Antonio "Toni" Negri (born 1 August 1933) is an Italian
Spinozistic-
Marxist sociologist and
political philosopher
Political philosophy or political theory is the philosophical study of government, addressing questions about the nature, scope, and legitimacy of public agents and institutions and the relationships between them. Its topics include politics, l ...
, best known for his co-authorship of ''
Empire
An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...
'' and secondarily for his work on
Spinoza
Baruch (de) Spinoza (born Bento de Espinosa; later as an author and a correspondent ''Benedictus de Spinoza'', anglicized to ''Benedict de Spinoza''; 24 November 1632 – 21 February 1677) was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish origin, ...
.
Born in
Padua
Padua ( ; it, Padova ; vec, Pàdova) is a city and ''comune'' in Veneto, northern Italy. Padua is on the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice. It is the capital of the province of Padua. It is also the economic and communications hub of the ...
, he became a political philosophy professor in his hometown university. Negri founded the ''
Potere Operaio
Potere Operaio ("Workers' Power") was a radical left-wing Italian political group, active between 1967 and 1973. (It shouldn't be confused with "Potere Operaio Pisano" which was one of the components of a competing revolutionary group, Lotta Conti ...
'' (Worker Power) group in 1969 and was a leading member of ''
Autonomia Operaia
Autonomia Operaia (Italian: ''Workers' Autonomy'') was an Italian leftist movement particularly active from 1976 to 1978. It took an important role in the autonomist movement in the 1970s, alongside earlier organisations such as ''Potere Operaio'', ...
''. As one of the most popular theorists of
Autonomism
Autonomism, also known as autonomist Marxism is an anti-capitalist left-wing political and social movement and theory. As a theoretical system, it first emerged in Italy in the 1960s from workerism (). Later, post-Marxist and anarchist tende ...
, he has published hugely influential books urging "revolutionary consciousness."
He was accused in the late 1970s of various charges including being the mastermind of the left-wing
terrorist
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...
organization
Red Brigades
The Red Brigades ( it, Brigate Rosse , often abbreviated BR) was a far-left Marxist–Leninist armed organization operating as a terrorist and guerrilla group based in Italy responsible for numerous violent incidents, including the abduction ...
(''Brigate Rosse'' or BR), involved in the May 1978 kidnapping of
Aldo Moro
Aldo Romeo Luigi Moro (; 23 September 1916 – 9 May 1978) was an Italian statesman and a prominent member of the Christian Democracy (DC). He served as prime minister of Italy from December 1963 to June 1968 and then from November 1974 to July 1 ...
, two-time prime minister of Italy, and leader of the
Christian-Democrat Party, among others. He was wrongly suspected to have made a threatening phone call on behalf of the BR, but the court was unable to conclusively prove his ties.
Nevertheless he was convicted in 1984 and sentenced (in absentia) to 30 years in prison. He was given an additional four years on the charge of being ‘morally responsible’ for the violence of political activists in the 1960s and 1970s. The question of Negri's complicity with left-wing extremism is a controversial subject.
[Drake, Richard. "The Red and the Black: Terrorism in Contemporary Italy", International Political Science Review, Vol. 5, No. 3, Political Crises (1984), pp. 279–298. Quote: "The debate over Toni Negri's complicity in left-wing extremism has already resulted in the publication of several thick polemical volumes, as well as a huge number of op-ed pieces."] He was indicted on a number of charges, including "association and insurrection against the state" (a charge which was later dropped), and sentenced for involvement in two murders.
Negri fled to France where, protected by the
Mitterrand doctrine, he taught at the
Paris VIII (Vincennes) and the
Collège international de philosophie The Collège international de philosophie (Ciph), located in Paris' 5th arrondissement, is a tertiary education institute placed under the trusteeship of the French government department of research and chartered under the French 1901 Law on associ ...
, along with
Jacques Derrida,
Michel Foucault and
Gilles Deleuze. In 1997, after a plea-bargain that reduced his prison time from 30 to 13 years,
[Windschuttle, Keith]
"Tutorials in Terrorism"
''The Australian'', 16 March 2005. he returned to Italy to serve the end of his sentence. Many of his most influential books were published while he was behind bars. He now lives in Venice and Paris with his partner, the French philosopher
Judith Revel.
Like Deleuze, Negri's preoccupation with Spinoza is well known in contemporary philosophy. Along with
Althusser
Louis Pierre Althusser (, ; ; 16 October 1918 – 22 October 1990) was a French Marxist philosopher. He was born in Algeria and studied at the École normale supérieure in Paris, where he eventually became Professor of Philosophy.
Althusser ...
and Deleuze, he has been one of the central figures of a French-inspired
Neo-Spinozism in
continental philosophy of the late 20th and early 21st centuries,
that was the second remarkable Spinoza revival in history, after a well-known rediscovery of Spinoza by German thinkers (especially the
German Romantics and
Idealists
In philosophy, the term idealism identifies and describes metaphysics, metaphysical perspectives which assert that reality is indistinguishable and inseparable from perception and understanding; that reality is a mental construct closely con ...
) in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
He is the father of
film director Anna Negri
Anna Negri (born 9 December 1964) is an Italian film director and screenwriter.
Born in Venice, she is the daughter of the Marxist sociologist and political philosopher Antonio Negri.Giorgio Dell’Arti, Massimo Parrini. ''Catalogo dei viventi''. ...
.
Early years
Antonio Negri was born in
Padua
Padua ( ; it, Padova ; vec, Pàdova) is a city and ''comune'' in Veneto, northern Italy. Padua is on the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice. It is the capital of the province of Padua. It is also the economic and communications hub of the ...
, in the
Northeastern Italian region of
Veneto
it, Veneto (man) it, Veneta (woman)
, population_note =
, population_blank1_title =
, population_blank1 =
, demographics_type1 =
, demographics1_footnotes =
, demographics1_title1 =
, demographics1_info1 = ...
, in 1933. His father was an active
communist militant from the city of
Bologna
Bologna (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language, Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 1 ...
(in the
Northeastern Italian region of
Emilia-Romagna
egl, Emigliàn (man) egl, Emiglièna (woman) rgn, Rumagnòl (man) rgn, Rumagnòla (woman) it, Emiliano (man) it, Emiliana (woman) or it, Romagnolo (man) it, Romagnola (woman)
, population_note =
, population_blank1_title ...
), and although he died when Negri was two years old, his political engagement made Negri familiar with
Marxism
Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialectical ...
from an early age, while his mother was a teacher from the town of
Poggio Rusco (in
province of Mantua,
Lombardy).
He began his career as a militant in the 1950s with the activist Roman Catholic youth organization ''Gioventú Italiana di Azione Cattolica (GIAC).'' Negri became a
communist in 1953–54 when he worked at a
kibbutz in Israel for a year. The kibbutz was organised according to ideas of
Zionist
Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...
socialism and all the members were Jewish communists. He joined the
Italian Socialist Party
The Italian Socialist Party (, PSI) was a Socialism, socialist and later Social democracy, social-democratic List of political parties in Italy, political party in Italy, whose history stretched for longer than a century, making it one of the l ...
in 1956 and remained a member until 1963, while at the same time becoming more and more engaged throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s in Marxist movements.
He had a quick academic career at the
University of Padua
The University of Padua ( it, Università degli Studi di Padova, UNIPD) is an Italian university located in the city of Padua, region of Veneto, northern Italy. The University of Padua was founded in 1222 by a group of students and teachers from ...
and was promoted to full professor at a young age in the field of "''dottrina dello Stato''" (State theory), a peculiarly Italian field that deals with juridical and constitutional theory. This might have been facilitated by his connections to influential politicians such as
Raniero Panzieri
Raniero Panzieri (14 February 1921 – Turin, 9 October 1964) was an Italian politician, writer and Marxist theoretician, considered as the founder of operaismo.
Biography
Raniero Panzieri was born in Rome. He lived in Sicily and was active in ...
and philosopher
Norberto Bobbio
Norberto Bobbio (; 18 October 1909 – 9 January 2004) was an Italian philosopher of law and political sciences and a historian of political thought. He also wrote regularly for the Turin-based daily ''La Stampa''.
Bobbio was a social libe ...
, strongly engaged with the Socialist Party.
In the early 1960s, Negri joined the editorial group of ''Quaderni Rossi'', a journal that represented the intellectual rebirth of Marxism in Italy outside the realm of the communist party.
In 1969, together with
Oreste Scalzone
Oreste Scalzone (born 26 January 1947) is an Italian Marxist intellectual and one of the founders of the communist organization Potere Operaio.
Scalzone was born in Terni, Umbria. In 1968 he came to know Franco Piperno, and on 1 March that year ...
and
Franco Piperno, Negri was one of the founders of the group
Potere Operaio
Potere Operaio ("Workers' Power") was a radical left-wing Italian political group, active between 1967 and 1973. (It shouldn't be confused with "Potere Operaio Pisano" which was one of the components of a competing revolutionary group, Lotta Conti ...
(Workers' Power) and the ''
Operaismo
Workerism is a political theory that emphasizes the importance of or glorifies the working class. Workerism, or , was of particular significance in Italian left-wing politics.
As revolutionary praxis
Workerism (or ) is a political analysis, w ...
'' (
workerist) Communist movement. ''Potere Operaio'' disbanded in 1973 and gave rise to the
Autonomia
Autonomism, also known as autonomist Marxism is an anti-capitalist left-wing political and social movement and theory. As a theoretical system, it first emerged in Italy in the 1960s from workerism (). Later, post-Marxist and anarchist tend ...
Operaia Organizzata (Organised Workers' Autonomy) movement.
Arrest and flight
On 16 March 1978,
Aldo Moro
Aldo Romeo Luigi Moro (; 23 September 1916 – 9 May 1978) was an Italian statesman and a prominent member of the Christian Democracy (DC). He served as prime minister of Italy from December 1963 to June 1968 and then from November 1974 to July 1 ...
, former Italian prime minister and Christian Democrat party leader, was kidnapped in Rome by the
Red Brigades
The Red Brigades ( it, Brigate Rosse , often abbreviated BR) was a far-left Marxist–Leninist armed organization operating as a terrorist and guerrilla group based in Italy responsible for numerous violent incidents, including the abduction ...
, his five-man bodyguard murdered on the spot of the kidnapping in Rome's Via Fani. While they were holding him, forty-five days after the kidnapping,
[ the Red Brigades called his family on the phone, informing Moro's wife of her husband's impending death.][ Nine days later his body, shot in the head, was found dumped in a city lane.][ The conversation was recorded, and later broadcast and televised. A number of people who knew Negri and remembered his voice identified him as the probable author of the call, but the claim has been since dismissed: the author of the call was, in fact, ]Valerio Morucci
Valerio Morucci (born 22 July 1949) is an Italian terrorist, who was a member of the Red Brigades and who took part in the kidnapping and assassination of Aldo Moro in 1978.
Biography
Morucci was born in Rome. He took part in the libertarian ...
.
On 7 April 1979, Negri was arrested for his part in the Autonomy Movement, along with others (Emilio Vesce, Luciano Ferrari Bravo, Mario Dalmaviva, Lauso Zagato, Oreste Scalzone
Oreste Scalzone (born 26 January 1947) is an Italian Marxist intellectual and one of the founders of the communist organization Potere Operaio.
Scalzone was born in Terni, Umbria. In 1968 he came to know Franco Piperno, and on 1 March that year ...
, Pino Nicotri, Alisa del Re, Carmela di Rocco, Massimo Tramonte, Sandro Serafini, Guido Bianchini, and others). Padova's Public Prosecutor Pietro Calogero accused them of being involved in the political wing of the Red Brigades, and thus behind left-wing terrorism
Left-wing terrorism or far-left terrorism is terrorism committed with the aim of overthrowing current capitalist systems and replacing them with communist or socialist societies. Left-wing terrorism can also occur within already socialist states ...
in Italy. Negri was charged with a number of offences, including leadership of the Red Brigades, masterminding the 1978 kidnapping and murder of the President of the Christian Democratic Party Aldo Moro, and plotting to overthrow the government. At the time, Negri was a political science professor at the University of Padua and visiting lecturer at Paris' École Normale Supérieure
École may refer to:
* an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée)
* École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France
* École, S ...
. The Italian public was shocked that an academic could be involved in such events.[
A year later, Negri was exonerated from Aldo Moro's kidnapping after a leader of the BR, having decided to cooperate with the prosecution, testified that Negri "had nothing to do with the Red Brigades."] The charge of 'armed insurrection against the State' against Negri was dropped at the last moment, and because of this he did not receive the 30-year plus life sentence requested by the prosecutor, but only 30 years for being the instigator of political activist Carlo Saronio's murder and having 'morally concurred' with the murder of Andrea Lombardini, a ''carabiniere'', during a failed bank robbery.
His philosopher peers saw little fault with Negri's activities. Michel Foucault commented, "Isn't he in jail simply for being an intellectual?" French philosophers Félix Guattari
Pierre-Félix Guattari ( , ; 30 April 1930 – 29 August 1992) was a French psychoanalyst, political philosopher, semiotician, social activist, and screenwriter. He co-founded schizoanalysis with Gilles Deleuze, and ecosophy with Arne Næs ...
and Gilles Deleuze also signed in November 1977 ''L'Appel des intellectuels français contre la répression en Italie'' (The Call of French Intellectuals Against Repression in Italy) in protest against Negri's imprisonment and Italian anti-terrorism legislation
Anti-terrorism legislation are laws with the purpose of fighting terrorism. They usually, if not always, follow specific bombings or assassinations. Anti-terrorism legislation usually includes specific amendments allowing the state to bypass its ...
.
In 1983, four years after his arrest and while he was still in prison awaiting trial, Negri was elected to the Italian legislature as a member for the Radical Party. Claiming parliamentary immunity, he was temporarily released and used his freedom to escape to France. There he remained for 14 years, writing and teaching, protected from extradition in virtue of the " Mitterrand doctrine". His refusal to stand trial in Italy was widely criticized by Italian media and by the Italian Radical Party, who had supported his candidacy to Parliament.
In France, Negri began teaching at the Paris VIII (Vincennes) and the Collège international de philosophie The Collège international de philosophie (Ciph), located in Paris' 5th arrondissement, is a tertiary education institute placed under the trusteeship of the French government department of research and chartered under the French 1901 Law on associ ...
, founded by Jacques Derrida. Although the conditions of his residence in France prevented him from engaging in political activities, he wrote prolifically and was active in a broad coalition of left-wing intellectuals. In 1990 Negri with Jean-Marie Vincent and Denis Berger founded the journal ''Futur Antérieur''. (The journal ceased publication in 1998 but was reborn as ''Multitudes
''Multitudes'' is a French philosophical, political and artistic monthly journal founded in 2000 by Yann Moulier-Boutang. It is thematically situated in the theoretical framework of the seminal work ''Empire'' by Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt. ...
'' in 2000, with Negri as a member of the international editorial board.)
In 1997, after a plea-bargain that reduced his prison time from 30 to 13 years,[ Negri returned to Italy to serve the end of his sentence. He was released from prison in the spring of 2003, having written some of his most influential works while behind bars.
In the late 1980s the Italian President Francesco Cossiga described Antonio Negri as "a psychopath" who "poisoned the minds of an entire generation of Italy's youth."
]
Political thought and writing
Unlike other forms of Marxism
Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialectical ...
, autonomist Marxism emphasises the ability of the working class
The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colo ...
to force changes to the organization of the capitalist
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, priva ...
system independent of the state
State may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State
* ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States
* ''Our S ...
, trade unions
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...
or political parties. Autonomists are less concerned with party political organization than are other Marxists, focusing instead on self-organized action outside of traditional organizational structures. Autonomist Marxism is thus a "bottom-up" theory: it draws attention to activities that autonomists see as everyday working-class resistance to capitalism, for example absenteeism
Absenteeism is a habitual pattern of absence from a duty or obligation without good reason. Generally, absenteeism is unplanned absences. Absenteeism has been viewed as an indicator of poor individual performance, as well as a breach of an implic ...
, slow working, and socialization in the workplace. The journal ''Quaderni Rossi'' ("Red Notebooks"), produced between 1961 and 1965, and its successor ''Classe Operaia'' ("Working Class"), produced between 1963 and 1966, were also influential in the development of early autonomism. Both were founded by Antonio Negri and Mario Tronti
Mario Tronti (born 24 July 1931 in Rome) is an Italian philosopher and politician, considered one of the founders of the theory of operaismo in the 1960s.
An active member of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) during the 1950s, he was, with Ran ...
.
Today, Antonio Negri is best known as the co-author, with Michael Hardt
Michael Hardt (born 1960) is an American political philosopher and literary theorist. Hardt is best known for his book ''Empire'', which was co-written with Antonio Negri.
Hardt and Negri suggest that several forces which they see as domin ...
, of the controversial Marxist-inspired treatise ''Empire
An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...
'' (2000).
In 2009 Negri completed the book ''Commonwealth'', the final in a trilogy that began in 2000 with ''Empire'' and continued with ''Multitude'' in 2004, co-authored with Michael Hardt.
Since ''Commonwealth'', he has written multiple notable articles on the Arab Spring
The Arab Spring ( ar, الربيع العربي) was a series of anti-government protests, uprisings and armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began in Tunisia in response to corruption and econo ...
and Occupy movements along with other social issues.[Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri]
Arabs are democracy's new pioneers
, The Guardian, 24 February 2011.[Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri]
The Fight for 'Real Democracy' at the Heart of Occupy Wall Street
, Foreign Affairs, 11 October 2011.
''Labor of Dionysus: A Critique of the State-Form'' (1994)
In this book, the authors ask themselves "How is it, then, that labour, with all its life-affirming potential, has become the means of capitalist discipline, exploitation, and domination in modern society?" The authors expose and pursue this paradox through a systematic analysis of the role of labour in the processes of capitalist production and in the establishment of capitalist legal and social institutions. Critiquing liberal and socialist notions of labor and institutional reform from a radical democratic perspective, Hardt and Negri challenge the state-form itself.
''Insurgencies: Constituent Power and the Modern State'' (1999)
This book, written solely by Negri, "explores the drama of modern revolutions-from Machiavelli’s Florence and Harrington’s England to the American, French, and Russian revolutions-and puts forward a new notion of how power and action must be understood if we are to achieve a radically democratic future."
''Empire'' (2000)
In general, the book theorizes an ongoing transition from a "modern" phenomenon of imperialism, centered around individual nation-states
A nation state is a political unit where the state and nation are congruent. It is a more precise concept than "country", since a country does not need to have a predominant ethnic group.
A nation, in the sense of a common ethnicity, may i ...
, to an emergent postmodern construct created among ruling powers which the authors call "Empire", with different forms of warfare:
...according to Hardt and Negri's ''Empire'', the rise of Empire is the end of national conflict, the "enemy" now, whoever he is, can no longer be ideological or national. The enemy now must be understood as a kind of criminal, as someone who represents a threat not to a political system or a nation but to the law. This is the enemy as a terrorist... In the "new order that envelops the entire space of... civilization", where conflict between nations has been made irrelevant, the "enemy" is simultaneously "banalized" (reduced to an object of routine police repression) and absolutized (like the Enemy, an absolute threat to the ethical order").
''Empire'' elaborates a variety of ideas surrounding constitutions, global war, and class. Hence, the Empire is constituted by a monarchy
A monarchy is a government#Forms, form of government in which a person, the monarch, is head of state for life or until abdication. The legitimacy (political)#monarchy, political legitimacy and authority of the monarch may vary from restric ...
(the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
and the G8, and international organizations
An international organization or international organisation (see spelling differences), also known as an intergovernmental organization or an international institution, is a stable set of norms and rules meant to govern the behavior of states a ...
such as NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
, the International Monetary Fund
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 190 countries. Its stated mission is "working to foster glo ...
or the World Trade Organization
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization that regulates and facilitates international trade. With effective cooperation
in the United Nations System, governments use the organization to establish, revise, and ...
), an oligarchy
Oligarchy (; ) is a conceptual form of power structure in which power rests with a small number of people. These people may or may not be distinguished by one or several characteristics, such as nobility, fame, wealth, education, or corporate, r ...
(the multinational corporations
A multinational company (MNC), also referred to as a multinational enterprise (MNE), a transnational enterprise (TNE), a transnational corporation (TNC), an international corporation or a stateless corporation with subtle but contrasting senses, i ...
and other nation-states) and a democracy (the various non-government organization
A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in ...
s and the United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...
). Part of the book's analysis deals with "imagin ng/nowiki> resistance", but "the point of Empire is that it, too, is "total" and that resistance to it can only take the form of negation - "the will to be against". The Empire is total, but economic inequality
There are wide varieties of economic inequality, most notably income inequality measured using the distribution of income (the amount of money people are paid) and wealth inequality measured using the distribution of wealth (the amount of ...
persists, and as all identities are wiped out and replaced with a universal one, the identity of the poor persists.
''Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire'' (2004)
''Multitude'' addresses these issues and picks up the thread where ''Empire'' has left off. In order to do so, Hardt and Negri argue, one must first analyze the present configuration of war and its contradictions. This analysis is performed in the first chapter, after which chapters two and three focus on multitude and democracy, respectively. ''Multitude'' is not so much a sequel as it is a reiteration from a new point of view in a new, relatively accessible style that is distinct from the predominantly academic
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...
prose style of ''Empire''. Multitude remains, the authors insist, despite its ubiquitous subject matter and its almost casual tone, a book of philosophy which aims to shape a conceptual ground for a political process of democratization rather than present an answer to the question 'what to do?’ or offer a programme for concrete action.
''Commonwealth'' (2009)
In this book, the authors introduce the concept of "the republic of property": "What is central for our purposes here is that the concept of property and the defence of property remain the foundation of every modern political constitution. This is the sense in which the republic, from the great bourgeois revolutions to today, is a republic of property". Part 2 of the book deals with the relationship between modernity and anti-modernity and proposes "altermodernity
''Commonwealth'' is a book by autonomous Marxist theorists Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. It completes a trilogy which includes ''Empire'' and '' Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire''.
The influence of the book has paralleled th ...
". Altermodernity "involves not only insertion in the long history of antimodern struggles but also rupture with any fixed dialectic between modern sovereignty and antimodern resistance. In the passage from antimodernity to altermodernity, just as tradition and identity are transformed, so too resistance takes on a new meaning, dedicated now to the constitution of alternatives. The freedom that forms the base of resistance, as we explained earlier, comes to the fore and constitutes an event to announce a new political project."
For Alex Callinicos
Alexander Theodore Callinicos (born 24 July 1950) is a Rhodesian-born British political theorist and activist. An adherent of Trotskyism, he is a member of the Central Committee of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and serves as its Internati ...
in a review "What is newest in ''Commonwealth'' is its take on the fashionable idea of the common. Hardt and Negri mean by this not merely the natural resources that capital seeks to appropriate, but also "the languages we create, the social practices we establish, the modes of sociality that define our relationships", which are both the means and the result of biopolitical production. Communism, they argue, is defined by the common, just as capitalism is by the private and socialism (which they identify in effect with statism) with the public." For David Harvey
David W. Harvey (born 31 October 1935) is a British-born Marxist economic geographer, podcaster and Distinguished Professor of anthropology and geography at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). He received his P ...
Negri and Hardt "in the search of an altermodernity – something that is outside the dialectical opposition between modernity and anti-modernity – they need a means of escape. The choice between capitalism and socialism, they suggest, is all wrong. We need to identify something entirely different, communism – working within a different set of dimensions." Harvey also notes that "Revolutionary thought, Hardt and Negri argue, must find a way to contest capitalism and 'the republic of property.' It 'should not shun identity politics but instead must work through it and learn from it,’ because it is the 'primary vehicle for struggle within and against the republic of property since identity itself is based on property and sovereignty.'” In the same exchange in Artforum
''Artforum'' is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art. The magazine is distinguished from other magazines by its unique 10½ x 10½ inch square format, with each cover often devoted to the work of an artist. Notabl ...
between Harvey and Micheal Hardt and Antonio Negri, Hardt and Negri attempt to correct Harvey in a concept that is important within the argument of ''Commonwealth''. As such, they state that "We instead define the concept of singularity, contrasting it to the figure of the individual on the one hand and forms of identity on the other, by focusing on three aspects of its relationship to multiplicity: Singularity refers externally to a multiplicity of others; is internally divided or multiple; and constitutes a multiplicity over time - that is, a process of becoming."
Occupy movements of 2011–2012 and ''Declaration''
In May 2012 Negri self-published (with Michael Hardt) an electronic pamphlet on the occupy and encampment movements of 2011–2012 called ''Declaration
Declaration may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''Declaration'' (book), a self-published electronic pamphlet by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri
* ''The Declaration'' (novel), a 2008 children's novel by Gemma Malley
Music ...
'' that argues the movement explores new forms of democracy. The introduction was published at '' Jacobin'' under the title "Take Up the Baton". He also published an article with Hardt in ''Foreign Affairs'' in October 2011 stating "The Encampment in Lower Manhattan Speaks to a Failure of Representation."
''Assembly and Essay Collections'' (2013-present)
In 2013, Negri published ''Spinoza: Politics and Postmodernity'', a collections of essays on Spinoza and his contemporary relevance to philosophy and political theory, translated into English by William McCuaig.
In 2017, Negri and Michael Hardt published ''Assembly''. The book provides a series of reflections on the nature of contemporary capitalism and social movements, drawing together the concepts and ideas explored previously in their ''Empire'' 'trilogy' such as the common, the multitude, and globalisation. It also introduces a new political concept of 'assembly', which draws on Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's concept of an 'assemblage' (French: ''agencements'') as a way of thinking about mass movements and the role of constituent power. It also provides analyses of events that occurred in the years since ''Commonwealth'' was published in 2009, such as the rise of right-wing populism, Occupy Wall Street
Occupy Wall Street (OWS) was a protest movement against economic inequality and the influence of money in politics that began in Zuccotti Park, located in New York City's Wall Street financial district, in September 2011. It gave rise to t ...
, the automation
Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, namely by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machines ...
of work, and the digital economy. It continues their reflections on the character and goals of leaderless movements, and especially focuses on the ways in which these movements can seek to self-organise in radically democratic and egalitarian ways. They propose that instead of the usual model of leadership and movement in which leadership serves to articulate the long-term and 'large scale' programme of the multitude, this relationship should instead be inverted: leadership instead comes to serve specific, tactical, and short-term ends (such as the organisation of specific moblisations, protests, direct action, strikes, etc.), while the multitude (or collective) serves to "articulate the long-term goals and objectives" to which the leadership must submit and facilitate.
The book received generally positive reviews. Writing for ''Critical Inquiry
''Critical Inquiry'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal in the humanities published by the University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Department of English Language and Literature (University of Chicago). While the topics and historic ...
'', Kyle Perry argues that the central claim of the book is that "advocates for a truly democratic world must no longer refuse the demands of leading, strategizing, decision making, and institution building that can otherwise remain variously secondary, absent, or anathema amid left, liberatory, and progressive causes." It also rejects as a false binary the idea that liberal-democratic institutions should either be occupied or destroyed; instead, "The better move is to get creative about inventing new, effective, and crucially 'nonsovereign' institutions. Such institutions are not meant to 'rule over us' but to 'foster continuity and organization” and to “help organize our practices, manage our relationships, and together make decisions'." Writing for the ''Los Angeles Review of Books
The ''Los Angeles Review of Books'' (''LARB'' is a literary review magazine covering the national and international book scenes. A preview version launched on Tumblr in April 2011, and the official website followed one year later in April 2012. ...
,'' Terence Renaud argues that "Given how much the political terrain has changed since ''Empire'' appeared in 2000, much of Hardt and Negri’s project appears dead. It has said all that it’s going to say. Even so, the authors do an excellent job of highlighting the internal challenges that a resurgent left will face. Every new left risks degenerating into sectarian conflict, heavy-handed leadership, and complacency about its own righteousness. Hardt and Negri insist on a self-critical and internally democratic left that never ceases to call its own assumptions into question. In order to transform society, the left must first transform itself."
Between 2016 and 2019, Negri published a three-volume collection of essays written in various years, but translated, collected and published together in English in these volumes. The first volume was titled ''Marx and Foucault'', and published on December 16, 2016. In this first volume, Negri aims to show "how the thinking of Marx and Foucault were brought together to create an original theoretical synthesis - particularly in the context of Italy from May ’68 onwards." The second volume was titled ''From the Factory to the Metropolis,'' and was published in February 2018. This second volume turns towards an analysis of the passage from the traditional proletarian 'mass worker' of industrial capitalism (especially as found in Marx's writing) to the contemporary 'socialised worker', as well as of the modern 'metropolis', which Negri describes as "a space of antagonisms between forms of life produced, on the one hand, by finance capital (the capital that operates around rents), and on the other by the 'cognitive proletariat'. The central question is then how 'the common' of the latter can be mobilised for the destruction of capitalism." The third and final volume of this 'trilogy' was titled ''Spinoza: Then and Now'', and was published in February 2020. In this third volume, Negri "examines how Spinoza’s thought constitutes a radical break with past ideas and an essential tool for envisaging a form of politics beyond capitalism."
On October 29, 2021, Negri will publish the first volume of a new trilogy of books. This first volume will be titled ''Marx in Movement: Operaismo in Context'', and will seek to provide an account and examination of the history of Italian Autonomist (or 'Autonomist Marxist
Autonomism, also known as autonomist Marxism is an anti-capitalist left-wing political and social movement and theory. As a theoretical system, it first emerged in Italy in the 1960s from workerism (). Later, Post-Marxism, post-Marxist and anar ...
') thought, particularly in terms of Negri's theoretical development of the concept of the 'social worker' as an attempt to update Marxism in light of the changes since the factory-based industrial labour of Marx's time.
Quotes
* "Prison, with its daily rhythm, with the transfer and the defense, does not leave any time; prison dissolves time: This is the principal form of punishment in a capitalist society."
* "Nothing in my books has any direct organizational relationship. My responsibility is totally as an intellectual who writes and sells books!"[''Autonomia: Post-Political Politics'', ed. Sylvere Lotringer & Christian Marazzi. New York: Semiotext(e), 1980, 2007.]
* "...it is indeed necessary to recognize as a fact the emergence of the B.R. ed Brigadesand NAP rmed Proletariat Nucleias the tip of the iceberg of the Movement. This does not require one in any way to transform the recognition into a defense, and this does not in any way deny the grave mistake of the B.R. line. At one point I defined the B.R. as a variable of the movement gone crazy... I state again that terrorism can only be fought through an authentic mass political struggle and inside the revolutionary movement."
* In ''Empire'' the expansion of capitalism is supposed to be 'internal' rather than 'external,' in that it "subsumes not the non-capitalist environment but its own capitalist terrain—that is, that the subsumption is no longer ''formal'' but ''real.''"
Bibliography (English)
Listed in order of their first publication in English.
*Antonio Negri, ''Revolution Retrieved: Selected Writings on Marx, Keynes, Capitalist Crisis and New Social Subjects, 1967–83.'' Translated by Ed Emery and John Merrington. London: Red Notes, 1988.
*Antonio Negri, ''The Politics of Subversion: A Manifesto for the Twenty-First Century.'' Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989.
*Félix Guattari
Pierre-Félix Guattari ( , ; 30 April 1930 – 29 August 1992) was a French psychoanalyst, political philosopher, semiotician, social activist, and screenwriter. He co-founded schizoanalysis with Gilles Deleuze, and ecosophy with Arne Næs ...
and Antonio Negri, ''Communists Like Us.'' Cambridge, Mass.: Semiotext(e) Press, 1990. ISBN 0936756217
*Antonio Negri, ''The Savage Anomaly: The Power of Spinoza's Metaphysics and Politics.'' Translated by Michael Hardt. Minneapolis
University of Minnesota Press
1991. ISBN 0816618771
*Antonio Negri, ''Marx Beyond Marx: Lessons on the Grundrisse.'' New York: Autonomedia, 1991. ISBN 093675625X
*Antonio Negri, ''Insurgencies: Constituent Power and the Modern State.'' Translated by Maurizia Boscagli. Minneapolis
1999. Reprint b
University of Minnesota Press
2009.
*Antonio Negri, ''Time for Revolution.'' Translated by Matteo Mandarini. New York: Continuum, 2003. ISBN 9780826473288
*Antonio Negri, ''Negri on Negri: In Conversation with Anne Dufourmentelle''. London: Routledge, 2004.
*Antonio Negri, ''Subversive Spinoza
Baruch (de) Spinoza (born Bento de Espinosa; later as an author and a correspondent ''Benedictus de Spinoza'', anglicized to ''Benedict de Spinoza''; 24 November 1632 – 21 February 1677) was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish origin, ...
: (Un)Contemporary Variations.'' Edited by Timothy S. Murphy, translated by Timothy S. Murphy, Michael Hardt
Michael Hardt (born 1960) is an American political philosopher and literary theorist. Hardt is best known for his book ''Empire'', which was co-written with Antonio Negri.
Hardt and Negri suggest that several forces which they see as domin ...
, Ted Stolze, and Charles T. Wolfe. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004.
*Antonio Negri, ''Political Descartes: Reason, Ideology and the Bourgeois Project.'' Translated by Matteo Mandarini and Alberto Toscano. New York: Verso, 2007.
''Goodbye Mr. Socialism''
Antonio Negri in conversation with Raf Valvola Scelsi, Seven Stories Press, 2008.
''The Cell (DVD of 3 interviews on captivity with Negri)''
Angela Melitopoulos, Actar, 2008.
*Antonio Negri, ''The Porcelain Workshop: For a New Grammar of Politics'' Translated by Noura Wedell. California: Semiotext(e) 2008.
*Antonio Negri, ''Reflections on Empire.'' Translated by Ed Emery. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008. ISBN 9780745637051
*Antonio Negri, ''Empire and Beyond''. Translated by Ed Emery. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008. ISBN 9780745640488
*Antonio Negri, ''The Labor of Job
Work or labor (or labour in British English) is intentional activity people perform to support the needs and wants of themselves, others, or a wider community. In the context of economics, work can be viewed as the human activity that contr ...
: The Biblical Text as a Parable of Human Labor.'' Translated by Matteo Mandarini. Durham: Duke University Press
Duke University Press is an academic publisher and university press affiliated with Duke University. It was founded in 1921 by William T. Laprade as The Trinity College Press. (Duke University was initially called Trinity College). In 1926 D ...
2009 (begun 1983).
*Cesare Casarino and Antonio Negri, ''In Praise of the Common''. Minneapolis
University of Minnesota Press
2009.
*Antonio Negri, ''Diary of an Escape.'' Translated by Ed Emery. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2009. ISBN 9780745644257
*Antonio Negri, ''Art and Multitude''. Translated by Ed Emery. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2011. ISBN 9780745648996
*Antonio Negri, ''The Winter is Over: Writings on Transformation Denied, 1989-1995.'' Edited by Giuseppe Caccia. Translated by Isabelli Bertoletti, James Cascaito, and Andrea Casson. Cambridge, Mass.: Semiotext(e), 2013. ISBN 1584351217
*Antonio Negri, ''Factory of Strategy: 33 Lessons on Lenin.'' New York: Columbia University Press, 2014. ISBN 0231146833
*Antonio Negri, ''Marx and Foucault.'' Cambridge: Polity Press, 2016. ISBN 9781509503407
*Antonio Negri, ''From the Factory to the Metropolis''. Translated by Ed Emery. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2018. ISBN 9781509503452
*Antonio Negri, ''Spinoza: Then and Now''. Translated by Ed Emery. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2020. ISBN 150950351X
*Antonio Negri, ''Marx in Movement: Operaismo in Context''. Translated by Ed Emery. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2021. ISBN 9781509544233
*Antonio Negri, ''The End of Sovereignty''. Translated by Ed Emery. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2022. ISBN 1509544305
In collaboration with Michael Hardt
*Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, ''Labor of Dionysus: A Critique of the State-Form''. Minneapolis
1994. ISBN 0816620865
*Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, ''Empire
An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...
.'' Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000. ISBN 0674006712
*Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, '' Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire'', New York: Penguin Press, 2004. ISBN 0143035592
*Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, ''Commonwealth'', Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009.
*Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, ''Declaration
Declaration may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''Declaration'' (book), a self-published electronic pamphlet by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri
* ''The Declaration'' (novel), a 2008 children's novel by Gemma Malley
Music ...
'', 2012.
*Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, ''Assembly.'' Translated by Ed Emery. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. ISBN 9780190677961
Online articles
''Multitudes'' quarterly journal
(in French)
Archives of the journal ''Futur Antérieur''
(in French)
from Generation Online
''Le Monde Diplomatique'', August–September 1998
"Towards an Ontological Definition of Multitude"
Article published in the French journal ''Multitudes
''Multitudes'' is a French philosophical, political and artistic monthly journal founded in 2000 by Yann Moulier-Boutang. It is thematically situated in the theoretical framework of the seminal work ''Empire'' by Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt. ...
''.
Extract from Negri and Hardt's Empire
at Marxists.org
"Take Up the Baton."
Films
* ''Marx Reloaded
''Marx Reloaded'' is a 2011 German documentary film written and directed by the British writer and theorist Jason Barker. Featuring interviews with several well-known philosophers, the film aims to examine the relevance of Karl Marx's ideas in rela ...
'', Arte
Arte (; (), sometimes stylized in lowercase or uppercase in its logo) is a European public service channel dedicated to culture.
It is made up of three separate companies: the Strasbourg-based European Economic Interest Grouping ARTE, plu ...
, April 2011.
* '' Antonio Negri: A Revolt that Never Ends'', ZDF
ZDF (, short for Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen; ; "Second German Television") is a German public-service television broadcaster based in Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate. It is run as an independent nonprofit institution, which was founded by all fe ...
/Arte
Arte (; (), sometimes stylized in lowercase or uppercase in its logo) is a European public service channel dedicated to culture.
It is made up of three separate companies: the Strasbourg-based European Economic Interest Grouping ARTE, plu ...
, 52 min., 2004
See also
*Paolo Virno
Paolo Virno (; ; born 1952) is an Italian philosopher, Semiotics, semiologist and a figurehead for the Italian Marxism, Marxist movement. Implicated in belonging to illegal social movements during the 1960s and 1970s, Virno was arrested and jail ...
References
Further reading
'' The Cell (DVD of 3 interviews on captivity with Negri)''
Angela Melitopoulos, Actar, 2008.
* ''Empire and Imperialism: A Critical Reading of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri.'' Atilio Borón, London: Zed Books, 2005.
Publisher's announcement
Harry Cleaver. 1979, second ed. 2000.
* ''The Philosophy of Antonio Negri'', vol. 1: ''Resistance in Practice'', ed. Timothy S. Murphy and Abdul-Karim Mustapha. London: Pluto Press, 2005.
* ''The Philosophy of Antonio Negri'', vol. 2: ''Revolution in Theory'', ed. Timothy S. Murphy and Abdul-Karim Mustapha. London: Pluto Press, 2007.
* ''Dossier on Empire: a special issue of Rethinking Marxism'', ed. Abdul-karim Mustapha. London: T&F/Routledge, 2002.
* ''Autonomia: Post-Political Politics'', ed. Sylvere Lotringer & Christian Marazzi. New York: Semiotext(e), 1980, 2007. (Includes transcripts of Negri's exchanges with his accusers during his trial.) ,
Available online at Semiotext(e)
* ''Antonio Negri Illustrated: Interview in Venice'', Claudio Calia, Red Quill Books, 2011.
External links
*
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Negri, Antonio
1933 births
Living people
Paris 8 University Vincennes-Saint-Denis faculty
University of Padua faculty
Autonomism
University of Padua alumni
20th-century Italian philosophers
21st-century Italian philosophers
Anti-globalization writers
Continental philosophers
Duke University faculty
Critics of work and the work ethic
Scholars of Marxism
Marxist theorists
Political philosophers
Revolution theorists
Imperialism studies
Italian anti-capitalists
Italian communists
Italian socialists
Italian political philosophers
Italian Marxists
Potere Operaio
Spinoza scholars
Spinozist philosophers
Italian philosophers
Italian atheists
Italian magazine editors
Italian book publishers (people)
Italian magazine founders
Italian publishers (people)
Neo-Spinozism
Descartes scholars
Italian exiles
Refusal of work