|
March 11, 2006
Duke University literary professor Michael Hardt and Italian radical Antonio Negri's exuberant Empire (2000) described and analyzed the ways in which the global order has changed. Out goes national sovereignty, in comes supranational governance, controlled by a network of economic (IMF), political (the United Nations), and military (American) interests, whose biopower affects all of the Earth's billions.
Empire recast Marx's bourgeoisie as a placeless, faceless network of transnational corporations, international organisations, and the nation-states that benefit from them. In contrast to the old system of imperialism, real power, they argued, was now located in the transnational network of global capitalism. Though this network sometimes relied on states to accomplish its goals, it - not states - was the chief driver of change.
The Twin Towers symbolised everything Empire discussed. From the earth-encompassing power of finance capital, to internet capitalism's connection and compression of space and time, and to the cosmopolitan nature of the workers there, the towers were the epitome of everything Empire loved and hated about the world today.
This form of globalisation, Hardt and Negri argued, requires us to think of new forms of democracy that can expand rule by the people to the transnational level.
My initial response to Empire was two fold. Firstly, the flows of globalisation also worked to strengthen the position of the dominant states, perhaps changing the form of imperialism but not its effects-- I was thinking of the war on terrorism. Now I'm not so sure, as I begin to appreciate the way the security system is a network that uses various nation states.
Secondly, I couild not accept that religion and nationalism could be easily consigned to the historical dustbin that weas much beloved by international Marxists, and the neo liberal lovers of the revolutionary power of global capital. It struck me that religion and nationalism were actually strengthened by the effects of the libertarian flows of desire and capital (globalization) throughout the later 1990s and the early 21st century. Srtrengthened in a backlash sense.
|
Gary this interesting development of cooperation in Cuba as a response to "apparent" scarcity and expensive oil could be a workable model for almost anywhere.
1. www.energybulletin.net/13171.html
John