Empire (80 page)

Nature
(New York: Routledge, 1991); and Deleuze and Guattari,
Anti-Oedipus,
esp. pp. 1–8. Numerous studies have been published in the 1990s, particularly in the United States, on the political potential of

corporeal nomadism and transformation. For three of the more interesting

feminist examples from very different perspectives, see Rosi Braidotti,

Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist
Theory
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1994); Camilla Griggers,
Becoming-Woman in Postmodernity
(Minneapolis: University ofMinnesota Press, 1996); and Anna Camaiti Hostert,
Passing
(Rome: Castelvecchi, 1997).

14. Control and mutation are perhaps the defining themes ofcyberpunk

fiction. It is sufficient to see the seminal text, William Gibson,
Neuromancer
(New York: Ace, 1984). The most fascinating explorations of these

themes, however, are probably found in the novels of William Burroughs

and the films ofDavid Cronenberg. On Burroughs and Cronenberg,

see Steve Shaviro,
Doom Patrols: A Theoretical Fiction about Postmodernism
(London: Serpent’s Tail, 1997), pp. 101–121.

15. This counsel against normalized bodies and normalized lives was perhaps the central principle ofFeĺix Guattari’s therapeutic practice.

16. ‘‘The proletariat . . . appears as the heir to the nomad in the Western world. Not only did many anarchists invoke nomadic themes originating

in the East, but the bourgeoisie above all were quick to equate proletarians and nomads, comparing Paris to a city haunted by nomads.’’ Gilles

Deleuze and Feĺix Guattari,
A Thousand Plateaus,
trans. Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University ofMinnesota Press, 1987), p. 558, note 61.

17. See Antonio Negri’s essay on Jacques Derrida’s
Specters of Marx,
‘‘The Specter’s Smile,’’ in Michael Spinker, ed.,
Ghostly Demarcations
(London: Verso, 1999) pp. 5–16.

3 . 1 T H E L I M I T S O F I M P E R I A L I S M

1. For sources on the imperialism debate from Kautsky to Lenin, see the

excellent bibliography provided in Hans-Ulrich Wehler, ed.,
Imperialismus
N O T E S T O P A G E S 2 2 2 – 2 2 3

449

(Cologne: Kiepenheuer and Witsch, 1970), pp. 443–459. For the debates

over imperialism that developed between the two World Wars and

continued up to the 1960s, see the bibliography in Dieter Senghaas,

ed.,
Imperialismus und strukturelle Gewalt
(Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1972), pp. 379–403. For a useful English-language summary of the debates, see

Anthony Brewer,
Marxist Theories of Imperialism: A Critical Survey
(London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980).

2. Karl Marx,
Grundrisse,
trans. Martin Nicolaus (New York: Vintage, 1973), p. 408; subsequently cited in text. For Marx’s discussion ofthe internal

‘‘barriers’’ ofcapitalist production, see also
Capital,
vol. 3, trans. David Fernbach (London: Penguin, 1981), pp. 349–375.

3. The following argument raises the specter of
underconsumptionist
theories, which argue that the inability to consume all the commodities produced

is capitalism’s fatal flaw and will necessarily lead to collapse. Many Marxist and non-Marxist economists have convincingly argued against any idea

that the capitalist tendency to produce too much or consume too little

will be catastrophic. For an evaluation ofunderconsumptionist arguments

in Marx and Luxemburg, see Michael Bleaney,
Under-consumption Theories

(New York: International Publishers, 1976), pp. 102–119 and 186–201;

and Ernest Mandel, Introduction to Karl Marx,
Capital,
vol. 2, trans.

David Fernbach (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977), pp. 69–77. See also

Nikolai Bukharin’s influential critique ofRosa Luxemburg in
Imperialism
and the Accumulation of Capital,
ed. Kenneth Tarbuck, trans. RudolfWich-mann (London: Allen Lane, 1972), pp. 151–270. We should point out

that economic necessity based on quantitative calculations is sometimes

the form but never the substance of Marx’s or Luxemburg’s arguments.

Any necessity is really historical and social. What Marx and Luxemburg

identified was an economic barrier that helps explain how capital has

historically been driven or induced to expand, to move outside itselfand

incorporate new markets within its realm.

4. For Marx’s analysis ofthe abstinence theory ofcapitalist consumption,

see
Capital,
vol. 1, trans. Ben Fowkes (New York: Vintage, 1976),

pp. 738–746, and
Capital,
3:366.

5. ‘‘The total mass ofcommodities, the total product, must be sold, both

that portion which replaces constant and variable capital and that which

represents surplus-value. Ifthis does not happen, or happens only partly,

or only at prices that are less than the price ofproduction, then although

the worker is certainly exploited, his exploitation is not realized as such for the capitalist and may even not involve any realization of the surplus

value extracted.’’ Marx,
Capital,
3:352.

450

N O T E S T O P A G E S 2 2 3 – 2 2 9

6. Ibid., 3:353.

7. On the expansion ofproduction and markets, see Marx,
Grundrisse,

p. 419;
Capital,
1:910–911; 2:470–471; 3:349–355.

8. ‘‘The
true barrier
to capitalist production is
capital itself.
’ Marx,
Capital,
3:358.

9. Rosa Luxemburg,
The Accumulation of Capital,
trans. Agnes Schwarzchild (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1968), pp. 365–366 and 467. Luxemburg’s analysis ofcapitalist accumulation, her critiques ofMarx, and

her theory ofthe collapse ofcapitalism have all been highly contested

ever since her book first appeared. For good summaries ofthe issues at

stake, see Mandel’s Introduction to
Capital,
2:11–79, especially pp. 62–

69; Joan Robinson, Introduction to Luxemburg,
The Accumulation of

Capital,
pp. 13–28; and Paul Sweezy,
The Theory of Capitalist Development
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1942), pp. 202–207.

10. Fernand Braudel,
Capitalism and Material Life, 1400–1800,
trans. Miriam Kochan (New York: Harper and Row, 1973), p. 308.

11. Luxemburg,
The Accumulation of Capital,
p. 358.

12. Ibid., p. 372.

13. RudolfHilferding,
Finance Capital: A Study of the Latest Phase of Capitalist
Development,
ed. Tom Bottomore (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,

1981), p. 314.

14. Marx and Engels,
Manifesto of the Communist Party
(London: Verso, 1998), p. 40.

15. On uneven development and the geographical differences of capitalist

expansion, see David Harvey,
The Limits to Capital
(Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 1984); and Neil Smith,
Uneven Development: Nature,

Capital, and the Production of Space
(Oxford: Blackwell, 1984).

16. Luxemburg,
The Accumulation of Capital,
p. 446.

17. ‘‘Like the power ofwhich it is the most global expression, imperialism

is not a notion that can form the object of any explicit definition that

orginates from economic concepts. Imperialism can only be grasped on

the basis ofa fully developed theory ofthe state.’’ Michel Aglietta,
A

Theory of Capitalist Regulation,
trans. David Fernbach (London: New Left Books, 1979), p. 30.

18. See primarily V. I. Lenin,
Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism
(New York: International Publishers, 1939), and
Notebooks on Imperialism,
vol. 39 of
Collected Works
(Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1977).

19. See Hilferding,
Finance Capital,
in particular pp. 183–235. Hilferding’s analysis relies heavily on Marx’s theory ofthe equalization ofthe general

rate ofprofit through competition; see
Capital,
3:273–301.

N O T E S T O P A G E S 2 3 0 – 2 3 5

451

20. Karl Kautsky, ‘‘Zwei Schriften zum Umlernen,’’
Die Neue Zeit,
April 30, 1915, p. 144. Excerpts from Kautsky’s writings on imperialism are included in
Karl Kautsky: Selected Political Writings,
ed. and trans. Patrick Goode (London: Macmillan, 1983), pp. 74–96.

21. V. I. Lenin, ‘‘Preface to N. Bukharin’s Pamphlet, Imperialism and the

World Economy,’’ in
Collected Works
(Moscow: Progress Publishers,

1964), 22:103–107; quotation p. 106. See also Lenin,
Imperialism,

pp. 111–122. We should note here that although Lenin is certainly correct

in claiming that Kautsky’s position is a deviation from Marx’s method

when he ignores the potential conflicts and practical opportunities ofthe

present situation, Kautsky’s reading ofthe tendency toward a unified

world market does indeed find resonance in Marx’s work, particularly in

his articles on colonialism in India, where he posed a linear tendency of

imperialist development toward the formation of a world market. See in

particular Karl Marx, ‘‘The Future Results ofBritish Rule in India,’’ in

Surveys from Exile,
vol. 2 of
Political Writings
(London: Penguin, 1973), pp. 319–325.

22. Lenin, ‘‘Preface to N. Bukharin’s Pamphlet, Imperialism and the World

Economy,’’ p. 107.

23. See Antonio Negri,
La fabbrica della strategia: 33 lezioni su Lenin
(Padua: CLEUP, 1976).

24. On Lenin’s debt to Hobson, see Giovanni Arrighi,
The Geometry of Imperialism: The Limits of Hobson’s Paradigm,
trans. Patrick Camiller (London: Verso, 1978), pp. 23–27.

25. Cecil Rhodes, cited in Lenin,
Imperialism,
p. 79.

26. It is particularly important to give credit where credit is due today,

when we seem to be confronted with numerous versions of historical

revisionism. Poor Gramsci, communist and militant before all else, tor-

tured and killed by fascism and ultimately by the bosses who financed

fascism—poor Gramsci was given the gift of being considered the founder

ofa strange notion ofhegemony that leaves no place f

or a Marxian

politics. (See, for example, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe,
Hegemony
and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics
[London: Verso, 1985], especially pp. 65–71.) We have to defend ourselves against such

generous gifts!

27. See Roman Rosdolsky,
The Making of Marx’s ‘‘Capital,’’
trans. Peter Burgess (London: Pluto Press, 1977).

28. On the missing volume on the wage, see Antonio Negri,
Marx Beyond

Marx,
trans. Harry Cleaver, Michael Ryan, and Maurizio Viano (New

York: Autonomedia, 1991), pp. 127–150; and Michael Lebowitz,
Beyond

452

N O T E S T O P A G E S 2 3 6 – 2 4 1

Capital: Marx’s Political Economy of the Working Class
(London: Macmillan, 1992). On the question ofthe existence ofa Marxist theory ofthe state,

see the debate between Norberto Bobbio and Antonio Negri in Norberto

Bobbio,
Which Socialism?
(Cambridge: Polity Press, 1987).

29. Marx,
Grundrisse,
p. 408.

30. Fernand Braudel,
Afterthoughts on Material Civilization and Capitalism,
trans.

Patricia Ranum (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977), p. 64.

C Y C L E S

1. ‘ I occasionally get just as tired ofthe slogan ‘postmodern’ as anyone else, but when I am tempted to regret my complicity with it, to deplore its

misuses and its notoriety, and to conclude with some reluctance that it

raises more problems than it solves, I find myselfpausing to wonder

whether any other concept can dramatize the issues in quite so effective

and economical a fashion.’’ Fredric Jameson,
Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism
(Durham: Duke University Press, 1991), p. 418.

2. Giovanni Arrighi,
The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the

Origins of Our Times
(London: Verso, 1994).

3. Ibid., p. 332.

3 . 2 D I S C I P L I N A R Y G O V E R N A B I L I T Y

1. See James Devine, ‘‘Underconsumption, Over-investment, and the Ori-

gins ofthe Great Depression,’’
Review of Radical Political Economics,
15, no. 2 (Summer 1983), 1–27. On the economic crisis of1929, see also

the classic analysis ofJohn Kenneth Galbraith,
The Great Crash, 1929

(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1954), which focuses on speculation as the

cause ofthe crisis; and, more recently, Geŕard Dumeńil and D. Le´vy,
La
dynamique du capital: un siècle d’ećonomie americaine
(Paris: PUF, 1996). More generally, on the theoretical problems that the 1929 crisis bequeathed to

twentieth-century political economy, see Michel Aglietta,
A Theory of

Capitalist Regulation,
trans. David Fernbach (London: New Left Books, 1979); and Robert Boyer and Jacques Mistral,
Accumulation, inflation, crises
(Paris: PUF, 1978).

2. John Maynard Keynes was perhaps the person with the clearest foresight

at the Versailles Conference. Already at the conference and then later in

his essay ‘‘The Economic Consequences ofPeace,’’ he denounced the

political egotism ofthe victors which would become one ofthe contribut-

ing factors to the economic crisis of the 1920s.

3. This type ofinterpretation ofthe economic and political crisis of1929

should be contrasted very strongly to ‘‘revisionist’’ historiographical con-N O T E S T O P A G E S 2 4 1 – 2 4 3