, 212–13, 222 n.7, 223 n.12, 224 n.27–9, 226 n.72, 227–9 Guattari, Félix 134

identity politics 3, 6, 51, 95, 109 ideology 17, 18 n.12, 21, 82, 94, 97, 99 n.27, 101, 133–5, 139–40, 142, 145 n.19, 146 n.36, 148–9, 163, 210, 225 n.55, 228 immaterial labour 15, 103, 105, 108, 141, 172–3, 178, 180 imperialism 19 n.20, 22 Indignados, the 72, 76 n.49, 140 insomnia 14–15, 171–7, 179, 181, 183, 208, 223 n.8 internationalism 140, 143 Invisible Committee, the 124, 129 n.45, 131, 220 Italian Communist Party (PCI), the. See communist party

Habermas, Jürgen 94–5, 101, 125 Hardt, Michael 41, 43, 45 n.17 Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri (as coauthors) 2–5, 12, 18 n.10–11, n.13, n.15–16, 19 n.25, 21, 43–4, 45 n.17, 46 n.23–30, 47, 49, 60 n.41, 63–5, 70, 73 n.2, n.4, n.10, 74 n.21, 75 n.36–7, 76, 77, 103, 106, 109, 110, 111 n.10, n.12, 112 n.27, 115–16, 120, 124–5, 126 n.4–8, n.10, 128 n.26–7, n.31, 129 n.43, n.46–8, 130 n.51, 131, 133, 140–2, 144 n.5, 146

Kantorowicz, Ernst 13, 121–2, 127 n. 16, 131 Kojève, Alexandre 10, 19 n.29, 209, 210, 211, 212, 215, 223 n.14, 224 n.26 and n.40 labour (concept) 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 13, 15, 16, 31, 58, 64, 65, 66, 67, 70, 86, 89, 103, 104, 105, 107, 109, 133, 136, 140, 142, 143, 154, 156, 158, 172, 173, 175, 186, 187, 188, 190, 191, 192, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 216, 221 Labour Party, the 1, 3, 10

Index labour power 108, 155, 156, 187, 192, 198, 221 labour theory of value 185, 186, 196 Lacan, Jacques 95, 163, 177, 178 late capitalism 6, 15, 208, 214, 219 Le Bon, Gustave 12, 82, 83, 87 Le Pen, Marine 135, 137 leadership 36, 44, 45, 51, 139, 141 Leibniz, Gottfried W. 218, 219 Lenin, Vladimir I. 9, 10, 220 Leninism 69 Levinas, Emmanuel 208 Locke, John 218, 219 Lorimer, Rona 139 Machiavelli, Niccolò 11, 19 n.28, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 52 machinic capitalism 11, 26, 31 Macron, Emmanuel 135, 136, 137, 138, 140 Manchester 1, 129 n.38 Many, the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 32, 57, 82, 87, 89, 90, 91, 98, 115, 154, 163, 221 Marazzi, Christian 180, 181, 190, 194, 195, 198 March For Our Lives 134 Marcuse, Herbert 141 Marx, Karl 2, 15, 64, 67, 68, 86, 87, 107, 143, 156, 174, 185, 186, 187, 191, 193, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 208, 209, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 226 n.68 autonomist Marxism 133 (see also Autonomia) Marxism 41 Marxist 2, 14, 15, 41, 64, 104, 107, 135, 142, 172, 185, 186, 189, 195, 196, 200 n.1 and n.3, 209, 214, 218, 221 Marxist-feminist(s) 9, 154 Marxism-Leninism 4 orthodox Marxism 187 post-Marxist 201 n.3, 186 Western Marxism 199 Massumi, Brian 119 MeToo (movement) 9, 134 Mieville, China 124 mode of production 6, 133, 142, 172, 185, 188

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money form 14, 185, 186, 191, 195, 196, 200, 203 n.62 Morfino, Vittorio 13, 110 Mouffe, Chantal 4, 12, 19 n.18, 49, 50, 51, 52, 54, 55, 56, 95, 96, 142 multitude, the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 11, 12, 13, 28, 31, 32, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 43, 44, 45, 49, 51, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 63, 64, 66, 69, 70, 71, 72, 103, 104, 105, 106, 108, 109, 110, 116, 120, 121, 124, 125, 133, 134, 139, 140, 141 Muslim Brotherhood, the 141 necropolitics 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 162, 163, 166 n.60 Negri, Antonio 2, 3, 4, 5, 12, 43, 44, 49, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 74 (n. 28), 75 (n. 29 and 43), 103, 105, 106, 109, 110, 115, 116, 120, 124, 125, 133, 140, 141, 142, 153, 189, 192, 216, 218, 221 neo-capitalism 8, 11, 42, 43, 64. See also capitalism neoliberalism 43, 44, 109, 110, 210 networks 6, 8, 71, 81, 89, 90, 92, 103, 104, 105, 109, 142, 176 news, the 9, 84, 90, 116, 117, 118, 119, 123, 129 n.46, 136 Occupy, Occupy Wall Street 82, 125, 134, 136, 139, 140 Oligarchy, the 142 One, the 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 16, 17 n.1, 26, 57, 210, 221 Operaismo 41, 63, 64, 73 n.6, 74 n.16, 104, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 192, 195, 200, 200–1 n.1 and n.3, 205 post-Operaismo 1, 43, 45 n.21, 49, 211 Panzieri, Raniero 64, 65, 72, 189 Paris Commune, the 10, 81, 83, 87, 143 party, the (concept) 10, 39, 41, 64, 65, 67, 69, 70, 72, 74 n.24 and n.28, 76 n.49, 117, 120, 134, 136, 137, 140, 141, 142, 200 Pasolini, Pier Paolo 8, 11, 40, 41, 42, 43, 124, 220

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Index

people, the 1, 2, 11, 12, 36, 37, 38, 39, 43, 44, 56, 57, 82, 83, 84, 87, 88, 90, 97, 99 n.30, 100 n.41, 116, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 128 n.29, 142 Plato 11, 25–30 Podemos (Spanish political party) 76 n.49, 141 populism 2–3, 44, 134, 137, 139, 140–3 post-Fordism, post-Fordist labour 6–8, 18 n.9, 31, 45 n.21, 103–6, 109, 133, 140, 141, 172, 179, 223 n.24. See also Fordism, Fordist production postmodernism 118, 134, 135, 140, 141 post-politics, the post-political 14, 50, 51, 133, 135, 138, 142 Primo Maggio (journal) 190–1, 192, 195, 197, 199 Printemps Érable (movement) 134 protest, protestors, protest movements 1, 2, 3, 6, 8–9, 10, 13–14, 16, 17, 71, 74 n.26, 90–1, 95, 97, 124, 133–8, 140–1, 143, 144 n.1, 213 Protestant ethics 173, 214 racism 91, 136, 142, 155, 157 Rancière, Jacques 2, 95, 138–9 real subsumption 64, 69, 73 n.7, 225 n.52 representation (political) 1, 51, 56, 63, 64, 65, 69, 70–1, 72, 76 n.49, 97, 99 n.32, 115, 133, 136, 137, 139 Retort collective, the 119 revolution, revolutions (historical) 1, 2, 3, 6, 9–10, 13, 19 n.29, 41, 67, 74 n.28, 81, 83, 91, 97, 99 n.27, 109, 122, 123, 124, 128 n.35, 133, 135, 139, 141, 143, 180, 187, 191, 194, 197, 220–1, 226 n.68 revolutionary subjectivity 3, 13, 188 riots, rioting 9, 71, 72, 73 n.9, 90, 124, 135, 137 Royal family (British), and members of 13, 115–23, 125 Schama, Simon 122, 125, 128 n.35 Schmitt, Carl 12, 49–53, 55, 58, 69, 96 self-valorization 67–70, 133 Shelley, Percy Bysshe 1, 2

sleepless worker, the (concept) 15, 176, 181 social factory 7, 66, 68, 139–40, 141, 142, 143 social media 9, 17, 91, 120, 134, 174, 175, 207. See also Facebook, Twitter social reproduction 14, 153, 154, 155, 156, 164 n.13 socialism 16, 139, 143, 212, 221 solidarity 5, 6, 12, 17, 51, 55, 56, 58, 72, 128 n.29, 140 sovereign/sovereignty 2, 11, 12, 38–9, 42–4, 51, 52, 55, 56, 57, 58, 64, 70, 87, 120, 125, 141, 154, 155, 157, 160, 162, 221 Spinoza, Baruch 3 square (as space for occupation) 63, 71, 72, 73 n.10, 76 n.49, 133–4, 136, 140 Tahrir Square 1, 81, 124–5 Tiananmen Square 1 State, the 2, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 14, 16–17, 18 n.6, 19 n.25, 20 n.34, 36–9, 42–4, 46, 49, 51–8, 70, 72, 75 n.42, 81, 82, 88, 89, 91, 96, 97, 116, 126 n.10, 135, 136, 139, 141, 143, 153–5, 160, 187, 189, 190, 191, 198, 199, 210, 218 state of nature 12, 35, 37–9, 44, 56 strikes, striking 17, 64, 65, 68, 71, 73 n.9, 81, 121, 122, 133, 134, 140, 141, 143, 160 Syriza 3, 10, 76 n.49, 141, 143 Thatcher, Margaret 19 n.25, 43 totalitarianism 2, 92, 140 Tottenham (London) 124 Tronti, Mario 64, 65, 73 n.5 and n.14, 105, 107, 187–8, 189, 192, 200 n.3, 201 n.7 Twitter 89, 91, 141, 174. See also social media universality 134, 137, 139 value form 14, 186, 193, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 200 n.1, 202 n.46, 214, 216 vanguard 13, 67, 139, 141, 143–4 Virilio, Paul 119, 128 n.22

Index Virno, Paolo 2, 12, 18 n.9, 41, 44, 49, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 76 n.48, 111 n.10, 133, 179, 180, 201 n.3, 211, 223 n.24

working class, the. See class Wright, Erik Olin 143

War on Terror, the 134 Witz (concept in Freud and Virno) 179, 180 Women’s March, the 134 workerism 14, 107, 133, 171, 200 n.3. See also Autonomia, Operaismo

Yellow Vests, the. See Gilets Jaunes

235

xenophobia 3, 6, 136

Žižek, Slavoj 18 n.6 and n.14, 20 n.30 and n.32 and n.34, 81, 93, 134, 139, 140, 142, 210, 223 n.16

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