Empire and Multitudes in Antonio Negri’s Philosophical-Political Thinking

Abstract

In view of a left that is quite confused and unable to undertake positive analyses, proposals and actions in order to adequately face the neoliberal offensive, on it seems salutary to deal with the positions of Antonio Negri, one of the most important political philosophers of the radical left today. This article concisely discusses the main aspects of his philosophical-political thinking. It focuses, on the one hand, on his theoretical trajectory from the ’60s to the ’80s: his contribution to Italian neo-Marxism, his encounter with Spinoza’s ethics and ontology, the hybridization of his Marxism with the French post-Structuralist philosophy of Deleuze, Guattari and Foucault; on the other hand, on the basis of his important book, Empire it describes his radical critique of imperial power in the context of the paradigm of present “bio-power” and his reflection on the multitudes’ resistance.

Key words: new legal-economic-political order, biopolitical production, administration of the global control society, resistance, multitudes against the Empire.