Weber, C7: NeoMarxism

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Weber, C7(Neo)Marxism

• Empire is the new world order
• The end of history sure didnt last long

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Table 7.1 Marx v. Hardt Negri
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Questions

• What is Empire?
• What is the multitude?
• What is the relationship between Empire and the
  multitude?
• How is it possible to have a (communist)
  revolution when there seems to be nothing
  (coherent) to rebel against and in an ero in
  which rebellion itself seems to be so
  incoherent? (125).

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What Empire is (from Box 7.1)

• a single logic of rule
• The political subject that regulates global
  exchanges.
• the sovereign power that governs the world
• an order that effectively suspends history and
  thereby fixes the existing state of affairs for
  eternity
• a virtual center

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What Empire is (from Box 7.1)

• a non-place
• a decentered ad deterritorializing apparatus of
  rule
• A society of control constructed through bipower
• An international disciplinary order
• a single logic of rule
• force presented as being in the service of
  right and peace
• The enemy of the multitude

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What Empire is not

• Not reducible to the United States of America
• Not imperialism

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What Creates Empire? (Weber, 129)

• It is not imposed on us from above.
• An awful lot of us have a hand in making it
• Buying a burger at McDonalds
• Rallying around the flag during a military action
• In other words being good consumers and good
  citizens

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Box 7.2 Who are the Multitude?

• a new proletariat
• A unified (or at least, unifiable) global axis of
  resistance.
• Those who share the common enemy of Empire
• counter-empire
• the real ontological referent of philosophy
  (and Weber adds history)
• Contemporary militants

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Examples of the Multitude

• The rebels in Chiapas
• The Palestinian Intifada
• The WTO protestors (Seattle, Cancun, Hong Kong,
  elsewhere)
• Al Qaeda?

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The Dialectical Logic of Empire

• Empire (thesis) Multitude (Antithesis)
  Communism (desired but not inevitable outcome of
  conflict)