Free Empire by Antonio Negri, Professor Michael Hardt

in the
    construction ofEmpire. Ifwe were to remain within the conceptual
    framework of classic domestic and international law, we might be
    B I O P O L I T I C A L P R O D U C T I O N
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    tempted to say that a supranational quasi-state is being formed. That
    does not seem to us, however, an accurate characterization ofthe
    situation. When the royal prerogatives ofmodern sovereignty re-
    appear in Empire, they take on a completely different form. For
    example, the sovereign function of deploying military forces was
    carried out by the modern nation-states and is now conducted by
    Empire, but, as we have seen, the justification for such deployments
    now rests on a state ofpermanent exception, and the deployments
    themselves take the form of police actions. Other royal prerogatives
    such as carrying out justice and imposing taxes also have the same
    kind ofliminal existence. We have already discussed the marginal
    position ofjudicial authority in the constitutive process ofEmpire,
    and one could also argue that imposing taxes occupies a marginal
    position in that it is increasingly linked to specific and local urgen-
    cies. In effect, one might say that the sovereignty of Empire itself
    is realized at the margins, where borders are flexible and identities
    are hybrid and fluid. It would be difficult to say which is more
    important to Empire, the center or the margins. In fact, center
    and margin seem continually to be shifting positions, fleeing any
    determinate locations. We could even say that the process itselfis
    virtual and that its power resides in the power ofthe virtual.
    One could nonetheless object at this point that even while
    being virtual and acting at the margins, the process ofconstructing
    imperial sovereignty is in many respects very real! We certainly do
    not mean to deny that fact. Our claim, rather, is that we are dealing
    here with a special kind ofsovereignty—a discontinuous form of
    sovereignty that should be considered liminal or marginal insofar
    as it acts ‘‘in the final instance,’’ a sovereignty that locates its only
    point ofreference in the definitive absoluteness ofthe power that
    it can exercise. Empire thus appears in the form of a very high tech
    machine: it is virtual, built to control the marginal event, and
    organized to dominate and when necessary intervene in the break-
    downs ofthe system (in line with the most advanced technologies
    ofrobotic production). The virtuality and discontinuity ofimperial
    sovereignty, however, do not minimize the effectiveness of its force;
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    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
    on the contrary, those very characteristics serve to reinforce its
    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