The Convictions of Antonio Negri

[Dave Monroe]

Sorry, this article (perhaps ironically) isn't online.
  Again from the current issue of Lingua Franca (Vol.
11, No. 4 [May/June 2001]), pp. 50-8, "The Convictions
of Antonio Negri: An Imprisone Italian Radical
Attempts to Rewrite 'The Communist Manifesto' and
Clear His Name," by Rachel Donadio (!) ...

"Negri begins with the assumption that we now inhabit
a fully globalized, information economy with no real
power center.  Whereas many fellow neo-Marxists stress
the persistence of state power and a coherent ruling
class, Negri sees a new world at hand.... the
dispersal of centralized power into uncontrolled
information networks and capital flows ..." (57)

"In this new global order, they argue, the United
States is not necessarily functioning as an
imperilaist power--though most global financial,
diplomatic, and military power happens to be held by
the United States." (57)

"... they feel that this new commercial Empire is a
far vaster and infinitely more menacing form of
domination than anything that has preceded it." (57)

"The new model of resistance, Negri and Hardt
conclude, should be that of the 'nomadic
revolutionary'--akin to the eco-protesters who
demonstrated agaisnt the World Trade Organization
meeting in Seattle in 1999.  Like Autonomonia itself,
this model also has Catholic overtones.  In fact,
Empire concludes with a paean to Saint Francis, whom
Negri and Hardt laud for his denunciation of 'the
poverty of the multitude' and describe as the epitome
of the nomadic warrior." (57)

Discussing Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2000), which I guess I'm
actually going to have to open up and read one of
these days now ...


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