Empire (38 page)

second, the name is said to derive from the mispronunciation of a

Chinese cook in Seattle, ‘ I Wobbly Wobbly.’’ The primary focus

ofthe IWW was the universality ofits project. Workers ofall

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languages and races across the world (although in fact they only

made it as far as Mexico) and workers of all trades should come

together in ‘‘One Big Union.’’

Taking our cue from the IWW, and clearly departing from

Augustine in this regard, we would cast our political vision in line

with the radical republican tradition ofmodern democracy. What

does it mean to be republican today? What sense can it have in the

postmodern era to take up that antagonistic position that constituted

a radically democratic alternative within modernity? Where is the

standpoint from which critique can be possible and effective? In

this passage from modernity to postmodernity, is there still a
place

from which we can launch our critique and construct an alternative?

Or, ifwe are consigned to the non-place ofEmpire, can we construct

a powerful non-place and realize it concretely, as the terrain of a

postmodern republicanism?

TheNon-Placeof Exploitation

In order to address this problematic, allow us a briefdigression.

We mentioned earlier that Marx’s theoretical method, in line with

the tradition ofmodern critiques ofmodernity, is situated in the

dialectic between inside and outside. Proletarian struggles consti-

tute—in real, ontological terms—the motor ofcapitalist develop-

ment. They constrain capital to adopt ever higher levels oftechnol-

ogy and thus transform labor processes.3 The struggles force capital

continually to reform the relations of production and transform the

relations ofdomination. From manufacturing to large-scale industry,

from finance capital to transnational restructuring and the globaliza-

tion ofthe market, it is always the initiatives oforganized labor

power that determine the figure ofcapitalist development. Through

this history the place ofexploitation is a dialectically determined

site. Labor power is the most internal element, the very source of

capital. At the same time, however, labor power represents capital’s

outside, that is, the place where the proletariat recognizes its own

use value, its own autonomy, and where it grounds its hope for

liberation. The refusal of exploitation—or really resistance, sabo-

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tage, insubordination, rebellion, and revolution—constitutes the

motor force of the reality we live, and at the same time is its living

opposition. In Marx’s thought the relationship between the inside

and the outside ofcapitalist development is completely determined

in the dual standpoint ofthe proletariat, both inside and outside

capital. This spatial configuration has led to many political positions

founded on the dream of affirming the place of use value, pure and

separate from exchange value and capitalist relations.

In the contemporary world this spatial configuration has

changed. On the one hand, the relations ofcapitalist exploitation

are expanding everywhere, not limited to the factory but tending

to occupy the entire social terrain. On the other hand, social relations

completely invest the relations ofproduction, making impossible

any externality between social production and economic produc-

tion. The dialectic between productive forces and the system of

domination no longer has a
determinate place.
The very qualities of labor power (difference, measure, and determination) can no longer

be grasped, and similarly, exploitation can no longer be localized

and quantified. In effect, the object of exploitation and domination

tend not to be specific productive activities but the universal capacity

to produce, that is, abstract social activity and its comprehensive

power. This abstract labor is an activity without place, and yet it

is very powerful. It is the cooperating set of brains and hands, minds

and bodies; it is both the non-belonging and the creative social

diffusion of living labor; it is the desire and the striving of the

multitude ofmobile and flexible workers; and at the same time it

is intellectual energy and linguistic and communicative construction

ofthe multitude ofintellectual and affective laborers.4

The inside defined by use value and the outside ofexchange

value are nowhere to be found, and hence any politics of use

value, which was always based on an illusion ofseparability, is

now definitely inconceivable. That does not mean, however, that

production and exploitation have ceased. Neither have innovation

and development nor the continuous restructuring ofrelations of

power come to an end. On the contrary, today more than ever,

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as productive forces tend to be completely de-localized, completely

universal, they produce not only commodities but also rich and

powerful social relationships. These new productive forces have no

place, however, because they occupy all places, and they produce

and are exploited in this indefinite non-place. The universality of

human creativity, the synthesis offreedom, desire, and living labor,

is what takes place in the non-place ofthe postmodern relations

ofproduction. Empire is the non-place ofworld production where

labor is exploited. By contrast, and with no possible homology with

Empire, here we find again the revolutionary formalism of modern

republicanism. This is still a formalism because it is without place,

but it is a potent formalism now that it is recognized not as abstracted

from the individual and collective subjects but as the general power

that constitutes their bodies and minds. The non-place has a brain,

heart, torso, and limbs, globally.

Being-Against: Nomadism, Desertion, Exodus

This recognition takes us back to the initial question: What does

it mean to be republican today? We have already seen that the

modern critical response ofopening the dialectic between inside

and outside is no longer possible. An effective notion of postmodern

republicanism will have to be constructed
au milieu,
on the basis

ofthe lived experience ofthe global multitude. One element we

can put our finger on at the most basic and elemental level is
the

will to be against.
In general, the will to be against does not seem to require much explanation. Disobedience to authority is one of

the most natural and healthy acts. To us it seems completely obvious

that those who are exploited will resist and—given the necessary

conditions—rebel. Today, however, this may not be so obvious.

A long tradition ofpolitical scientists has said the problem is not

why people rebel but why they do not. Or rather, as Deleuze and

Guattari say, ‘‘the fundamental problem of political philosophy is

still precisely the one that Spinoza saw so clearly (and that Wilhelm

Reich rediscovered): ‘Why do men fight
for
their servitude as stubbornly as though it were their salvation?’ ’ 5 The first question of

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211

political philosophy today is not ifor even why there will be

resistance and rebellion, but rather how to determine the enemy

against which to rebel. Indeed, often the inability to identify the

enemy is what leads the will to resistance around in such paradoxical

circles. The identification ofthe enemy, however, is no small task

given that exploitation tends no longer to have a specific place and

that we are immersed in a system ofpower so deep and complex

that we can no longer determine specific difference or measure.

We suffer exploitation, alienation, and command as enemies, but

we do not know where to locate the production ofoppression.

And yet we still resist and struggle.

One should not exaggerate these logical paradoxes. Even

though on the new terrain ofEmpire exploitation and domination

often cannot be defined in specific places, they nonetheless exist.

The globality ofthe command they impose represents the inverted

image—something like a photo negative—ofthe generality ofthe

multitude’s productive activities. And yet, this inverted relation

between imperial power and the power ofthe multitude does not

indicate any homology. In effect, imperial power can no longer

discipline the powers ofthe multitude; it can only impose control

over their general social and productive capacities. From the eco-

nomic point ofview, the wage regime is replaced, as a function of

regulation, by a flexible and global monetary system; normative

command is replaced by the procedures ofcontrol and the police;

and the exercise ofdomination is formed through communicative

networks. This is how exploitation and domination constitute a

general non-place on the imperial terrain. Although exploitation

and domination are still experienced concretely, on the flesh ofthe

multitude, they are nonetheless amorphous in such a way that it

seems there is no place left to hide. If there is no longer a place

that can be recognized as outside, we must be against in every

place. This being-against becomes the essential key to every active

political position in the world, every desire that is effective—perhaps

of democracy itself. The first anti-fascist partisans in Europe, armed

deserters confronting their traitorous governments, were aptly called

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‘‘against-men.’’6 Today the generalized being-against ofthe multi-

tude must recognize imperial sovereignty as the enemy and discover

the adequate means to subvert its power.

Here we see once again the republican principle in the very

first instance: desertion, exodus, and nomadism. Whereas in the

disciplinary era
sabotage
was the fundamental notion of resistance, in the era ofimperial control it may be
desertion.
Whereas being-against in modernity often meant a direct and/or dialectical opposi-

tion offorces, in postmodernity being-against might well be most

effective in an oblique or diagonal stance. Battles against the Empire

might be won through subtraction and defection. This desertion

does not have a place; it is the evacuation ofthe places ofpower.

Throughout the history ofmodernity, the mobility and migra-

tion ofthe labor force have disrupted the disciplinary conditions

to which workers are constrained. And power has wielded the most

extreme violence against this mobility. In this respect slavery can

be considered on a continuum with the various wage labor regimes

as the most extreme repressive apparatus to block the mobility

ofthe labor force. The history ofblack slavery in the Americas

demonstrates both the vital need to control the mobility oflabor

and the irrepressible desire to flee on the part ofthe slaves: from

the closed ships ofthe Middle Passage to the elaborate repressive

techniques employed against escaped slaves. Mobility and mass

worker nomadism always express a refusal and a search for liberation:

the resistance against the horrible conditions ofexploitation and

the search for freedom and new conditions of life. It would be

interesting, in fact, to write a general history of the modes of

production from the standpoint of the workers’ desire for mobility

(from the country to the city, from the city to the metropolis, from

one state to another, from one continent to another) rather than

running through that development simply from the standpoint of

capital’s regulation ofthe technological conditions oflabor. This

history would substantially reconfigure the Marxian conception of

the stages ofthe organization oflabor, which has served as the

theoretical framework for numerous authors up to Polanyi.7

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Today the mobility oflabor power and migratory movements

is extraordinarily diffuse and difficult to grasp. Even the most sig-

nificant population movements ofmodernity (including the black

and white Atlantic migrations) constitute lilliputian events with

respect to the enormous population transfers of our times. A specter

haunts the world and it is the specter ofmigration. All the powers

ofthe old world are allied in a merciless operation against it, but

the movement is irresistible. Along with the flight from the so-

called Third World there are flows of political refugees and transfers

ofintellectual labor power, in addition to the massive movements

ofthe agricultural, manufacturing, and service proletariat. The legal

and documented movements are dwarfed by clandestine migrations:

the borders ofnational sovereignty are sieves, and every attempt at

complete regulation runs up against violent pressure. Economists

attempt to explain this phenomenon by presenting their equations

and models, which even ifthey were complete would not explain

that irrepressible desire for free movement. In effect, what pushes

from behind is, negatively, desertion from the miserable cultural