On Commonwealth by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri Part I (Page 1 -191)

- Empire - Essentially, they are using this term, albeit in a different sense, the way Marx used the word Capital. Where capital was about who had power over creation and maintenance of resources, empire is about who has the control over creation of subjectivity.
- Multitude - Multitude, is their word for, proletariat. The reminds me Alain Badiou's arguments in Being and Event in that the clusters people are not easily slapped into categories and/or social classes. The idea of who is poor varies, and is so nuanced with political infighting that new terminology is required to conceptualize what it is that we are talking about.
- Commonwealth- The chapter entitled De Singularitate 1: Of Love Possessed appears to define commonwealth as the social creation of love. Although, in the context of this chapter love is only used in association with Common and not wealth. Wealth implies a kind of repository. I have a difficult time with the idea that you can save love for later.
This strategy goes several steps further than Saul Alkinsky's idea of political judo. While Alinksy sought to fight political battles in the experience of your allies, and outside the experience of your enemies, Hardt and Negri argue that we need to fight outside the experience of allies and enemies. To engage in the combative relationship in such a way to create new subjectivities and new worlds of meaning. The clearest contemporary example of this is the Occupy Wall Street movement. What they succeeded at more then any other group at the time time was creating a clear understanding of what they were doing for those who were working for social change internally to the group, and completely confused everyone who was outside of it. I think the psychotic way the police responded to Occupy demonstrates how utterly lost the powers that be were at mounting an opposition.
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