Empire (2 page)

be. In other words, Empire presents its rule not as a transitory

P R E F A C E

xv

moment in the movement ofhistory, but as a regime with no

temporal boundaries and in this sense outside ofhistory or at the

end ofhistory. Third, the rule ofEmpire operates on all registers

ofthe social order extending down to the depths ofthe social

world. Empire not only manages a territory and a population but

also creates the very world it inhabits. It not only regulates human

interactions but also seeks directly to rule over human nature. The

object ofits rule is social life in its entirety, and thus Empire presents

the paradigmatic form of biopower. Finally, although the practice

ofEmpire is continually bathed in blood, the concept ofEmpire

is always dedicated to peace—a perpetual and universal peace out-

side ofhistory.

The Empire we are faced with wields enormous powers of

oppression and destruction, but that fact should not make us nostal-

gic in any way for the old forms of domination. The passage to

Empire and its processes of globalization offer new possibilities to

the forces of liberation. Globalization, of course, is not one thing,

and the multiple processes that we recognize as globalization are

not unified or univocal. Our political task, we will argue, is not

simply to resist these processes but to reorganize them and redirect

them toward new ends. The creative forces of the multitude that

sustain Empire are also capable ofautonomously constructing a

counter-Empire, an alternative political organization ofglobal flows

and exchanges. The struggles to contest and subvert Empire, as

well as those to construct a real alternative, will thus take place on

the imperial terrain itself—indeed, such new struggles have already

begun to emerge. Through these struggles and many more like

them, the multitude will have to invent new democratic forms and

a new constituent power that will one day take us through and

beyond Empire.

The genealogy we follow in our analysis of the passage from

imperialism to Empire will be first European and then Euro-

American, not because we believe that these regions are the exclu-

sive or privileged source ofnew ideas and historical innovation,

but simply because this was the dominant geographical path along

xvi

P R E F A C E

which the concepts and practices that animate today’s Empire devel-

oped—in step, as we will argue, with the development ofthe

capitalist mode ofproduction.3 Whereas the genealogy ofEmpire

is in this sense Eurocentric, however, its present powers are not

limited to any region. Logics ofrule that in some sense originated

in Europe and the United States now invest practices ofdomination

throughout the globe. More important, the forces that contest

Empire and effectively prefigure an alternative global society are

themselves not limited to any geographical region. The geography

ofthese alternative powers, the new cartography, is still waiting to be

written—or really, it is being written today through the resistances,

struggles, and desires ofthe multitude.

In writing this book we have tried to the best ofour

abilities to employ a broadly interdisciplinary approach.4 Our argu-

ment aims to be equally philosophical and historical, cultural and

economic, political and anthropological. In part, our object ofstudy

demands this broad interdisciplinarity, since in Empire the bound-

aries that might previously have justified narrow disciplinary ap-

proaches are increasingly breaking down. In the imperial world

the economist, for example, needs a basic knowledge of cultural

production to understand the economy, and likewise the cultural

critic needs a basic knowledge ofeconomic processes to understand

culture. That is a requirement that our project demands. What we

hope to have contributed in this book is a general theoretical

framework and a toolbox of concepts for theorizing and acting in

and against Empire.5

Like most large books, this one can be read in many different

ways: front to back, back to front, in pieces, in a hopscotch pattern,

or through correspondences. The sections ofPart 1 introduce the

general problematic ofEmpire. In the central portion ofthe book,

Parts 2 and 3, we tell the story ofthe passage from modernity to

postmodernity, or really from imperialism to Empire. Part 2 narrates

the passage primarily from the standpoint ofthe history ofideas

and culture from the early modern period to the present. The red

P R E F A C E

xvii

thread that runs throughout this part is the genealogy ofthe concept

ofsovereignty. Part 3 narrates the same passage from the standpoint

ofproduction, whereby production is understood in a very broad

sense, ranging from economic production to the production of

subjectivity. This narrative spans a shorter period and focuses primar-

ily on the transformations of capitalist production from the late

nineteenth century to the present. The internal structures ofParts

2 and 3 thus correspond: the first sections ofeach treat the modern,

imperialist phase; the middle sections deal with the mechanisms of

passage; and the final sections analyze our postmodern, imperial

world.

We structured the book this way in order to emphasize the

importance ofthe shift from the realm ofideas to that ofproduction.

The Intermezzo between Parts 2 and 3 functions as a hinge that

articulates the movement from one standpoint to the other. We

intend this shift of standpoint to function something like the mo-

ment in
Capital
when Marx invites us to leave the noisy sphere of

exchange and descend into the hidden abode ofproduction. The

realm ofproduction is where social inequalities are clearly revealed

and, moreover, where the most effective resistances and alternatives

to the power ofEmpire arise. In Part 4 we thus try to identify

these alternatives that today are tracing the lines ofa movement

beyond Empire.

This book was begun well after the end of the Persian

GulfWar and completed well before the beginning ofthe war in

Kosovo. The reader should thus situate the argument at the midpoint

between those two signal events in the construction ofEmpire.

PART 1

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

1.1

W O R L D O R D E R

Capitalism only triumphs when it becomes identified with the state,

when it is the state.

Fernand Braudel

They make slaughter and they call it peace.

Tacitus

The problematic ofEmpire is determined in the first

place by one simple fact: that there is world order. This order is

expressed as a juridical formation. Our initial task, then, is to grasp

the
constitution
ofthe order being formed today. We should rule

out from the outset, however, two common conceptions of this

order that reside on opposing limits ofthe spectrum: first, the notion

that the present order somehow rises up
spontaneously
out ofthe

interactions ofradically heterogeneous global forces, as ifthis order

were a harmonious concert orchestrated by the natural and neutral

hidden hand ofthe world market; and second, the idea that order

is dictated by a single power and a single center ofrationality

transcendent
to global forces, guiding the various phases of historical development according to its conscious and all-seeing plan, something like a conspiracy theory ofglobalization.1

United Nations

Before investigating the constitution of Empire in juridical terms,

we must analyze in some detail the constitutional processes that

have come to define the central juridical categories, and in particular

4

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

give careful attention to the process of the long transition from the

sovereign right ofnation-states (and the international right that

followed from it) to the first postmodern global figures of imperial

right. As a first approximation one can think ofthis as the genealogy

ofjuridical forms that led to, and now leads beyond, the suprana-

tional role ofthe United Nations and its various affiliated institu-

tions.

It is widely recognized that the notion ofinternational order

that European modernity continually proposed and reproposed, at

least since the Peace ofWestphalia, is now in crisis.2 It has in fact

always been in crisis, and this crisis has been one ofthe motors that

has continuously pushed toward Empire. Perhaps this notion of

international order and its crisis should be dated from the time of

the Napoleonic Wars, as some scholars claim, or perhaps the origin

should be located in the Congress ofVienna and the establishment

ofthe Holy Alliance.3 In any case, there can be no doubt that by

the time ofthe First World War and the birth ofthe League of

Nations, a notion ofinternational order along with its crisis had

been definitively established. The birth ofthe United Nations at

the end ofthe Second World War merely reinitiated, consolidated,

and extended this developing international juridical order that was

first European but progressively became completely global. The

United Nations, in effect, can be regarded as the culmination of

this entire constitutive process, a culmination that both reveals the

limitations ofthe notion of
international
order and points beyond

it toward a new notion of
global
order. One could certainly analyze the U.N. juridical structure in purely negative terms and dwell on

the declining power ofnation-states in the international context,

but one should also recognize that the notion ofright defined by

the U.N. Charter also points toward a new positive source of

juridical production, effective on a global scale—a new center of

normative production that can play a sovereign juridical role. The

U.N. functions as a hinge in the genealogy from international

to global juridical structures. On the one hand, the entire U.N.

conceptual structure is predicated on the recognition and legitima-

W O R L D O R D E R

5

tion ofthe sovereignty ofindividual states, and it is thus planted

squarely within the old framework of international right defined

by pacts and treaties. On the other hand, however, this process of

legitimation is effective only insofar as it transfers sovereign right

to a real
supranational
center. It is not our intention here to criticize or lament the serious (and at times tragic) inadequacies ofthis

process; indeed, we are interested in the United Nations and the

project ofinternational order not as an end in itself, but rather as

a real historical lever that pushed forward the transition toward a

properly global system. It is precisely the inadequacies ofthe process,

then, that make it effective.

To look more closely at this transition in juridical terms, it is

useful to read the work ofHans Kelsen, one ofthe central intellectual

figures behind the formation of the United Nations. As early as the

1910s and 1920s, Kelsen proposed that the international juridical

system be conceived as the supreme source ofevery national juridical

formation and constitution. Kelsen arrived at this proposal through

his analyses ofthe formal dynamics ofthe particular orderings of

states. The limits ofthe nation-state, he claimed, posed an insur-

mountable obstacle to the realization ofthe idea ofright. For Kelsen,

the partial ordering ofthe domestic law ofnation-states led back

necessarily to the universality and objectivity ofthe international

ordering. The latter is not only logical but also ethical, for it would

put an end to conflicts between states ofunequal power and affirm

instead an equality that is the principle ofreal international commu-

nity. Behind the formal sequence that Kelsen described, then, there

was a real and substantial drive ofEnlightenment modernization.

Kelsen sought, in Kantian fashion, a notion of right that could

become an ‘‘organization ofhumanity and [would] therefore be

one with the supreme ethical idea.’’4 He wanted to get beyond the

logic ofpower in international relations so that ‘‘the particular states

could be regarded juridically as entities ofequal rank’’ and thus a

‘‘world and universal state’’ could be formed, organized as a ‘‘univer-

sal community superior to the particular states, enveloping them

all within itself.’’5

6

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

It was only fitting, then, that Kelsen would later have the

privilege ofattending the meetings in San Francisco that founded

the United Nations and seeing his theoretical hypothesis realized.

For him the United Nations organized a rational idea.6 It gave legs

to an idea of the spirit; it proposed a real base of effectiveness for

a transcendental schema ofthe validity ofright situated above the

nation-state. The validity and efficacy of right could now be united