''Empire'' is a book by

post-Marxist Post-Marxism is a trend in political philosophy and social theory which deconstructs Karl Marx's writings and Marxism itself, bypassing orthodox Marxism. The term "post-Marxism" first appeared in Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe's theoretica ...

philosophers

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 ...

and

Antonio Negri Antonio "Toni" Negri (born 1 August 1933) is an Italian Spinozistic- Marxist sociologist and political philosopher, best known for his co-authorship of ''Empire'' and secondarily for his work on Spinoza. Born in Padua, he became a political ...

. Written in the mid-1990s, it was published in 2000 and quickly sold beyond its expectations as an academic work.

Summary

In general, Hardt and Negri theorize an ongoing transition from a "modern" phenomenon of

imperialism Imperialism is the state policy, practice, or advocacy of extending power and dominion, especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and economic control of other areas, often through employing hard power (economic and ...

, centered on 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" (the capital letter is distinguishing), 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 (as the Enemy, an absolute threat to the ethical order").

Hardt and Negri elaborate a variety of ideas surrounding constitutions, global war, and class. Hence, the Empire is constituted by a

monarchy A monarchy is a form of government in which a person, the monarch, is head of state for life or until abdication. The political legitimacy and authority of the monarch may vary from restricted and largely symbolic (constitutional monarchy) ...

(the United States 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 an ...

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 globa ...

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 e ...

), 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 international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

). 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 we ...

persists, and as all identities are wiped out and replaced with a universal one, the identity of the poor persists.

Publication history

''Empire'' was published by

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retirem ...

in 2000 as a 478-page hardcover () and paperback ().

Influences

This description of pyramidal levels is a replica of

Polybius Polybius (; grc-gre, Πολύβιος, ; ) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic period. He is noted for his work , which covered the period of 264–146 BC and the Punic Wars in detail. Polybius is important for his analysis of the mixed ...

' description of Roman government, hence the denomination "Empire". Furthermore, the crisis is conceived as inherent to the Empire. Hardt and Negri are heavily indebted to

Michel Foucault Paul-Michel Foucault (, ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, writer, political activist, and literary critic. Foucault's theories primarily address the relationship between power and knowledge, and how ...

's analysis of

biopolitics Biopolitics refers to the political relations between the administration or regulation of the life of species and a locality's populations, where politics and law evaluate life based on perceived constants and traits. French philosopher Michel F ...

and the work of

Gilles Deleuze Gilles Louis René Deleuze ( , ; 18 January 1925 – 4 November 1995) was a French philosopher who, from the early 1950s until his death in 1995, wrote on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volu ...

and

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 Næss, ...

, especially their book ''

A Thousand Plateaus ''A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia'' (french: link=no, Mille plateaux) is a 1980 book by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze and the French psychoanalyst Félix Guattari. It is the second and final volume of their collaborativ ...

''. A number of concepts developed by Deleuze and Guattari – such as multiplicity, deterritorialization, nomads, and control – are central to ''Empire'''s claims. Before ''Empire'', Negri was best known for having written ''The Savage Anomaly'' (1981), a milestone book in

Spinozism 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, b ...

studies which he wrote in prison. ''Empire'' is thus, unsurprisingly, also influenced by

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, b ...

. It is also influenced by the work of

Carl Schmitt Carl Schmitt (; 11 July 1888 – 7 April 1985) was a German jurist, political theorist, and prominent member of the Nazi Party. Schmitt wrote extensively about the effective wielding of political power. A conservative theorist, he is noted as a ...

, in particular his theory of sovereignty, as well as

Niccolò Machiavelli Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli ( , , ; 3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527), occasionally rendered in English as Nicholas Machiavel ( , ; see below), was an Italian diplomat, author, philosopher and historian who lived during the Renaissance. ...

. The ideas first introduced in ''Empire'' (notably the concept of

multitude Multitude is a term for a group of people who cannot be classed under any other distinct category, except for their shared fact of existence. Though its use dates back to antiquity, the term first entered into the lexicon of political philosophy w ...

, taken from Spinoza) were further developed in the books '' Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire'' (2004), ''

Commonwealth A commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. Historically, it has been synonymous with "republic". The noun "commonwealth", meaning "public welfare, general good or advantage", dates from the ...

'' (2009), and ''Assembly'' (2017), which were also written by Hardt and Negri.

Reception and legacy

''Empire'' has been described by the

London Review of Books The ''London Review of Books'' (''LRB'') is a British literary magazine published twice monthly that features articles and essays on fiction and non-fiction subjects, which are usually structured as book reviews. History The ''London Review of ...

as "the most successful work of political theory to come from the Left for a generation." The book has been highly influential on numerous debates within the left, and has even been called "a bible of the anti-globalisation movement" by one critic and "the most influential book in recent decades on a classic sociological theme". In a review of the book,

Slavoj Žižek Slavoj Žižek (, ; ; born 21 March 1949) is a Slovenian philosopher, cultural theorist and public intellectual. He is international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London, visiting professor at New Y ...

stated that the book "sets as its goal, writing the ''

Communist Manifesto ''The Communist Manifesto'', originally the ''Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (german: Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei), is a political pamphlet written by German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Commissioned by the Comm ...

'' for the twenty-first century." Gopal Balakrishnan, reviewing the book for the New Left Review, wrote that when compared with influential conservative books such as

Francis Fukuyama Francis Yoshihiro Fukuyama (; born October 27, 1952) is an American political scientist, political economist, international relations scholar and writer. Fukuyama is known for his book ''The End of History and the Last Man'' (1992), which argue ...

's ''

The End of History and the Last Man ''The End of History and the Last Man'' is a 1992 book of political philosophy by American political scientist Francis Fukuyama which argues that with the ascendancy of Western liberal democracy—which occurred after the Cold War (1945–1991) ...

,'' "Comparable totalizations from the Left have been few and far between; diagnoses of the present more uniformly bleak. At best, the alternative to surrender or self-delusion has seemed to be a combative but clear-eyed pessimism, orienting the mind for a Long March against the new scheme of things. In this landscape, the appearance of Empire represents a spectacular break. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri defiantly overturn the verdict that the last two decades have been a time of punitive defeats for the Left." ''Empire'' has created important intellectual debates around its arguments. Certain scholars have compared the evolution of the world order with Hardt and Negri's world image in ''Empire''. A number of publications and debates centered on the book, both positively and negatively. Hardt and Negri's theoretical approach has also been compared and contrasted with works of 'the global capitalism school' whose authors have analyzed transnational capitalism and class relations in the global epoch. Michael Hardt published an essay titled Empire'' 20 Years On' in the November/December 2019 edition of

New Left Review The ''New Left Review'' is a British bimonthly journal covering world politics, economy, and culture, which was established in 1960. History Background As part of the British "New Left" a number of new journals emerged to carry commentary on m ...

in which he provides a critical analysis of the book's legacy and his perspective on it looking back.

References

External links

Full text of Empire
angelfire.com
Full text of Empire
libcom.org

* (review) * Bull, Malcolm (4 October 2001)

''London Review of Books'', Vol. 23, No. 19, pages 3–7. Review. Retrieved 13 May 2013. * Žižek, Slavoj (2011)
"Have Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri Rewritten the Communist manifesto for the Twenty-First Century?,"
''Rethinking Marxism'', No. 3/4 (2001). Retrieved 13 May 2013. * Fotopoulos, Takis; Gezerlis, Alexandros (2002)
"Hardt and Negri's Empire: a new Communist Manifesto or a reformist welcome to neoliberal globalisation?,"
''Democracy & Nature: The International Journal of Inclusive Democracy'', Vol. 8, No. 2 (July 2002). Retrieved 13 May 2013. * Di Nardo, Pietro (2003)

''In Defence of Marxism'' (15 January 2003). A Marxist critique of the book. Retrieved 13 May 2013. * Turchetto, Maria (2003)
"The Empire Strikes Back: On Hardt and Negri,"
''Historical Materialism'', volume 11:1 (2003), p. 23–36. A marxist critique of ''Empire''. Retrieved 13 May 2013. * Dean, Jodi; Passavant, Paul (2011)
"Empire's New Clothes: Reading Hardt and Negri,"
Routledge. * Crisso and Odoteo (2003)

(2003). An anarchist critique of ''Empire''. Retrieved 13 May 2013. * Žižek, Slavoj (2007)
"Blows Against the Empire?,"
lacan.com (2007). Retrieved 13 May 2013. * Okur, Mehmet Akif (2007)
"Rethinking Empire After 9/11: Towards A New Ontological Image of World Order"
Perceptions, Journal of International Affairs, Volume XII (Winter 2007), pp. 61–93. Retrieved 13 May 2013. * Sprague, Jeb (2011)
"Empire, Global Capitalism, and Theory: Reconsidering Hardt and Negri,"
"Current Perspectives in Social Theory", 2011, Vol. 29. P. 187–207. * Hardt, Michael; Negri, Tony
Empire, Twenty Years On.
New Left Review, Vol. 120 (2019). {{DEFAULTSORT:Empire (Book) Autonomism 2000 non-fiction books American non-fiction books Communist books Books by Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt Books about imperialism Books about globalization English-language books Harvard University Press books Imperialism studies