Empire (69 page)

The two dance together over the abyss, over the imperial lack

ofbeing.

Such examples ofcorruption could be multiplied ad infinitum,

but at the base ofall these forms ofcorruption there is an operation

ofontological nullification that is defined and exercised as the

destruction ofthe singular essence ofthe multitude. The multitude

must be unified or segmented into different unities: this is how the

multitude has to be corrupted. This is why the ancient and modern

concepts ofcorruption cannot be translated directly into the post-

modern concept. Whereas in ancient and modern times corruption

was defined in relation to the schemas and/or relations ofvalue

and demonstrated as a falsification of them in such a way that it

could at times play a role in the change among the forms of govern-

ment and the restoration ofvalues, today, in contrast, corruption

cannot play a role in any transformation of the forms of government

because corruption itselfis the substance and totality ofEmpire.

Corruption is the pure exercise ofcommand, without any propor-

tionate or adequate reference to the world of life. It is command

directed toward the destruction ofthe singularity ofthe multitude

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through its coercive unification and/or cruel segmentation. This is

why Empire necessarily declines in the very moment ofits rise.

This negative figure ofcommand over productive biopower

is even more paradoxical when viewed from the perspective of

corporeality. Biopolitical generation directly transforms the bodies

ofthe multitude. These are, as we have seen, bodies enriched with

intellectual and cooperative power, and bodies that are already

hybrid. What generation offers us in postmodernity are thus bodies

‘‘beyond measure.’’ In this context corruption appears simply as

disease, frustration, and mutilation. This is how power has always

acted against enriched bodies. Corruption also appears as psychosis,

opiates, anguish, and boredom, but this too has always happened

throughout modernity and disciplinary societies. The specificity of

corruption today is instead the rupture ofthe community ofsingular

bodies and the impediment to its action—a rupture ofthe produc-

tive biopolitical community and an impediment to its life. Here

we are thus faced with a paradox. Empire recognizes and profits

from the fact that in cooperation bodies produce more and in

community bodies enjoy more, but it has to obstruct and control this

cooperative autonomy so as not to be destroyed by it. Corruption

operates to impede this going ‘‘beyond measure’’ ofthe bodies

through community, this singular universalization ofthe new power

ofbodies, which threaten the very existence ofEmpire. The paradox

is irresolvable: the more the world becomes rich, the more Empire,

which is based on this wealth, must negate the conditions ofthe

production ofwealth. Our task is to investigate how ultimately

corruption can be forced to cede its control to generation.

4.3

T H E M U L T I T U D E A G A I N S T E M P I R E

The great masses need a
material religion of the senses
[
eine sinnliche Religion
]. Not only the great masses but also the philosopher needs it.

Monotheism ofreason and the heart, polytheism ofthe imagination

and art, this is what we need . . . [W]e must have a new mythol-

ogy, but this mythology must be at the service ofideas. It must be

a mythology of
reason.

Das a¨lteste Systemprogramm des deutschen Idealismus,

by Hegel, Ho¨lderlin, or Schelling

We do not lack communication, on the contrary we have too

much ofit. We lack creation.
We lack resistance to the present.

Gilles Deleuze and Feĺix Guattari

Imperial power can no longer resolve the conflict of

social forces through mediatory schemata that displace the terms of

conflict. The social conflicts that constitute the political confront

one another directly, without mediations ofany sort. This is the

essential novelty ofthe imperial situation. Empire creates a greater

potential for revolution than did the modern regimes of power

because it presents us, alongside the machine ofcommand, with

an alternative: the set ofall the exploited and the subjugated, a

multitude that is directly opposed to Empire, with no mediation

between them. At this point, then, as Augustine says, our task is

to discuss, to the best ofour powers, ‘‘the rise, the development

and the destined ends ofthe two cities . . . which we find . . .

interwoven . . . and mingled with one another.’’1 Now that we

have dealt extensively with Empire, we should focus directly on

the multitude and its potential political power.

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TheTwo Cities

We need to investigate specifically how the multitude can become

a
political subject
in the context ofEmpire. We can certainly recognize the existence ofthe multitude from the standpoint ofthe constitution ofEmpire, but f

rom that perspective the multitude might

appear to be generated and sustained by imperial command. In the

new postmodern Empire there is no Emperor Caracalla who grants

citizenship to all his subjects and thereby forms the multitude as a

political subject. The formation ofthe multitude ofexploited and

subjugated producers can be read more clearly in the history of

twentieth-century revolutions. Between the communist revolutions

of1917 and 1949, the great anti-fascist struggles ofthe 1930s and

1940s, and the numerous liberation struggles ofthe 1960s up to

those of1989, the conditions ofthe citizenship ofthe multitude

were born, spread, and consolidated. Far from being defeated, the

revolutions ofthe twentieth century have each pushed forward and

transformed the terms ofclass conflict, posing the conditions ofa

new political subjectivity, an insurgent multitude against imperial

power. The rhythm that the revolutionary movements have estab-

lished is the beat ofa new
aetas,
a new maturity and metamorphosis ofthe times.

The constitution ofEmpire is not the cause but the conse-

quence ofthe rise ofthese new powers. It should be no surprise,

then, that Empire, despite its efforts, finds it impossible to construct

a system ofright adequate to the new reality ofthe globalization

ofsocial and economic relations. This impossibility (which served

as the point ofdeparture for our argument in Section 1.1) is not

due to the wide extension ofthe field ofregulation; nor is it simply

the result of the difficult passage from the old system of international

public law to the new imperial system. This impossibility is explained

instead by the revolutionary nature ofthe multitude, whose struggles

have produced Empire as an inversion ofits own image and who

now represents on this new scene an uncontainable force and an

excess ofvalue with respect to every form ofright and law.

To confirm this hypothesis, it is sufficient to look at the

contemporary development ofthe multitude and dwell on the

T H E M U L T I T U D E A G A I N S T E M P I R E

395

vitality ofits present expressions. When the multitude works, it

produces autonomously and reproduces the entire world oflife.

Producing and reproducing autonomously mean constructing a new

ontological reality. In effect, by working, the multitude produces

itselfas singularity. It is a singularity that establishes a new place in

the non-place ofEmpire, a singularity that is a reality produced by

cooperation, represented by the linguistic community, and devel-

oped by the movements ofhybridization. The multitude affirms

its singularity by inverting the ideological illusion that all humans

on the global surfaces of the world market are interchangeable.

Standing the ideology ofthe market on its f

eet, the multitude

promotes through its labor the biopolitical singularizations ofgroups

and sets ofhumanity, across each and every node ofglobal inter-

change.

Class struggles and revolutionary processes ofthe past under-

mined the political powers ofnations and peoples. The revolution-

ary preamble that has been written from the nineteenth to the

twentieth centuries has prepared the new subjective configuration

oflabor that comes to be realized today. Cooperation and communi-

cation throughout the spheres ofbiopolitical production define a

new productive singularity. The multitude is not formed simply

by throwing together and mixing nations and peoples indifferently;

it is the singular power ofa
new city.

One might object at this point, with good reason, that all this

is still not enough to establish the multitude as a properly political

subject, nor even less as a subject with the potential to control

its own destiny. This objection, however, does not present an

insuperable obstacle, because the revolutionary past, and the con-

temporary cooperative productive capacities through which the

anthropological characteristics ofthe multitude are continually tran-

scribed and reformulated, cannot help revealing a telos, a material

affirmation of liberation. In the ancient world Plotinus faced some-

thing like this situation:

‘‘Let us flee then to the beloved Fatherland’’: this is the soundest

counsel . . . The Fatherland to us is There whence we have

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come, and There is the Father. What then is our course, what

the manner of our flight? This is not a journey for the feet;

the feet bring us only from land to land; nor need you think

ofa coach or ship to carry you away; all this order ofthings

you must set aside and refuse to see: you must close the eyes

and call instead upon another vision which is to be waked

within you, a vision, the birth-right ofall, which few turn

to use.2

This is how ancient mysticism expressed the new telos. The multi-

tude today, however, resides on the imperial surfaces where there

is no God the Father and no transcendence. Instead there is our

immanent labor. The teleology ofthe multitude is theurgical; it

consists in the possibility ofdirecting technologies and production

toward its own joy and its own increase ofpower. The multitude

has no reason to look outside its own history and its own present

productive power for the means necessary to lead toward its consti-

tution as a political subject.

A material mythology ofreason thus begins to be formed, and

it is constructed in the languages, technologies, and all the means

that constitute the world oflife. It is a material religion ofthe senses

that separates the multitude from every residue of sovereign power

and from every ‘‘long arm’’ of Empire. The mythology of reason

is the symbolic and imaginative articulation that allows the ontology

ofthe multitude to express itselfas activity and consciousness. The

mythology oflanguages ofthe multitude interprets the telos ofan

earthly city,
torn away by the power ofits own destiny from any

belonging or subjection to a
city of God,
which has lost all honor and legitimacy. To the metaphysical and transcendent mediations,

to the violence and corruption are thus opposed the absolute consti-

tution oflabor and cooperation, the earthly city ofthe multitude.

Endless Paths (The Right to

Global Citizenship)

The constitution ofthe multitude appears first as a spatial movement

that constitutes the multitude in limitless place. The mobility of

T H E M U L T I T U D E A G A I N S T E M P I R E

397

commodities, and thus ofthat special commodity that is labor-

power, has been presented by capitalism ever since its birth as the

fundamental condition ofaccumulation. The kinds ofmovement

ofindividuals, groups, and populations that we find today in Empire,

however, cannot be completely subjugated to the laws ofcapitalist

accumulation—at every moment they overflow and shatter the

bounds ofmeasure. The movements ofthe multitude designate

new spaces, and its journeys establish new residences. Autonomous

movement is what defines the place proper to the multitude. In-

creasingly less will passports or legal documents be able to regulate

our movements across borders. A new geography is established by

the multitude as the productive flows ofbodies define new rivers

and ports. The cities ofthe earth will become at once great deposits

ofcooperating humanity and locomotives for circulation, temporary

residences and networks ofthe mass distribution ofliving humanity.

Through circulation the multitude reappropriates space and

constitutes itselfas an active subject. When we look closer at how

this constitutive process ofsubjectivity operates, we can see that

the new spaces are described by unusual topologies, by subterranean

and uncontainable rhizomes—by geographical mythologies that

mark the new paths ofdestiny. These movements often cost terrible