This final volume in Antonio Negri’s new trilogy aims to clarify and develop the ‘common’ as a key concept of radical thought. Here the term is understood in a double sense: on the one hand, as a collective of production and consumption in which the domination of capital has been completely realized; on the other hand, as the cooperation of workers and citizens and their assertion of political power. The maturation of this duality was the sign of the limits of capitalism in our age; the common showed itself as the active force that recomposed production, society and life in a new experience of freedom. Today the promise of freedom seems undermined by the very institutions founded to uphold it, as the charters of western democracy seek to prioritize individualism. Negri advocates instead a free society founded on the premise that the good life is to be collectively ordered – in other words, a society that elevates the common. In his vision, giving political expression to those who work and produce is the only way of overturning totalitarian exploitation and of enabling every citizen to participate in the development of the city.  Like its companion volumes, this new collection of essays by Negri will be a valuable resource for anyone interested in radical politics and in the key social and political struggles of our time.

Imperialism as we knew it may be no more, but Empire is alive and well. It is, as Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri demonstrate in this bold work, the new political order of globalization. It is easy to recognize the contemporary economic, cultural, and legal transformations taking place across the globe but difficult to understand them. Hardt and Negri contend that they should be seen in line with our historical understanding of Empire as a universal order that accepts no boundaries or limits. Their book shows how this emerging Empire is fundamentally different from the imperialism of European dominance and capitalist expansion in previous eras. Rather, today's Empire draws on elements of U.S. constitutionalism, with its tradition of hybrid identities and expanding frontiers.

"Empire" identifies a radical shift in concepts that form the philosophical basis of modern politics, concepts such as sovereignty, nation, and people. Hardt and Negri link this philosophical transformation to cultural and economic changes in postmodern society--to new forms of racism, new conceptions of identity and difference, new networks of communication and control, and new paths of migration. They also show how the power of transnational corporations and the increasing predominance of postindustrial forms of labor and production help to define the new imperial global order.

More than analysis, "Empire" is also an unabashedly utopian work of political philosophy, a new "Communist Manifesto," Looking beyond the regimes of exploitation and control that characterize today's world order, it seeks an alternative political paradigm--the basis for a truly democratic global society.

Political philosopher, convicted activist, leftist intellectual and coauthor of the bestselling "Empire," Antonio Negri is one of the most controversial thinkers at work today. In this booklength conversation with Anne Dufourmentelle, Negri offers thoughtful responses to twenty-six terms, alphabetically arranged, that have had special significance for his life and work. Negri speaks openly here of his involvement with political movements, his exile, his return to Italy and years there in prison, and his life since. But beyond the biographical there is much here to explain Negri's ideas on globalization, the future of social change, and the history of political thought. The book's subjects - fascism, Heidegger, the Red Brigades, Wittgenstein, empire, Kant, the unconscious, and many others - are often thresholds from which Negri shares his views on still larger topics. "Negri on Negri" provides a fascinating glimpse into his mind and life. Perhaps nowhere else can one engage so readily the ideas of this major contemporary thinker.

Political philosopher, convicted activist, leftist intellectual and coauthor of the bestselling "Empire," Antonio Negri is one of the most controversial thinkers at work today. In this booklength conversation with Anne Dufourmentelle, Negri offers thoughtful responses to twenty-six terms, alphabetically arranged, that have had special significance for his life and work. Negri speaks openly here of his involvement with political movements, his exile, his return to Italy and years there in prison, and his life since. But beyond the biographical there is much here to explain Negri's ideas on globalization, the future of social change, and the history of political thought. The book's subjects - fascism, Heidegger, the Red Brigades, Wittgenstein, empire, Kant, the unconscious, and many others - are often thresholds from which Negri shares his views on still larger topics. "Negri on Negri" provides a fascinating glimpse into his mind and life. Perhaps nowhere else can one engage so readily the ideas of this major contemporary thinker.

In an uprising heard around the world, people in Argentina took to the streets on December 19th & 20th, 2001, shouting "!Que se vayan todos!" These words (All of them out!), and the thousands of people banging pots and pans, opened a period of intense social unrest and political creativity that led to the collapse of government after government. Neighborhoods organized themselves into hundreds of popular assemblies across the country, the unemployed workers movement acquired a new visibility, workers took over factories and businesses. Deeply involved in these movements were the activists who made up Colectivo Situaciones. With the embers of that December's aftermath still burning, Colectivo Situaciones militantly researched and wrote 19 and 20. Locating themselves among the "horizontally organized subjectivities that insisted on not being represented by politicians but maintaining and developing their own powers of political expression" that Micheal Hardt notes in his introduction, Colectivo Situaciones gathers, interrogates, and offers forth the words of unemployed workers, factory occupiers, insurgent intellectuals, and children of the disappeared. From their investigations is revealed the birth of a new social protagonism and the de-institutional power (potencia) they wield. 19 and 20 has been praised as this generation's 18th Brumaire and as Marx's analysis of that struggle helped set the stage for, twenty years later, the Paris Commune we find ourselves here. Revisiting and exploring the forms of counterpower that emerged from the shadow of neoliberal rule we find the book's potencia has only grown. In the intervening years the analysis of Colectivo Situaciones has been passed from hand to hand and multitudes of citizens from different countries have learned their own ways to chant !Que se vayan todos!, from Iceland to Tunisia, from Spain to Greece, from Tahrir Square to Black Lives Matter. Colectivo Situaciones' practice of militant research--of engaging with movements' own thought processes--resonates with everyone seeking to think current events and movements, and through that to gather the foundation of a commune for the 21st century.

Lenin's booklet State and Revolution is widely recognised to be a lightening bolt in Marxist theory. Written in the months immediately running up to the October Revolution of 1917, Lenin turned the traditional socialist concept of the state on its head, arguing for the need to smash the organs of the bourgeois state and for them to be replace by a "semi-state" of soviets, or workers' councils, in which ordinary people would take on the functions of the state machine themselves in a new and radically democratic manner. This new edition includes a substantial new introduction by renowned theorist Antonio Negri, who argues for the continued relevance of these ideas.

Quest'opera (edizione rilegata) fa parte della collana di libri TREDITION CLASSICS. La casa editrice tredition di Amburgo pubblica nell'ambito della collana TREDITION CLASSICS opere datate piu di 2000 anni. Queste opere erano in gran parte esaurite o reperibili solo come pezzi d'antiquariato. La serie di libri contribuise a preservare la letteratura e a promuovere la cultura. Essa aiuta inoltre ad evitare che migliaia di opere cadano nel dimenticatoio. L'obiettivo della serie e di ripubblicare migliaia di classici della letteratura mondiale in diverse lingue... in tutto il mondo

This final volume in Antonio Negri’s new trilogy aims to clarify and develop the ‘common’ as a key concept of radical thought. Here the term is understood in a double sense: on the one hand, as a collective of production and consumption in which the domination of capital has been completely realized; on the other hand, as the cooperation of workers and citizens and their assertion of political power. The maturation of this duality was the sign of the limits of capitalism in our age; the common showed itself as the active force that recomposed production, society and life in a new experience of freedom. Today the promise of freedom seems undermined by the very institutions founded to uphold it, as the charters of western democracy seek to prioritize individualism. Negri advocates instead a free society founded on the premise that the good life is to be collectively ordered – in other words, a society that elevates the common. In his vision, giving political expression to those who work and produce is the only way of overturning totalitarian exploitation and of enabling every citizen to participate in the development of the city.  Like its companion volumes, this new collection of essays by Negri will be a valuable resource for anyone interested in radical politics and in the key social and political struggles of our time.

In recent years "leaderless" social movements have proliferated around the globe, from North Africa and the Middle East to Europe, the Americas, and East Asia. Some of these movements have led to impressive gains: the toppling of authoritarian leaders, the furthering of progressive policy, and checks on repressive state forces. They have also been, at times, derided by journalists and political analysts as disorganized and ineffectual, or suppressed by disoriented and perplexed police forces and governments who fail to effectively engage them. Activists, too, struggle to harness the potential of these horizontal movements. Why have the movements, which address the needs and desires of so many, not been able to achieve lasting change and create a new, more democratic and just society? Some people assume that if only social movements could find new leaders they would return to their earlier glory. Where, they ask, are the new Martin Luther Kings, Rudi Dutschkes, and Stephen Bikos? With the rise of right-wing political parties in many countries, the question of how to organize democratically and effectively has become increasingly urgent. Although today's leaderless political organizations are not sufficient, a return to traditional, centralized forms of political leadership is neither desirable nor possible. Instead, as Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri argue, familiar roles must be reversed: leaders should be responsible for short-term, tactical action, but it is the multitude that must drive strategy. In other words, if these new social movements are to achieve meaningful revolution, they must invent effective modes of assembly and decision-making structures that rely on the broadest democratic base. Drawing on ideas developed through their well-known Empire trilogy, Hardt and Negri have produced, in Assembly, a timely proposal for how current large-scale horizontal movements can develop the capacities for political strategy and decision-making to effect lasting and democratic change. We have not yet seen what is possible when the multitude assembles.

New Edition

In the ten years since the initial publication of "Insurgencies," Antonio Negri's reputation as one of the world's foremost political philosophers has grown dramatically. An invigorating appraisal of revolutionary thought, Insurgencies is both the precursor to and the historical basis for Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt's masterwork, Empire.

At the center of this book is the conflict between "constituent power," the democratic force of revolutionary innovation, and "constituted power," the fixed power of formal constitutions and central authority. This conflict, Negri argues, defines the drama of modern rebellions. Now with a foreword by Michael Hardt, "Insurgencies" leads to a new notion of how power and action must be understood if we are to achieve a democratic future.

We are living in an age of crisis-or an age in which everything is labeled a crisis. Financial, debt, and refugee "crises" have erupted. The word has also been applied to the Arab Spring and its aftermath, Brexit, the 2016 U.S. election, and many other international events. Yet the term has contradictory political and strategic meanings for those challenging power structures and those seeking to preserve them. For critics of the status quo, can the rhetoric of crisis be used to foment urgency around issues like climate change and financialization, or does framing a situation as a "crisis" play into the hands of the existing political order, which then seeks to tighten the leash by creating a state of emergency? Critical Theory at a Crossroads presents conversations with prominent theorists about the crises that have marked the past years, the protest movements that have risen up in response, and the use of the term in political discourse. Tariq Ali, Rosi Braidotti, Wendy Brown, Maurizio Lazzarato, Angela McRobbie, Jean-Luc Nancy, Antonio Negri, Jacques Ranciere, Saskia Sassen, and Joseph Vogl offer their views on contemporary challenges and how we might address them, candidly discussing the alternatives that new social movements have offered, alongside an exchange between Zygmunt Bauman and Roberto Esposito on theories of community. Sparring over crucial developments in these past years of catastrophe and the calamity of everyday life under capitalism, they shed light on how crises and the discourse of crisis can both obscure and reveal fundamental aspects of modern societies.

Factory of Strategy is the last of Antonio Negri's major political works to be translated into English. Rigorous and accessible, it is both a systematic inquiry into the development of Lenin's thought and an encapsulation of a critical shift in Negri's theoretical trajectory. Lenin is the only prominent politician of the modern era to seriously question the "withering away" and "extinction" of the state, and like Marx, he recognized the link between capitalism and modern sovereignty and the need to destroy capitalism and reconfigure the state. Negri refrains from portraying Lenin as a ferocious dictator enforcing the proletariat's reappropriation of wealth, nor does he depict him as a mere military tool of a vanguard opposed to the Ancien Regime. Negri instead champions Leninism's ability to adapt to different working-class configurations in Russia, China, Latin America, and elsewhere. He argues that Lenin developed a new political figuration in and beyond modernity and an effective organization capable of absorbing different historical conditions. He ultimately urges readers to recognize the universal application of Leninism today and its potential to institutionally-not anarchically-dismantle centralized power.

Factory of Strategy is the last of Antonio Negri's major political works to be translated into English. Rigorous and accessible, it is both a systematic inquiry into the development of Lenin's thought and an encapsulation of a critical shift in Negri's theoretical trajectory. Lenin is the only prominent politician of the modern era to seriously question the "withering away" and "extinction" of the state, and like Marx, he recognized the link between capitalism and modern sovereignty and the need to destroy capitalism and reconfigure the state. Negri refrains from portraying Lenin as a ferocious dictator enforcing the proletariat's reappropriation of wealth, nor does he depict him as a mere military tool of a vanguard opposed to the Ancien Regime. Negri instead champions Leninism's ability to adapt to different working-class configurations in Russia, China, Latin America, and elsewhere. He argues that Lenin developed a new political figuration in and beyond modernity and an effective organization capable of absorbing different historical conditions. He ultimately urges readers to recognize the universal application of Leninism today and its potential to institutionally-not anarchically-dismantle centralized power.

"Labor is the living, form-giving fire", Marx wrote, "it is the transitoriness of things, their temporality, as their transformation by living time". How is it then, this book asks, that labour, with all its life-affirming potential, has become the means of capitalist discipline, exploitation, and domination in modern society? The authors pursue this paradox through a systematic analysis of the role of labour in the processes of capitalist production and in the establishment of capitalist legal and social institutions. Critiquing liberal and socialist notions of labour and institutional reform from a radical democratic perspective, Hardt and Negri offer insight into the power and limitations of the Soviet experience at a time when the collapse of the state in the socialist world has stumped most political theorists. In the 20th century, labour has become central to the material and formal constitution of the State, as a complex nexus of value and right. And yet, in living labour and social co-operation, which cut across the divisions of workdays and wage relations, the authors identify a total critique of capitalist practice as well, presenting not only the negation of the present social order but also the affirmation of an alternative system of value, norms, and desires. The forms in which this potential is expressed, from the social movements of the 1960s to those of the 1990s, are the "prerequisites of communism" already existing in contemporary society. Michael Hardt is the author of "Gilles Deleuze: An Apprenticeship in Philosophy". Antonio Negri has also published "The Savage Anomaly", also published by Minnesota.

When "Empire" appeared in 2000, it defined the political and economic challenges of the era of globalization and, thrillingly, found in them possibilities for new and more democratic forms of social organization. Now, with "Commonwealth," Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri conclude the trilogy begun with "Empire" and continued in "Multitude," proposing an ethics of freedom for living in our common world and articulating a possible constitution for our common wealth.

Drawing on scenarios from around the globe and elucidating the themes that unite them, Hardt and Negri focus on the logic of institutions and the models of governance adequate to our understanding of a global commonwealth. They argue for the idea of the common to replace the opposition of private and public and the politics predicated on that opposition. Ultimately, they articulate the theoretical bases for what they call governing the revolution.

Though this book functions as an extension and a completion of a sustained line of Hardt and Negri s thought, it also stands alone and is entirely accessible to readers who are not familiar with the previous works. It is certain to appeal to, challenge, and enrich the thinking of anyone interested in questions of politics and globalization.

Each year a new eruption of "leaderless" social movements - from North Africa and the Middle East to Europe, the Americas, and East Asia - leaves journalists, political analysts, police forces, and governments disoriented and perplexed. Activists too struggle to understand and evaluate the power and effectiveness of horizontal movements. Why have the movements, which address the needs and desires of so many, not been able to achieve lasting change and create a new, more democratic and just society? Some people assume that if only social movements could find new leaders they would return to their earlier glory. Where, they ask, are the new Martin Luther Kings, Rudi Dutschkes, and Steven Bikos? Although today's leaderless and spontaneous political organizations are not sufficient, a return to traditional, centralized forms of political leadership is neither desirable nor possible. Necessary, instead, as Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri argue, is an inversion of the roles of the multitude and leadership in political organizations. Leaders should be confined to short-term, tactical action, while the multitude drives strategy. In other words, the formulation of long-term goals and objectives must come from the collective, rather than designated figureheads. Drawing on the ideas developed through their well-known Empire trilogy, Hardt and Negri have produced, in Assembly, a timely proposal for how current large-scale, horizontal movements can develop collectively the capacities for political strategy and decision-making to effect lasting and democratic change.

In this important book, Antonio Negri develops the key ideas that were to form the basis for the highly influential analyses of new forms of power and social struggle presented in Empire and Multitude. He shows how new technology and the break-up of the traditional factory have created new social subjects whose value is no longer tied to their skill. The spread of communication networks and the globalization of production mean that capitalism has become totalized - but not, Negri stresses, monolithic. On the contrary, the possibilities for subversion have correspondingly increased.
Going beyond classical Marxism, he shows how old solidarities must be reformulated and new alliances created. The struggles which marked the political end of the twentieth century are now being repeated in a new historical conjuncture, giving rise to new forms of transnational solidarity that can challenge dominant global powers.
This new paperback edition, which includes a new Preface by the author, is an excellent introduction to the work of one of the most influential political thinkers writing today and will be essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand the new forms of conflict and struggle that will shape the world in the twenty-first century.

In "The Labor of Job," the renowned Marxist political philosopher Antonio Negri develops an unorthodox interpretation of the Old Testament book of Job, a canonical text of Judeo-Christian thought. In the biblical narrative, the pious Job is made to suffer for no apparent reason. The story revolves around his quest to understand why he must bear, and why God would allow, such misery. Conventional readings explain the tale as an affirmation of divine transcendence. When God finally speaks to Job, it is to assert his sovereignty and establish that it is not Job's place to question what God allows. In Negri's materialist reading, Job does not recognize God's transcendence. He denies it, and in so doing becomes a co-creator of himself and the world.

"The Labor of Job" was first published in Italy in 1990. Negri began writing it in the early 1980s, while he was a political prisoner in Italy, and it was the first book he completed during his exile in France (1983-97). As he writes in the preface, understanding suffering was for him in the early 1980s "an essential element of resistance. . . . It was the problem of liberation, in prison and in exile, from within the absoluteness of Power." Negri presents a Marxist interpretation of Job's story. He describes it as a parable of human labor, one that illustrates the impossibility of systems of measure, whether of divine justice (in Job's case) or the value of labor (in the case of late-twentieth-century Marxism). In the foreword, Michael Hardt elaborates on this interpretation. In his commentary, Roland Boer considers Negri's reading of the book of Job in relation to the Bible and biblical exegesis. "The Labor of Job" provides an intriguing and accessible entry into the thought of one of today's most important political philosophers.

Major theorists discuss Derrida's most political work and Derrida responds. Fredric Jameson, Antonio Negri, Terry Eagleton, Pierre Macherey and others engage in a debate on Marx with Jacques Derrida With the publication of Specters of Marx in 1993, Jacques Derrida redeemed a longstanding pledge to confront Marx's texts directly and in detail. His characteristically bravura presentation provided a provocative re-reading of the classics in the Western tradition and posed a series of challenges to Marxism. In a timely intervention in one of today's most vital theoretical debates, the contributors to Ghostly Demarcations respond to the distinctive program projected by Specters of Marx, The volume features sympathetic meditations on the relationship between Marxism and deconstruction by Fredric Jameson, Werner Hamacher, Antonio Negri, Warren Montag, and Rastko Mcnik, brief polemical reviews by Terry Eagleton and Pierre Macherey, and sustained political critiques by Tom Lewis and Aijaz Ahmad. The volume concludes with Derrida's reply to his critics in which he sharpens his views about the vexed relationship between Marxism and deconstruction. Verso's beautifully designed Radical Thinkers series, which brings together seminal works by leading left-wing intellectuals, is a sophisticated blend of theory and thought. The authors whose writings are included in the series have worked tirelessly to expose the mechanisms by which culture and knowledge are manufactured, managed and controlled.--Ziauddin Sardar, New Statesman

Long before Antonio Negri became famous around the world for his groundbreaking volume Empire, he was infamous across Europe for the incendiary writings contained in this book. Books for Burning consists of five pamphlets that Negri wrote between 1971 and 1977, which attempt to identify and draw lessons from new conditions of class struggle that emerged in the course of the 1970s. Conceived as organizational hypotheses intended for debate among the members of the political movements Workers' Power (Potere operaio) and Organized Autonomy (Autonomia organizzata), these texts were later misread and misrepresented by the Italian state in its attempt to frame Negri as responsible for the assassination of former Italian president Aldo Moro, as the leader of the Red Brigades, and as the mastermind of an armed insurrection against the state. In the more than twenty-five years since their first publication, these texts have lost none of their originality, relevance or power to shock. In a new preface, Negri demonstrates how his controversial work on empire, biopolitics and immaterial labor developed out of concepts and strategies first outlined in this book, and an editorial introduction analyzes the role these texts played in Negri's trial and in the criminalization of the Italian radical workers' movement.

With "Trilogy of Resistance," the political philosopher Antonio Negri extends his intervention in contemporary politics and culture into a new medium: drama. The three plays collected for the first time in this volume dramatize the central concepts of the innovative and influential thought he has articulated in his best-selling books "Empire" and "Multitude," coauthored with Michael Hardt.
In the tradition of Bertolt Brecht and Heiner Muller, Negri's political dramas are designed to provoke debate around the fundamental questions they raise about resistance, violence, and tyranny. In "Swarm," the protagonist searches for an effective mode of activism; with the help of a Greek-style chorus, she tries on different roles, from the suicide bomber and party apparatchik to the multitude. "The Bent Man," set in fascist Italy, focuses on a woodcutter who resists fascism by bending himself in two and using his own now-twisted body as a weapon against war. In "Cithaeron," perhaps the most audacious of the three plays, Negri reworks Euripides's "Bacchae" to explore the circumstances that would compel a diverse and creative community to withdraw from both the despotic government that constrains it and the traditional family relationships that reinforce that despotism.
First published in France in 2009 and featuring an introduction by Negri, "Trilogy of Resistance" provides a direct and passionate distillation of Negri's concepts and offers insights into one of the most important projects in political philosophy currently under way, as well as a timely reminder of the power of theater to effectively dramatize complex and challenging ideas.

Antonio Negri, the renowned co-author of 'Empire', provides this study of the founder of modern philosophy. The book is available in English for the first time.

Quest'opera fa parte della collana di libri TREDITION CLASSICS. La casa editrice tredition di Amburgo pubblica nell'ambito della collana TREDITION CLASSICS opere datate piu di 2000 anni. Queste opere erano in gran parte esaurite o reperibili solo come pezzi d'antiquariato. La serie di libri contribuise a preservare la letteratura e a promuovere la cultura. Essa aiuta inoltre ad evitare che migliaia di opere cadano nel dimenticatoio. L'obiettivo della serie TREDITION CLASSICS e di ripubblicare migliaia di classici della letteratura mondiale in diverse lingue... in tutto il mondo

For a brief explosive period in the mid-1970s, the young and the unemployed of Italy's cities joined the workers in an unexpectedly militant movement known simply as Autonomy ("Autonomia"). Its "politics of refusal" united its opponents behind draconian measures more severe than any seen since the war.
Nanni Balestrini, the poet of youth rebellion, himself a victim of that repression, has invented a remarkable fictional form to express the hopes and conflicts of the movement. In spare but vivid prose, The Unseen follows Autonomy's trajectory through the eyes of a single working-class protagonist--from high-school rebellion, squatting and attempts to set up a free radio station to arrest and the brutalities of imprisonment. This is a powerful and gripping novel: a rare evocation of the intensity of commitment, the passion of politics.