Free Empire by Antonio Negri, Professor Michael Hardt Page B

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
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    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
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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
    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