Empire (9 page)

apparatus, demonstrating its effectiveness in the contemporary his-

torical context and its legitimate force to resolve world problems

in the final instance.

We are now in the position to address the question whether,

on the basis ofthese new biopolitical premises, the figure and the

life of Empire can today be grasped in terms of a juridical model.

We have already seen that this juridical model cannot be constituted

by the existing structures ofinternational law, even when under-

stood in terms ofthe most advanced developments ofthe United

Nations and the other great international organizations. Their elabo-

rations ofan international order could at the most be recognized

as a process oftransition toward the new imperial power. The

constitution ofEmpire is being formed neither on the basis ofany

contractual or treaty-based mechanism nor through any federative

source. The source ofimperial normativity is born ofa new machine,

a new economic-industrial-communicative machine—in short, a

globalized biopolitical machine. It thus seems clear that we must

look at something other than what has up until now constituted

the bases ofinternational order, something that does not rely on

the form of right that, in the most diverse traditions, was grounded

in the modern system ofsovereign nation-states. The impossibility,

however, ofgrasping the genesis ofEmpire and its virtual figure

with any ofthe old instruments ofjuridical theory, which were

deployed in the realist, institutionalist, positivist, or natural right

frameworks, should not force us to accept a cynical framework of

pure force or some such Machiavellian position. In the genesis of

Empire there is indeed a rationality at work that can be recognized

not so much in terms ofthe juridical tradition but more clearly in

the often hidden history of industrial management and the political

uses oftechnology. (We should not forget here too that proceeding

along these lines will reveal the fabric of class struggle and its

institutional effects, but we will treat that issue in the next section.)

This is a rationality that situates us at the heart ofbiopolitics and

biopolitical technologies.

B I O P O L I T I C A L P R O D U C T I O N

41

Ifwe wanted to take up again Max Weber’s famous three-

part formula of the forms of legitimation of power, the qualitative

leap that Empire introduces into the definition would consist in

the unf

oreseeable mixture of(1) elements typical oftraditional

power, (2) an extension ofbureaucratic power that is adapted physi-

ologically to the biopolitical context, and (3) a rationality defined

by the ‘‘event’’ and by ‘‘charisma’’ that rises up as a power ofthe

singularization of the whole and of the effectiveness of imperial

interventions.35 The logic that characterizes this neo-Weberian per-

spective would be functional rather than mathematical, and rhizo-

matic and undulatory rather than inductive or deductive. It would

deal with the management oflinguistic sequences as sets ofmachinic

sequences ofdenotation and at the same time ofcreative, colloquial,

and irreducible innovation.

The fundamental object that the imperial relations of power

interpret is the productive force of the system, the new biopolitical

economic and institutional system. The imperial order is formed

not only on the basis ofits powers ofaccumulation and global

extension, but also on the basis ofits capacity to develop itselfmore

deeply, to be reborn, and to extend itselfthroughout the biopolitical

latticework ofworld society. The absoluteness ofimperial power

is the complementary term to its complete immanence to the onto-

logical machine ofproduction and reproduction, and thus to the

biopolitical context. Perhaps, finally, this cannot be represented by

a juridical order, but it nonetheless is an order, an order defined

by its virtuality, its dynamism, and its functional inconclusiveness.

The fundamental norm of legitimation will thus be established in

the depths ofthe machine, at the heart ofsocial production. Social

production and juridical legitimation should not be conceived as

primary and secondary forces nor as elements of the base and super-

structure, but should be understood rather in a state ofabsolute

parallelism and intermixture, coextensive throughout biopolitical

society. In Empire and its regime ofbiopower, economic produc-

tion and political constitution tend increasingly to coincide.

1.3

A L T E R N A T I V E S W I T H I N E M P I R E

Once embodied in the power ofthe workers’ councils, which must

internationally supplant all other power, the proletarian movement

becomes its own product, and this product is the producer itself.

The producer is its own end. Only then is the spectacular negation

oflife negated in turn.

Guy Debord

Now is the time offurnaces, and only light should be seen.

Jose´ Martı´

Flirting with Hegel, one could say that the construction

ofEmpire is good
in itself
but not
for itself.
1 One ofthe most powerful operations ofthe modern imperialist power structures was to drive

wedges among the masses ofthe globe, dividing them into opposing

camps, or really a myriad ofconflicting parties. Segments ofthe

proletariat in the dominant countries were even led to believe that

their interests were tied exclusively to their national identity and

imperial destiny. The most significant instances ofrevolt and revolu-

tion against these modern power structures therefore were those

that posed the struggle against exploitation together with the struggle

against nationalism, colonialism, and imperialism. In these events

humanity appeared for a magical moment to be united by a common

desire for liberation, and we seemed to catch a glimpse of a future

when the modern mechanisms ofdomination would once and for

all be destroyed. The revolting masses, their desire for liberation,

their experiments to construct alternatives, and their instances of

A L T E R N A T I V E S W I T H I N E M P I R E

43

constituent power have all at their best moments pointed toward

the internationalization and globalization ofrelationships, beyond

the divisions ofnational, colonial, and imperialist rule. In our time

this desire that was set in motion by the multitude has been addressed

(in a strange and perverted but nonetheless real way) by the construc-

tion ofEmpire. One might even say that the construction ofEmpire

and its global networks is a
response
to the various struggles against the modern machines ofpower, and specifically to class struggle

driven by the multitude’s desire for liberation. The multitude called

Empire into being.

Saying that Empire is good
in itself,
however, does not mean

that it is good
for itself.
Although Empire may have played a role in putting an end to colonialism and imperialism, it nonetheless

constructs its own relationships ofpower based on exploitation that

are in many respects more brutal than those it destroyed. The end

ofthe dialectic ofmodernity has not resulted in the end ofthe

dialectic ofexploitation. Today nearly all ofhumanity is to some

degree absorbed within or subordinated to the networks ofcapitalist

exploitation. We see now an ever more extreme separation ofa

small minority that controls enormous wealth from multitudes that

live in poverty at the limit ofpowerlessness. The geographical and

racial lines ofoppression and exploitation that were established

during the era ofcolonialism and imperialism have in many respects

not declined but instead increased exponentially.

Despite recognizing all this, we insist on asserting that the

construction ofEmpire is a step forward in order to do away with

any nostalgia for the power structures that preceded it and refuse

any political strategy that involves returning to that old arrangement,

such as trying to resurrect the nation-state to protect against global

capital. We claim that Empire is better in the same way that Marx

insists that capitalism is better than the forms of society and modes

ofproduction that came before it. Marx’s view is grounded on a

healthy and lucid disgust for the parochial and rigid hierarchies that

preceded capitalist society as well as on a recognition that the

potential for liberation is increased in the new situation. In the

44

T H E P O L I T I C A L C O N S T I T U T I O N O F T H E P R E S E N T

same way today we can see that Empire does away with the cruel

regimes ofmodern power and also increases the potential for liber-

ation.

We are well aware that in affirming this thesis we are swimming

against the current of our friends and comrades on the Left. In the

long decades ofthe current crisis ofthe communist, socialist, and

liberal Left that has followed the 1960s, a large portion of critical

thought, both in the dominant countries ofcapitalist development

and in the subordinated ones, has sought to recompose sites of

resistance that are founded on the identities of social subjects or

national and regional groups, often grounding political analysis on

the
localization of struggles.
Such arguments are sometimes constructed in terms of‘‘place-based’’ movements or politics, in which the

boundaries ofplace (conceived either as identity or as territory) are

posed against the undifferentiated and homogeneous space of global

networks.2 At other times such political arguments draw on the

long tradition ofLeftist nationalism in which (in the best cases) the

nation is conceived as the primary mechanism ofdefense against the

domination offoreign and/or global capital.3 Today the operative

syllogism at the heart ofthe various forms of‘‘local’’ Leftist strategy

seems to be entirely reactive: Ifcapitalist domination is becoming

ever more global, then our resistances to it must defend the local

and construct barriers to capital’s accelerating flows. From this per-

spective, the real globalization ofcapital and the constitution of

Empire must be considered signs ofdispossession and defeat.

We maintain, however, that today this localist position, al-

though we admire and respect the spirit ofsome ofits proponents,

is both false and damaging. It is false first of all because the problem

is poorly posed. In many characterizations the problem rests on a

false dichotomy between the global and the local, assuming that

the global entails homogenization and undifferentiated identity

whereas the local preserves heterogeneity and difference. Often

implicit in such arguments is the assumption that the differences of

the local are in some sense natural, or at least that their origin

remains beyond question. Local differences preexist the present

A L T E R N A T I V E S W I T H I N E M P I R E

45

scene and must be defended or protected against the intrusion of

globalization. It should come as no surprise, given such assumptions,

that many defenses ofthe local adopt the terminology oftraditional

ecology or even identify this ‘‘local’’ political project with the de-

fense of nature and biodiversity. This view can easily devolve into

a kind ofprimordialism that fixes and romanticizes social relations

and identities. What needs to be addressed, instead, is precisely the

production of locality,
that is, the social machines that create and re-create the identities and differences that are understood as the local.4

The differences of locality are neither preexisting nor natural but

rather effects of a regime of production. Globality similarly should

not be understood in terms ofcultural, political, or economic
homog-

enization.
Globalization, like localization, should be understood instead as a
regime
ofthe production ofidentity and difference, or

really ofhomogenization and heterogenization. The better frame-

work, then, to designate the distinction between the global and

the local might refer to different networks of flows and obstacles

in which the local moment or perspective gives priority to the

reterritorializing barriers or boundaries and the global moment privi-

leges the mobility ofdeterritorializing flows. It is false, in any case,

to claim that we can (re)establish local identities that are in some

sense
outside
and protected against the global flows ofcapital and Empire.

This Leftist strategy of resistance to globalization and defense

oflocality is also damaging because in many cases what appear as

local identities are not autonomous or self-determining but actually

feed into and support the development of the capitalist imperial

machine. The globalization or deterritorialization operated by the

imperial machine is not in fact opposed to localization or reterritori-

alization, but rather sets in play mobile and modulating circuits of

differentiation and identification. The strategy of local resistance

misidentifies and thus masks the enemy. We are by no means