Empire (36 page)

subjectivity in an ever more intense way. We might say that post-

modernism is what you have when the modern theory ofsocial

constructivism is taken to its extreme and all subjectivity is recog-

nized as artificial. How is this possible, however, when today, as

nearly everyone says, the institutions in question are everywhere

in crisis and continually breaking down? This general crisis does not

necessarily mean that the institutions no longer produce subjectivity.

What has changed, rather, is the second condition: that is, the place

ofthe production ofsubjectivity is no longer defined in this same

way. The crisis means, in other words, that today the enclosures

that used to define the limited space ofthe institutions have broken

down so that the logic that once functioned primarily within the

institutional walls now spreads across the entire social terrain. Inside

and outside are becoming indistinguishable.

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This omni-crisis of the institutions looks very different in

different cases. For example, continually decreasing proportions of

the U.S. population are involved in the nuclear family, while steadily

increasing proportions are confined to prisons. Both institutions,

however, the nuclear family and the prison, are equally in crisis,

in the sense that the place of their effectivity is increasingly indeter-

minate. One should not think that the crisis ofthe nuclear family

has brought a decline in the forces of patriarchy. On the contrary,

discourses and practices of‘‘family values’’ seem to be everywhere

across the social field. The old feminist slogan ‘‘The personal is the

political’’ has been reversed in such a way that the boundaries

between public and private have fractured, unleashing circuits of

control throughout the ‘‘intimate public sphere.’’19 In a similar way

the crisis ofthe prison means that carceral logics and techniques have

increasingly spread to other domains ofsociety. The production of

subjectivity in imperial society tends not to be limited to any specific

places. One is always still in the family, always still in school, always

still in prison, and so forth. In the general breakdown, then, the

functioning of the institutions is both more intensive and more

extensive. The institutions work even though they are breaking

down—and perhaps they work all the better the more they break

down. The indefiniteness ofthe
place
ofthe production corresponds

to the indeterminacy ofthe
form
ofthe subjectivities produced. The imperial social institutions might be seen, then, in a fluid process

ofthe generation and corruption ofsubjectivity.

This passage is not isolated to the dominant countries and

regions, but tends to be generalized to different degrees across the

world. The apologia ofcolonial administration always celebrated

its establishment ofsocial and political institutions in the colonies,

institutions that would constitute the backbone ofa new civil soci-

ety. Whereas in the process ofmodernization the most powerful

countries export institutional forms to the subordinated ones, in

the present process ofpostmodernization,
what is exported is the

general crisis of the institutions.
The Empire’s institutional structure is like a software program that carries a virus along with it, so that it

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is continually modulating and corrupting the institutional forms

around it. The imperial society ofcontrol is tendentially everywhere

the order ofthe day.

TheTripleImperativeof Empire

The general apparatus ofimperial command actually consists of

three distinct moments: one inclusive, another differential, and a

third managerial. The first moment is the magnanimous, liberal

face of Empire. All are welcome within its boundaries, regardless

ofrace, creed, color, gender, sexual orientation, and so forth. In its

inclusionary moment Empire is blind to differences; it is absolutely

indifferent in its acceptance. It achieves universal inclusion by setting

aside differences that are inflexible or unmanageable and thus might

give rise to social conflict.20 Setting aside differences requires us to

regard differences as inessential or relative and imagine a situation

not in which they do not exist but rather in which we are ignorant

ofthem. A veil ofignorance prepares a universal acceptance. When

Empire is blind to these differences and when it forces its constituents

to set them aside, there can exist an overlapping consensus across

the entire imperial space. Setting aside differences means, in effect,

taking away the potential ofthe various constituent subjectivities.

The resulting public space ofpower neutrality makes possible the

establishment and legitimation ofa universal notion ofright that

f

orms the core ofthe Empire. The law ofinclusionary neutral

indifference is a universal foundation in the sense that it applies

equally to all subjects that exist and that could exist under imperial

rule. In this first moment, then, the Empire is a machine for universal

integration, an open mouth with infinite appetite, inviting all to

come peacefully within its domain. (Give me your poor, your

hungry, your downtrodden masses . .

.) The Empire does not

fortify its boundaries to push others away, but rather pulls them

within its pacific order, like a powerful vortex. With boundaries

and differences suppressed or set aside, the Empire is a kind of

smooth space across which subjectivities glide without substantial

resistance or conflict.

I M P E R I A L S O V E R E I G N T Y

199

The second moment of imperial control, its differential mo-

ment, involves the affirmation of differences accepted within the

imperial realm. While from the juridical perspective differences

must be set aside, from the cultural perspective differences are

celebrated. Since these differences are considered now to be cultural

and contingent rather than biological and essential, they are thought

not to impinge on the central band ofcommonality or overlapping

consensus that characterizes the Empire’s inclusionary mechanism.

They are nonconflictual differences, the kind of differences we

might set aside when necessary. For example, since the end ofthe

cold war, ethnic identities have been actively (re)created in the

socialist and formerly socialist countries with the firm support of the

United States, the U.N., and other global bodies. Local languages,

traditional place-names, arts, handcrafts, and so forth are celebrated

as important components ofthe transition from socialism to capital-

ism.21 These differences are imagined to be ‘‘cultural’’ rather than

‘‘political,’’ under the assumption that they will not lead to uncon-

trollable conflicts but will function, rather, as a force of peaceful

regional identification. In a similar fashion, many official promotions

ofmulticulturalism in the United States involve the celebration of

traditional ethnic and cultural differences under the umbrella of

universal inclusion. In general, Empire does not create differences.

It takes what it is given and works with it.

The differential moment of imperial control must be followed

by the management and hierarchization of these differences in a

general economy ofcommand. Whereas colonial power sought to

fix pure, separate identities, Empire thrives on circuits ofmovement

and mixture. The colonial apparatus was a kind ofmold that forged

fixed, distinct castings, but the imperial society ofcontrol functions

through modulation, ‘‘like a self-deforming cast that changes contin-

ually, from one instant to the next, or like a sieve whose pattern

changes from one point to the next.’’22 The colonial poses a simple

equation with a unique solution; the imperial is faced by multiple

complex variables that change continuously and admit a variety of

always incomplete but nonetheless effective solutions.

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In a certain sense, then, the colonial might be considered more

ideological and the imperial more pragmatic. Consider as an example

ofimperial strategy the practice ofNew England f

actories and

Appalachian coal mines at the beginning ofthe twentieth century.

The factories and mines were dependent on the labor of recent

immigrants from various European countries, many of whom carried

with them traditions ofintense worker militancy. Bosses, however,

did not shy away from bringing together this potentially explosive

mixture of workers. They found, in fact, that carefully managed

proportions of workers from different national backgrounds in each

workshop and each mine proved to be a powerful formula of

command. The linguistic, cultural, and ethnic differences within

each work force were stabilizing because they could be used as a

weapon to combat worker organization. It was in the bosses’ interest

that the melting pot not dissolve identities and that each ethnic group

continue to live in a separate community maintaining its differences.

A very similar strategy can be seen in the more recent practices

oflabor management on a Central American banana plantation.23

Multiple ethnic divisions among the workers function as an element

ofcontrol in the labor process. The transnational corporation ad-

dresses with different methods and degrees of exploitation and

repression each ofthe ethnic groups ofworkers—variously ofEuro-

pean and African descent and from different Amerindian groups.

Antagonisms and divisions among the workers along the various

lines ofethnicity and identification prove to enhance profit and

facilitate control. Complete cultural assimilation (in contrast to ju-

ridical integration) is certainly not a priority ofimperial strategy.

The reemergence of ethnic and national differences at the end of

the twentieth century, not only in Europe but also in Africa, Asia,

and the Americas, has presented Empire with an even more complex

equation containing a myriad ofvariables that are in a constant state

offlux. That this equation does not have a unique solution is not

really a problem—on the contrary. Contingency, mobility, and

flexibility are Empire’s real power. The imperial ‘‘solution’’ will

not be to negate or attenuate these differences, but rather to affirm

them and arrange them in an effective apparatus of command.

I M P E R I A L S O V E R E I G N T Y

201

‘‘Divide and conquer’’ is thus not really the correct formulation

ofimperial strategy. More often than not, the Empire does not

create division but rather recognizes existing or potential differences,

celebrates them, and manages them within a general economy of

command. The triple imperative ofthe Empire is incorporate,

differentiate, manage.

From Crisis to Corruption

At the beginning ofPart 2 we elaborated a notion ofmodern

sovereignty as crisis: a crisis defined in the continual conflict be-

tween, on the one hand, the plane ofimmanent forces ofthe desire

and cooperation ofthe multitude and, on the other hand, the

transcendent authority that seeks to contain these forces and impose

an order on them. We can now see that imperial sovereignty, in

contrast, is organized not around one central conflict but rather

through a flexible network ofmicroconflicts. The contradictions

ofimperial society are elusive, proliferating, and nonlocalizable: the

contradictions are everywhere. Rather than crisis, then, the concept

that defines imperial sovereignty might be omni-crisis, or, as we

prefer, corruption. It is a commonplace of the classical literature

on Empire, from Polybius to Montesquieu and Gibbon, that Empire

is from its inception decadent and corrupt.

This terminology might easily be misunderstood. It is impor-

tant to make clear that we in no way intend our definition of

imperial sovereignty as corruption to be a moral charge. In its

contemporary and modern usage, corruption has indeed become a

poor concept for our purposes. It now commonly refers only to

the perverted, that which strays from the moral, the good, the pure.

We intend the concept rather to refer to a more general process

ofdecomposition or mutation with none ofthe moral overtones,

drawing on an ancient usage that has been largely lost. Aristotle,

for example, understands corruption as a becoming of bodies that

is a process complementary to generation.24 We might think of

corruption, then, as de-generation—a reverse process ofgeneration

and composition, a moment ofmetamorphosis that potentially frees

spaces for change. We have to forget all the commonplace images

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that come to mind when we refer to imperial decadence, corruption,

and degeneration. Such moralism is completely misplaced here.

More important is a strict argument about form, in other words,