Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire [Hardcover]

Michael Hardt (Author), Antonio Negri (Author)

Book Description

Release date: August 5, 2004 | ISBN-10: 1594200246 | ISBN-13: 978-1594200243 | Edition: First Edition

The world-renowned authors of the international best-seller Empire follow with an astonishing, politically energizing manifesto that argues that some of the most troubling aspects of the new world order contain the seeds of radical global social transformation

With Empire, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri established themselves as visionary theoreticians of the new global order. They presented a profound new vision of a world in which the old system of nation-states has surrendered much of its hegemony to a supranational, multidimensional network of power they call empire. Empire penetrates into more aspects of life over more of the world than any traditional empire before it, and it cannot be beheaded for it is multinoded. The network is the empire and the empire is the network.

Now, in Multitude, Hardt and Negri offer up an inspiring vision of how the people of the world can use the structures of empire against empire itself. With the enormous intellectual depth, historical perspective, and positive, enabling spirit that are the authors' hallmark, Multitude lays down in three parts a powerful case for hope. Part I, "War," examines the darkest aspects of empire. We are at a crisis point in human affairs, when the new circuits of power have grown beyond the ability of existing circuits of political sovereignty and social justice to contain them. A mind-set of perpetual war predominates in which all wars are police actions and all police actions are wars-counterinsurgencies against the enemies of empire. In Part II, the book's central section, "Multitude," they explain how empire, by colonizing and interconnecting more areas of human life ever more deeply, has actually created the possibility for democracy of a sort never before seen. Brought together in a multinoded commons of resistance, different groups combine and recombine in fluid new matrices of resistance. No longer the silent, oppressed "masses," they form a multitude. Hardt and Negri argue that the accelerating integration of economic, social, political, and cultural forces into a complex network they call the biopolitical is actually the most radical step in the liberation of humankind since the Industrial Revolution broke up the old feudal order. Finally, in "Democracy," the authors put forward their agenda for how the global multitude can form a robust biopolitical commons in which democracy can truly thrive on a global scale. Exhilarating in its ambition, range, and depth of interpretive insight, Multitude consolidates Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's stature as the most exciting and important political philosophers at work in the world today.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Complex, ambitious, disquieting, and ultimately hopeful, Multitude is the work of a couple of writers and thinkers who dare to address the great issues of our time from a truly alternative perspective. The sequel to 2001's equally bold and demanding Empire continues in the vein of the earlier tome. Where Empire's central premise was that the time of nation-state power grabs was passing as a new global order made up of "a new form of sovereignty" consisting of corporations, global-wide institutions, and other command centers is in ascendancy, Multitude focuses on the masses within the empire, except that, where academics Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri are concerned, this body is defined by its diversity rather than its commonalities. The challenge for the multitude in this new era is "for the social multiplicity to manage to communicate and act in common while remaining internally different." One may already be rereading that last sentence. Indeed, Empire isn't breezy reading. But for those aren't afraid of wadding into a knotty philosophical and political discourse of uncommon breadth, Multitude offers many rewards. --Steven Stolder

From Publishers Weekly

Empire (2000)—the surprise hit that made its term for U.S global hegemony stick and presciently set the agenda for post–9/11 political theory on the left—was written by this same somewhat unlikely duo: Hardt, an American political scientist at Duke University, and Negri, a former Italian parliament member and political exile, trained political scientist and sometime inmate of Rome's Rebibbia prison. This book follows up on Empire's promise of imagining a full-blown global democracy. Though the authors admit that they can't provide the final means for bringing that entity about (or the forms for maintaining it), the book is rich in ideas and agitational ends. The "multitude" is Hardt and Negri's term for the earth's six billion increasingly networked citizens, an enormous potential force for "the destruction of sovereignty in favor of democracy." The middle section on the nature of that multitude is bookended by two others. The first describes the situation in which the multitude finds itself: "permanent war." The last grounds demands for and historical precursors of global democracy. Written for activists to provide a solid goal (with digressions into history and theory) toward which protest actions might move, this timely book brings together myriad loose strands of far left thinking with clarity, measured reasoning and humor, major accomplishments in and of themselves.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The; First Edition edition (August 5, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594200246
• ISBN-13: 978-1594200243
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #449,338 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

68 of 71 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The reasons why we need to move forward October 2, 2004

By Malvin VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

"Multitude" by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri is a follow-up to the author's widely-acclaimed "Empire". In "Multitude", Hardt and Negri discuss change and the possibility of global democracy, which they define as "the rule of everyone by everyone". The book offers a unique vision of how such a future might be developing around us and futher rewards its readers with numerous insights and top-notch analysis in a highly readable text.

"Multitude" appears to have been written in part as a response to the criticisms of "Empire" as presented in the excellent book, "Empire's New Clothes: Reading Hardt and Negri" edited by Passavant and Dean. For example, "Multitude" takes a slightly different approach to the themes of U.S. exceptionalism, network power structures, violence and the politics of identity; all of these topics were critiqued at length in "Empire's New Clothes". Consequently, it appears that Hardt and Negri may have profited from this dialogue and it may also explain why "Multitude" is a more substantive and less theoretical book than "Empire".

Section One of "Multitude" is entitled "War". Hardt and Negri discuss the perpetual state of war as a means to maintain the capitalist world order and social hierarchy. Interestingly, the authors show how insurgencies and counterinsurgencies have both taken on the characteristics of flexible, postmodern production networks. Importantly, the anti-globalization movement is lauded as an example of how such decentralized and distributed networks can support an "absolutely democratic organization" whose emerging strength might yet constitute the "most powerful weapon against the ruling power structure."

Section Two is about "Multitude". The multitude is both plural and multiple, wherein people maintain their individualities but act based on common interests. Hardt and Negri posit that global production is made possible by "the commons" of language and communications and information networks. Patents, licenses and other tools to control the commons and appropriate wealth for private investors has hampered the productivity of the multitude, the authors believe, thereby creating a tension that might lead to revolution. To that end, recent events in Argentina are held out as examples of how new forms of collaborative democracy might emerge.

Section Three is entitled "Democracy". Hardt and Negri explain how the ecological and economic grievances of the multitude are routinely suppressed in favor of corporate interests. The authors endorse a number of reforms that might alleviate some of the worst excesses -- such as the Tobin Tax on currency trades, the easing of copyright laws and the forgiveness of third world debt -- but they go much further, suggesting that the time may be ripe for a "new Magna Carta", or a fundamental restructuring of relations between capital and labor. To that end, the authors envision an "open-source society" of collaboration characterized by the self-rule of the multitude and using the commons as the basis of social and economic production.

In my view, one of the key attributes of "Multitude" is its convincing analysis and description of today's post-democracy world. Hardt and Negri describe how the three major tenets of U.S. democracy -- the media, the separation of powers, and representation -- have been irreparably coopted by corporate power. This, of course, is an observation that has been made elsewhere but rarely with the penetrating analysis and skill that these intelligent authors bring to bear on the subject. If "Multitude" does nothing else than to serve to widen the discussion on this critically important topic, it will have made an important and lasting contribution.

However, I am less convinced that the open-source community envisioned by Hardt and Negri will spontaneously emerge as they have suggested. The disconnect between the aspirations of the multitude for shared peace and prosperity on the one hand and the brutal realities of hierarchical power structures on the other has existed for centuries. While one is certainly hopeful that the historic moment has changed and has made a revolution in human relations possible, the authors provide little in the way of guidance as to how the multitude might cross the divide. Still, "Multitude" serves as a thought-provoking and inspirational work that helps us understand the reasons why we need to move forward to a more peaceful and humane world, if not how to get there, and easily deserves a five-star rating. I highly recommend it to all.

36 of 37 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Fitting Follow up to Empire September 8, 2004

By Nour Chatelaw

Format:Hardcover

Almost all the reviews that I read of the book "Empire" failed to recognize it as a philosophical text (e.g. they wanted charts and graphs or they wanted an easy read). But this point is important because a philosophical text is there to introduce you to a concept -- a new way of seeing and apprehending the world -- and to a new way of thinking. Fortunately this time around they say so immediately.

Multitude like Empire is a very rich and complex book interweaving different types of narratives in order to present a new way of thinking about our present. What has changed is the coherence and cohesion of the text. It is much more solid. It doesn't try to cover every single thing at the cost of the readers attention. But it is every bit as audacious as the first. It is quite daring and innovative, and for all that still completely analytically solid.

The major protesters are generally those who disagree that the world has changed. This is not necessarily a philosophical matter but an empirical one. Those people who disagree need to take issue with the thousands of economic, sociological and historical analyses that have charted these very changes. From there it is merely a matter of interpreting it all.

The second group of protestors to these books belong to this camp, who disagree with their interpretations of the events and their significance. What does the postmodernisation and globalisation of the global economy (for example) have to do with political struggle, for the labor movement etc.? It is here that this book shines above all its peers (and I do not hesitate in using such strong language). Whereas Empire gave cursory and rather abstract presentations of the present conditions political significance, Multitude is entirely invested with this presentation.

Reading this books to me seems that both Hardt & Negri took careful considerations of all the major trends of criticism and answered them in turn in a deep and very convincing fashion.

It is a shame that so many readers will concentrate and criticize their writings for its difficulty and terminology. I agree that in the first book these posed a lot of problems for those unfamiliar with many of the discourses, but if one understands that both books are books of philosophy and not simply another set of tired political polemics, then one should at least be prepared to make an investment in reading them. What one stands to get in return in terms of knowledge is I think highly worth it.

49 of 56 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars The least compelling of the Empire/Multitude/Commonwealth trilogy August 22, 2004

By Autonomeus VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Negri and Hardt fail to deliver a new strategy for the Left in MULTITUDE, the follow-up to EMPIRE, their improbable sensation of 2000 on Harvard University Press. The idea of a decentered, heterogeneous "actor" replacing the old idea of a unified working class continues in the same vein Negri has been developing for some time, from the "social worker" or "immaterial worker" of previous writings.

I can't be too harsh when the authors are so clearly filled with desire and optimism about changing the world in the direction of our hopes and dreams. I must say, though, that I preferred Negri's writing before he teamed up with Hardt. His earlier works, including MARX BEYOND MARX and THE POLITICS OF SUBVERSION, were more exciting to read than the EMPIRE/MULTITUDE/COMMONWEALTH trilogy with Michael Hardt.

A philosophical footnote -- Negri is not part of the German idealist tradition, he is not "thinking in German neoplatonism" (as another reviewer asserted) and he is most emphatically not a Hegelian dialectician. His influences include Spinoza (see his THE SAVAGE ANOMALY: The Power of Spinoza's Metaphysics and Politics), Machiavelli, of course Marx, and more recently, Foucault. The Foucault influence began in his joint writing with the late Felix Guattari, and continues in the project with Michael Hardt.

Another recommendation, not so much for strategy as an "imagination pump" (Daniel Dennett's phrase) for activists, is Deleuze & Guattari's A THOUSAND PLATEAUS.

See my reviews of Empire and COMMONWEALTH (2009) as well.