Empire (12 page)

munication ofstruggles. One such obstacle is the absence ofa

recognition ofa common enemy against which the struggles are

directed. Beijing, Los Angeles, Nablus, Chiapas, Paris, Seoul: the

situations all seem utterly particular, but in fact they all directly attack A L T E R N A T I V E S W I T H I N E M P I R E

57

the global order ofEmpire and seek a real alternative. Clarifying the

nature ofthe common enemy is thus an essential political task. A

second obstacle, which is really corollary to the first, is that there

is no common language ofstruggles that could ‘‘translate’’ the partic-

ular language ofeach into a cosmopolitan language. Struggles in

other parts ofthe world and even our own struggles seem to be

written in an incomprehensible foreign language. This too points

toward an important political task: to construct a new common

language that facilitates communication, as the languages of anti-

imperialism and proletarian internationalism did for the struggles

ofa previous era. Perhaps this needs to be a new type ofcommunica-

tion that functions not on the basis of resemblances but on the basis

of differences: a communication of singularities.

Recognizing a common enemy and inventing a common

language ofstruggles are certainly important political tasks, and we

will advance them as far as we can in this book, but our intuition

tells us that this line ofanalysis finally fails to grasp the real potential presented by the new struggles. Our intuition tells us, in other

words, that the model ofthe horizontal articulation ofstruggles in

a cycle is no longer adequate for recognizing the way in which

contemporary struggles achieve global significance. Such a model

in fact blinds us to their real new potential.

Marx tried to understand the continuity ofthe cycle ofprole-

tarian struggles that were emerging in nineteenth-century Europe

in terms ofa mole and its subterranean tunnels. Marx’s mole would

surface in times of open class conflict and then retreat underground

again—not to hibernate passively but to burrow its tunnels, moving

along with the times, pushing forward with history so that when

the time was right (1830, 1848, 1870), it would spring to the surface

again. ‘‘Well grubbed old mole!’’17 Well, we suspect that Marx’s old

mole has finally died. It seems to us, in fact, that in the contemporary

passage to Empire, the structured tunnels ofthe mole have been

replaced by the infinite undulations ofthe snake.18 The depths

ofthe modern world and its subterranean passageways have in

postmodernity all become superficial. Today’s struggles slither si-

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lently across these superficial, imperial landscapes. Perhaps the in-

communicability ofstruggles, the lack ofwell-structured, communi-

cating tunnels, is in fact a strength rather than a weakness—a strength

because all ofthe movements are immediately subversive in them-

selves and do not wait on any sort ofexternal aid or extension to

guarantee their effectiveness. Perhaps the more capital extends its

global networks ofproduction and control, the more powerful any

singular point ofrevolt can be. Simply by focusing their own powers,

concentrating their energies in a tense and compact coil, these

serpentine struggles strike directly at the highest articulations of

imperial order. Empire presents a superficial world, the virtual center

ofwhich can be accessed immediately from any point across the

surface. If these points were to constitute something like a new cycle

ofstruggles, it would be a cycle defined not by the communicative

extension ofthe struggles but rather by their singular emergence,

by the intensity that characterizes them one by one. In short, this

new phase is defined by the fact that these struggles do not link

horizontally, but each one leaps vertically, directly to the virtual

center ofEmpire.

From the point ofview ofthe revolutionary tradition, one

might object that the tactical successes ofrevolutionary actions

in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were all characterized

precisely by the capacity to blast open the
weakest link
ofthe imperialist chain, that this is the ABC ofrevolutionary dialectics, and thus

it would seem today that the situation is not very promising. It is

certainly true that the serpentine struggles we are witnessing today

do not provide any clear revolutionary tactics, or maybe they are

completely incomprehensible from the point ofview oftactics.

Faced as we are with a series ofintense subversive social movements

that attack the highest levels ofimperial organization, however, it

may be no longer useful to insist on the old distinction between

strategy and tactics. In the constitution ofEmpire there is no longer

an ‘‘outside’’ to power and thus no longer weak links—ifby weak

link we mean an external point where the articulations ofglobal

power are vulnerable.19 To achieve significance, every struggle must

attack at the heart ofEmpire, at its strength. That fact, however,

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does not give priority to any geographical regions, as ifonly social

movements in Washington, Geneva, or Tokyo could attack the

heart ofEmpire. On the contrary, the construction ofEmpire, and

the globalization ofeconomic and cultural relationships, means that

the virtual center ofEmpire can be attacked from any point. The

tactical preoccupations ofthe old revolutionary school are thus

completely irretrievable; the only strategy available to the struggles

is that ofa constituent counterpower that emerges from within

Empire.

Those who have difficulty accepting the novelty and revolu-

tionary potential ofthis situation from the perspective ofthe strug-

gles themselves might recognize it more easily from the perspective

ofimperial power, which is constrained to react to the struggles.

Even when these struggles become sites effectively closed to com-

munication, they are at the same time the maniacal focus of the

critical attention ofEmpire.20 They are educational lessons in the

classroom ofadministration and the chambers ofgovernment—

lessons that demand repressive instruments. The primary lesson is

that such events cannot be repeated ifthe processes ofcapitalist

globalization are to continue. These struggles, however, have their

own weight, their own specific intensity, and moreover they are

immanent to the procedures and developments ofimperial power.

They invest and sustain the processes ofglobalization themselves.

Imperial power whispers the names ofthe struggles in order to

charm them into passivity, to construct a mystified image ofthem,

but most important to discover which processes ofglobalization

are possible and which are not. In this contradictory and paradoxical

way the imperial processes ofglobalization assume these events,

recognizing them as both limits and opportunities to recalibrate

Empire’s own instruments. The processes ofglobalization would

not exist or would come to a halt ifthey were not continually both

frustrated and driven by these explosions of the multitude that touch

immediately on the highest levels ofimperial power.

Two-Headed Eagle

The emblem ofthe Austro-Hungarian Empire, an eagle with two

heads, might give an adequate initial representation ofthe contem-

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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

porary form of Empire. But whereas in the earlier emblem the

two heads looked outward to designate the relative autonomy and

peaceful coexistence of the respective territories, in our case the

two heads would have to be turned inward, each attacking the other.

The first head ofthe imperial eagle is a juridical structure and

a constituted power, constructed by the machine ofbiopolitical

command. The juridical process and the imperial machine are always

subject to contradictions and crises. Order and peace—the eminent

values that Empire proposes—can never be achieved but are none-

theless continually reproposed. The juridical process ofthe constitu-

tion ofEmpire lives this constant crisis that is considered (at least

by the most attentive theoreticians) the price ofits own develop-

ment. There is, however, always a surplus. Empire’s continual ex-

tension and constant pressure to adhere ever more closely to the

complexity and depth ofthe biopolitical realm force the imperial

machine when it seems to resolve one conflict continually to open

others. It tries to make them commensurate with its project, but

they emerge once again as incommensurable, with all the elements

ofthe new terrain mobile in space and flexible in time.

The other head ofthe imperial eagle is the plural multitude

ofproductive, creative subjectivities ofglobalization that have

learned to sail on this enormous sea. They are in perpetual motion

and they form constellations of singularities and events that impose

continual global reconfigurations on the system. This perpetual

motion can be geographical, but it can refer also to modulations

ofform and processes ofmixture and hybridization. The relationship

between ‘‘system’’ and ‘‘asystemic movements’’ cannot be flattened

onto any logic ofcorrespondence in this perpetually modulating

atopia.21 Even the asystemic elements produced by the new multi-

tude are in fact global forces that cannot have a commensurate

relationship, even an inverted one, with the system. Every insurrec-

tional event that erupts within the order ofthe imperial system

provokes a shock to the system in its entirety. From this perspective,

the institutional frame in which we live is characterized by its radical

contingency and precariousness, or really by the unforeseeability

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61

ofthe
sequences of events
—sequences that are always more briefor

more compact temporally and thus ever less controllable.22 It be-

comes ever more difficult for Empire to intervene in the unforesee-

able temporal sequences ofevents when they accelerate their tempo-

rality. The most relevant aspect that the struggles have demonstrated

may be sudden accelerations, often cumulative, that can become

virtually simultaneous, explosions that reveal a properly ontological

power and unforeseeable attack on the most central equilibria of

Empire.

Just as Empire in the spectacle ofits force continually deter-

mines systemic recompositions, so too new figures ofresistance are

composed through the sequences ofthe events ofstruggle. This is

another fundamental characteristic of the existence of the multitude

today,
within
Empire and
against
Empire. New figures ofstruggle and new subjectivities are produced in the conjuncture ofevents,

in the universal nomadism, in the general mixture and miscegena-

tion ofindividuals and populations, and in the technological meta-

morphoses ofthe imperial biopolitical machine. These new figures

and subjectivities are produced because, although the struggles are

indeed antisystemic, they are not posed
merely against
the imperial system—they are not simply negative forces. They also express,

nourish, and develop positively their own constituent projects; they

work toward the liberation ofliving labor, creating constellations

ofpowerful singularities. This constituent aspect ofthe movement

ofthe multitude, in its myriad faces, is really the positive terrain

ofthe historical construction ofEmpire. This is not a historicist

positivity but, on the contrary, a positivity ofthe
res gestae
ofthe multitude, an antagonistic and creative positivity. The deterritorializing power ofthe multitude is the productive force that sustains

Empire and at the same time the force that calls for and makes

necessary its destruction.

At this point, however, we should recognize that our metaphor

breaks down and that the two-headed eagle is not really an adequate

representation ofthe relationship between Empire and the multi-

tude, because it poses the two on the same level and thus does not

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recognize the real hierarchies and discontinuities that define their

relationship. From one perspective Empire stands clearly over the

multitude and subjects it to the rule ofits overarching machine, as

a new Leviathan. At the same time, however, from the perspective

ofsocial productivity and creativity, from what we have been calling

the ontological perspective, the hierarchy is reversed. The multi-

tude is the real productive force of our social world, whereas Empire

is a mere apparatus ofcapture that lives only offthe vitality of

the multitude—as Marx would say, a vampire regime ofaccumu-

lated dead labor that survives only by sucking off the blood of

the living.

Once we adopt this ontological standpoint, we can return to