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Review:
Empire by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri
by
Per Olsson, member of RS, the Swedish section of the CWI
There are few books of political theory that have received such widespread
publicity as Empire, by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri (Hardt & Negri).
It has been described as 'neo-Marxist' or even as the 'new Communist Manifesto'.
'Empire'
- A new Communist Manifesto?
"An unlikely book
by a left-wing academic and an Italian prisoner is taking America by storm",
wrote Ed Vuilliamy in The Observer (15 July, 2001). "The book rehabilitates
the C-word, 'communism'."
This 500-page book, however, is neither a Communist Manifesto for the
21st century nor a piece of work that seriously analyses global capitalism
and its contradictions. The authors promise much more than they deliver
and, while sometimes claiming to follow the footsteps of Karl Marx, they
end up losing touch with reality.
An
Empire without a center?
Their starting point
is that "Empire is materialising before our very eyes. Over the past
several decades, as colonial regimes were overthrown and precipitously
after the barriers to the capitalist world market finally collapsed we
have witnessed an irresistible and irreversible globalization of economic
life and cultural exchange" (Preface, pxi). This, in turn, has meant,
"that sovereignty has taken a new form, composed of a series of national
and supranational organisms united under a single logic of rule. This
new global form of sovereignty is what we call Empire" (Preface,
pvii). Two pages later they conclude that "imperialism is over"
and that no nation state, not even the US, will be "world leader
in the way the European nations were". A somewhat remarkable comment
given that the US is the only superpower left and its position vis-à-vis
its two main capitalist rivals (the European Union states and Japan) has
strengthened in the course of the last ten years. In fact, never in history
has one power occupied such a dominant military, diplomatic and economic
position. US imperialism controls nearly one-third of world output, in
the late 1980s it was 22 per cent.
The dominance of US imperialism in military terms is even more striking.
The US has no real competitor in high-tech military equipment. In the
words of a recent commentator: "A couple of years ago the US was
responsible for about 36 per cent of total world defence spending; its
share is now probably closer to 40 per cent, if not more…Nothing
ever has ever existed like this disparity of power: nothing. I returned
to all of the comparative defence spending and military personnel statistics
over the past 500 years and no other nations comes close. The Pax Britannica
was run on the cheap, Britain's army was much smaller than European armies
and even the Royal Navy was equal to the next two navies - right now all
the other navies combines would not dent American maritime supremacy.
Charlemagne's empire was merely western European in its reach. The Roman
Empire stretched farther afield, but there was another great empire in
Persia, and a larger one in China. There is, therefore, no comparison"
(Paul Kennedy, London Financial Times, 2 February 2002).
The power and influence of US imperialism is in many ways greater than
that of the European colonial powers at the end of the 19th Century, when
the dominance of British imperialism was undermined by the rapid development
of German capitalism and the rise of US imperialism. To deny the dominant
role of US imperialism today is to deny reality.
Yet, according to the authors of Empire: "Our basic hypothesis, however,
that a new imperial form of sovereignty has merged, contradict both these
views. [Describing US as a sole superpower, which has "simply donned
the mantle of global power that European nations left"] The United
States does not, and indeed no nation-state can today, form the center
of imperialist power. Imperialism is over. No nation will be world leader
in the way modern European nations were. The United States does occupy
a privileged position in empire, but this privilege derives not from its
similarities to the old imperialist powers, but from its differences.
These differences can recognized most clearly by focusing on the properly
imperial (not imperialist) foundation of the United States constitution,
where by "constitution" we mean both the formal constitution,
the written document along with its various amendments and legal apparatus,
and the material constitution, that is, the continuous formation and re-formation
of the composition of social forces" (Preface, pxiv, words italicised
by Hardt & Negri). Implying that the answers to what stage modern
capitalism has entered is to be found in the imperial ideas behind the
US constitution and that the US could not be described as a nation state.
"Imperial ideas, which have survived and matured throughout the history
of the United States constitution and has emerged now on a global scale
in its fully realized form" (Preface, pxiv). But when in history
has a new global order been formed because of certain imperial ideas behind
a constitution? This notion is purely abstract and idealistic. Later on
in the book, however, the authors try to modify their position when they
state that the US is the only superpower left, "that holds hegemony
over the global use of force - a superpower that can act alone but prefers
to act in collaboration with others under the umbrella of United Nations".
The latter claim although is an exaggeration, the US wants to be in command
and the so-called collaboration is on the condition set by US imperialism.
After NATO's war against Milosevic's Yugoslavia in 1999, when other countries
at NATO's headquarter had a say in the conduct of the war, the Pentagon
concluded, "We must never do this again". Since then the US
acts "as if a Pentagon press release were a papal encyclical…The
current machismo of Donald Rumsfeld, the American Defence Secretary, holds
that America must always define its own interests and act on them, untrammeled
by coalitions or alliances" (The Times 12 June 2002).
The war against Afghanistan has reinforced this false idea that US alone
could dictate world events and "Either you are with us or you are
against us". "The US is on an ego trip", the German magazine
Der Speigel, remarked after president George W. Bush's State of the Union
address in January 2002.
US
military and economic superpower
On the basis of its
pre-eminent military and economic power, the US can intervene decisively
in certain situations, such as in the Gulf War in 1990-91 and in Afghanistan.
Nevertheless, even the US is not strong enough to maintain international
stability or to secure the sustained growth of the world capitalist economy.
This is why there has not been much order in the 'new world order' proclaimed
by George Bush Senior in 1991.
US imperialism today displays the arrogance of power. It is back to the
old addage "What is good for the US is good for the rest of the world".
This policy, of course, will be undermined by the impending crisis of
global capitalism, mass revolts of the poor and the working class, and
by the growing rift within the imperialist camps.
Imperial or imperialism is not an issue of terminology or intellectual
hairsplitting. The issue is not whether to call US an "American empire"
or not. However, unlike the British Empire, which dominated the world
scene at the end of the 19th Century, US imperialism does not have any
colonies. US imperialism prefers to exercise power and influence through
local puppets. This has been a feature of imperialism since 1945, when
direct colonial rule was replaced by neo-colonialism. Nevertheless, in
popular terms it would make some sense to describe the position and actions
of US imperialism today as "an American empire" in being.
But that is something different to what the authors of Empire have in
mind. If we accept the conclusions drawn by the book, then the world has
reached a stage where rivalries, antagonism and competition between different
capitalist nations or blocs have ceased to exist, and following from that
conflicts, even armed conflicts, between nations are outdated. Not that
a reign of peace has emerged. In fact, the Empire, Hard & Negri say,
is in an almost permanent state of crisis, but "we have entered an
era of minor conflicts. Every imperial war is a civil war, a police action…Today
it is increasingly difficult for the ideologies of the United States to
name a single, unified enemy; rather there seems to be minor and elusive
enemies everywhere. The end of crisis of modernity, has given rise to
a proliferation of minor and indefinite crisis, or, as we prefer, to an
omni crisis" (p189). There is a grain of truth in this statement.
Since 11 September (S11), US imperialism has used terminology such as
the "long war against terrorism" and "rogue states"
to further its interests internationally. In much the same way, language
such as the "fight against Communism" (the "evil Empire")
served the purpose of promoting US imperialist interests during the 'Cold
War'.
The recently launched campaign "Protecting the homeland", by
President Bush, sums up how the present administration tries to unify
the nation against a specific threat or enemy. This will not work for
any length of time. The beginning of the 21st Century is not like the
period 1945-1990, when the world was divided into two main antagonistic
blocs - imperialism and Stalinism.
'War
against Terrorism'
The "war against
terrorism", however, has been used to re-assert the power of US imperialism,
to overcome the Vietnam-syndrome and to implement new repressive laws
and legislation. Bush's popularity will soon start to go into reverse
as the sickness of US capitalism and its corrupt political institutions
comes under fire, and as US imperialism's arrogance and lust for power
backfires.
Nevertheless, at the present time, whenever under pressure the US administration
talks about an imminent terrorist attack. Furthermore, the "war against
terrorism" is used as means of expanding US influence, establishing
new military bases and opening up new areas of investments in the former
USSR and, and also, in for example, Latin America. "The game Americans
are playing [in the region around the Caspian Sea] has some of the biggest
stakes going. What they are attempting is nothing less than the biggest
carve-out of a new U.S. sphere of influence since the U.S became engaged
in the Mid East 50 years ago. The result could be commitment of decades
that exposes America to the threat of countless wars and dangers"
commented Business Week, 27 May 2002. This expansion will inevitably challenge
other powers in the region. This is classical imperialism, and the US
do not even bother to dress up its policy and actions, pretending it is
acting on behalf of the "international community" or some other
similar causes.
Tensions between Pakistan and India over Kashmir, the potential of a new
war in the Middle East and the huge number conflicts in Africa illustrates
how the actions of capitalism and imperialist gives way to a vicious circle
of wars, civil wars and terror. These conflicts cannot simply be described
as merely "minor" or localised. Unfortunately, the book repeats
another postmodernist myth, that "old wars" fought between nations
are outdated.
Anti-imperialist sentiments and increase tensions within the imperialist
bloc is on the rise as US imperialism tries to expand its power, influence
and dominance at the expense of others. This, in turn, precludes any kind
of lasting stability or equilibrium in the new world order. The opposite,
in fact, of what Empire is implying.
Empire does not take into account that after the collapse of Stalinism,
which acted as glue holding the imperialist countries together, there
is no longer such a bond. The present epoch is therefore characterised
by increased rivalries within the imperialist camps, which will include
the re-emergence of nationalism, right-wing populism and protectionism,
as different capitalist classes act to defend their interests.
The authors, following the wrong assumption that the nation state is dead
has nothing but contempt for the struggle to achieve national democratic
liberation. There seems to be no difference at all between nationalism
of the oppressed and of the oppressors. Symptomatic of this approach,
the chapter dealing with the national democratic struggle is headed "The
Poisoned Gift of National Liberation". [P132] The struggle of the
Palestinian, the Kurdish or the Kashmiri's is a dead as far as Empire
is concerned. The authors of the Empire do not recognise that the struggle
of the masses to throw off the yoke of imperialism, for genuine national
liberation, could as a bridge towards the socialist revolution; that the
struggle against imperialism in the neo-colonial world will partly express
itself in the struggle for true independence. The struggle for national
liberation is one important feature of global fight against capitalism
and imperialism, and has to be supported by socialists and anti-capitalists.
'Homeless'
transnational companies?
The authors also accept
the old postmodernist myth that argues we live in a borderless world ruled
by "homeless" multinational companies or transnational companies.
But if imperialism is dead, then an entirely new form of capitalism must
have replaced monopoly capitalism.
It is true that the service sector employs more people that industry and
that its share of the economy has increased over the years. But that the
number of industrial workers have declined does not tell the whole story.
Due to an increase in production US industries now produce twice as much
with the same number of workers as in 1973. Industrial production or manufacturing
still occupies a key role in any modern economy and each job in manufacturing
generates four to five jobs in the service sector. It was estimated that
almost 45,000 jobs were at risk if Rover's huge Longbridge car plant in
Birmingham England, closed down in 2000. "The 4,000 to 5,000 jobs
that are expected to go from Longbridge will trigger a further 15,000
to 20,000 in supplier companies. A further 5,000 jobs are expected to
be shed from local business such as shops and newsagents - let alone hairdressers.
Up to 15,000 jobs among Rover dealerships among are threatened" (The
London Times, 5 April, 2000).
This is just one way to describe the importance of manufacturing and the
interactions and interdependence of services and industry. We are far
from a wireless society based on "immaterial labour". As well
as regarding manufacturing as outdated, the authors make an even worse
error in neglecting the working class, and particular the industrial working
class.
After downgrading the working class, the authors, in typical fashion,
then invent a new social force called the "social worker", which
struggle for all people - "absolute democracy in action" (p411).
This never becomes anymore concrete than that, apart from many promises
that the multitude will revolt and their revolution is going to be successful,
because "militancy today [in contrast to the past?] is positive,
constructive and innovative activity…The militancy makes resistance
into counterpower and a project of love" (p413).
The
'social worker'
Empire uses the world
"imperial" to describe a new form of capitalism - a post-industrial
society based mainly on services. "A passage toward an informational
economy", as Hardt & Negra describes it (p289), where labour
is becoming increasingly "immaterial" and there is a new type
of worker "the social worker" or "socialised workers".
In the 1970s, Negri formulated the theory of a new working class made
up of "social worker". One commentator, in sympathy with Negri,
claimed that the correct English translation should read, "diffused
workers". Whatever, the "social worker" was supposed to
become the new revolutionary force in society, overtaking the role of
the old industrial working class. The latter was said to be under the
control of the trade unions and no longer capable of being at the forefront
of the struggle.
A generation without memory is therefore more revolutionary, argued Negri
in the early 1980s. "…The youths of Zurich, the Neapolitan proletarians
and the workers of Gdansk have no need of memory… Communist transitions
is absence of memory" (quoted in Storming Heaven, by Steve Wright
pp174-75). But what movement setting itself the task of transforming society
could achieve its aim without drawing the lessons of the past, basing
itself on earlier fighting traditions and experience - the very concept
of memory! "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat
it" as the Spanish born philosopher, poet, and novelist George Santayana
remarked.
Negri and others have provided different theoretical justifications to
support the idea of a "social worker". It has been said that
the study of Karl Marx's book 'Grundrisse', led Negri to the idea of "social
worker" - all labour becomes productive as the process of socialisation
proceeds under capitalism. The new working class is first and foremost
producing intellectual labour argues Negri (Grundrisse was never published
by Marx, but is a series of notebooks later compiled into a book and published
at the beginning of the 1940s).
That many different section of workers nowadays are involved in the production
of surplus value does not mean that labour has become immaterial, or "calls
into question the old notion (common to classical and Marxian political
economics) by which labor power is conceived as 'variable capital' that
is, a force that is activated and made coherent only by capital, because
the cooperative powers of labor power (particularly immaterial labor power)
afford labor the possibility of valorizing itself", as Negri &
Hardt write (page 294).
The political conclusions drawn by Negri in the 1970s, after the Italian
working class had failed to seize power despite years of determined struggle
that to some extent reached a higher level than in France during the stormy
events of 1968, was wrong at the time and has not been proven correct
since. His ideas have become even more confused and contradictory in the
pages of Empire.
The strength of what is called the multitude is in fact a weakness of
the movement. The multitude is described as speaking no common language
(today's struggle is 'incommunicable' according to Hardt & Negri),
the forces are scattered, do not act as collective force, they lack organisation
and a programme but this agency is nevertheless described as a powerful,
unstoppable force. At the end of the book, the authors repeat that the
multitude is still not organized as a political force, although, "The
organization of the multitude as political subject, as posse, thus begins
to appear on the world scene. The multitude is biopolitical self-organization…The
only event that we are still awaiting is the construction, or rather insurgence,
of a powerful organization. The genetic chain is formed and established
in ontology, the scaffolding is continuously constructed and renewed by
the new cooperative productivity, and thus we await only the maturation
of the political development of the posse. We do not have any models to
offer for this event. Only the multitude through its practical experimentation
will offer the models and determine when and how the possible becomes
real" (p411) At one stage the ideas put forward becomes ludicrous.
Denying the very fact that the oppressed expressed their power through
collective action, not "through desertion and exodus", they
then talk about the emerging, "New nomad horde, a new race of barbarians,
that will arise to invade and evacuate Empire" (p213)!
Static
and rigid view of class struggle
The authors have a
very static and rigid view regarding the impact of the struggle and its
momentum. The struggle today is said to be "incommunable", but
the very experience of the anti-capitalists protests, together with its
global character, is an example showing the opposite. Globalisation works
both ways On the one hand, markets for capital, goods and services are
more integrated that ever before, but, on the other hand, globalisation
leads to a tendency towards much greater synchronisation of economic ebbs
and flows, political and social crisis and the class struggle. The struggles
today tend to become global. At the time of writing (19 June 2002), air-controllers
from five European countries are on strike. Workers in struggle are looking
for support and solidarity from their brothers and sisters abroad, as
we saw when French Marks & Spencer workers went to London to demonstrate
against job closures. The general strike by Italian workers against 'job
flexibility' in April 2002 obviously played a part in encouraging the
Spanish trade unions to call a general strike 20 June (on the same day
as the opening of the EU-summit in Seville).
The authors do not take into account that every huge battle fought provides
experience, and changes the consciousness and the political outlook of
workers and young people. It is mainly big events that lay the basis for
a development of a class and socialist consciousness. But the work (campaigns,
propaganda and agitation) of socialist groups and parties will also play
a part in the process towards overcoming the negative political effects
of the collapse of Stalinism and the betrayal of the old mass workers'
parties (the Social Democrats, the Socialist or the Communists) and the
right wing move at the top of the trade union movement.
"Consider the most radical and powerful struggles of the final years
of the twentieth century: the Tiananmen Square events in 1989, the Intifada
against Israeli state authority, the May 1992 revolt in Los Angeles, the
uprising in Chiapas that began in 1994, and the series of strikes that
paralyzed France in 1995 and those that crippled South Korea in 1996…
None of those events inspired a cycle of struggles, because the desires
and needs they expressed could not be translated into different contexts"
(p54).
There is no mention here of the movements toppling the Stalinist regimes
and that these movements sparked of a continental struggle for democracy,
particularly in Africa. Furthermore, all the struggles mentioned in Empire
did have political repercussions. For example, the general strike in France
in 1995 was a crucial factor in the chain of events leading up to the
defeat on the traditional right wing parties in the French general election
of 1997. Every struggle mentioned had a global impact and still has in
the case of the struggle of the Palestinians. Empire does not acknowledge
that all the struggles since the collapse of Stalinism and end of the
old world order established after World War II take place in a totally
new political terrain.
Effects
of collapse of Stalinism
The collapse of Stalinism
had a profound effect on the consciousness and the political cohesion
of the working class, as a whole generation of activists throughout the
world have become disorientated and demoralised. Some dropped out of activity,
others went over to the class enemy. It provided the basis for the final
transformation of the social democrats and a range of former communist
parties into capitalist formations. Guerrilla movements in Central America
and Africa found themselves in an ideological and political dead end and
saw no way out other than to try to make an agreement, on the basis of
capitalism, with the ruling class.
This in turn paved the way for a wholesale offensive by the ruling classes,
who was able to implement draconian cuts in social services and workers'
share of national income. Profit went up at the expense of wages and living
standards, which partly explains why the boom in the 1990s was prolonged.
It will take time and the experience of events and struggles, before the
working class and the oppressed can overcome these obstacles and create
new fighting mass organisations. The absence of a political alternative
to capitalism, independent class organisations and a fighting leadership
are the main reasons why globalisation has not yet sparked off a movement
that surpasses the tumultuous struggles of the 1970s which would pose
the question of establishing a new socialist world order.
Lenin
on Imperialism
The advent of imperialism
represented a new stage for world capitalism. In his book 'Imperialism,
the Highest Stage of Capitalism', written in 1916, V. I. Lenin define
the main features of this new stage in the development of world capitalism:
"The epoch of the latest stage of capitalism shows us that certain
relations between capitalist combines grow up, based on the economic division
of the world, while parallel and in connection with it, certain relations
grow up between political combines, between states, on the basis of the
territorial division of the world, of the struggle for colonies, of the
"struggle for economic territory".
Later on in the same book Lenin explains, "If it were necessary to
give the briefest possible definition of imperialism we should have to
say that imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism. Such a definition
would include what is most important, for, on the one hand, finance capital
is the bank capital of a few very big monopolist banks, merged with the
capital of the monopolist combines of industrialists; and, on the other
hand, the division of the world is the transition from a colonial policy
which has extended without hindrance to territories unseized by any capitalist
power, to a colonial policy of monopolistic possession of the territory
of the world which has been completely divided up".
"But very brief definitions, although convenient, for they sum up
the main points, are nevertheless inadequate, since very important features
of the phenomenon that has to be defined have to be especially deduced.
And so, without forgetting the conditional and relative value of all definitions
in general, which can never embrace all the concatenations of a phenomenon
in its complete development, we must give a definition of imperialism
that will include the following five of its basic features: 1) the concentration
of production and capital has developed to such a high stage that it has
created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life; 2) the
merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation, on
the basis of this "finance capital," of a financial oligarchy;
3) the export of capital as distinguished from the export of commodities
acquires exceptional importance; 4) the formation of international monopolist
capitalist combines which share the world among themselves, and 5) the
territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers
is completed. Imperialism is capitalism in that stage of development in
which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital has established
itself; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance;
in which the division of the world among the international trusts has
begun; in which the division of all territories of the globe among the
biggest capitalist powers has been completed".
What Lenin analysed and examined was the early phase of imperialism. Still
based on colonial rule - the revival of colonialism at the end of 19th
century was the greatest land grab in history - but where giant monopolies
had started to play a dominant role in the world economy. The period (1870-1914)
preceding the outbreak of the World War I was a period of rapid growth
and the creation of a world market. There were economic as well as political
reasons behind colonialism. Colonialism was a means of opening up markets
and exploiting new areas of the world as well as gaining prestige and
power on the world scene. "The division of all territories of the
globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed", wrote
Lenin. A new re-division of the world, reflecting the real relation of
forces (the rise of US and German imperialism) could only follow in the
wake of slumps, terrible defeats of the working class and wars. The period
of 1914-1945 was one of wars and revolutions, economic depression and
protectionism (world trade collapsed in the 1930s).
The outcome of World War II created a new division of the globe. No one
could have foreseen the character of the Second World War and its outcome.
Neither could anyone foresee that the reformist social democratic and
the Stalinist leaders (the Communist parties) would be able to save capitalism
in Europe and therefore delay world socialist revolution for decades.
Post
WWII relations
The new world relations
created by the outcome of World War II saw US imperialism becoming the
dominant and supreme power in the capitalist world and the enormous strengthening
of the Stalinist regime in Soviet Union, which helped establish Stalinism
in half of Europe's territory after the Red Army had defeated Nazi Germany.
The division of the world, and the formation of two superpowers, the USA
and the Soviet Union, that struggled to maintain and expand their respective
spheres of influence, cast a shadow on all major international events.
This rivalry gave way for a destructive nuclear arms race, the biggest
military build-up in history, and the Cold War. In the wake of the insane
and hugely wasteful arms race an influential military-industrial complex
was formed, which is still an enormous burden on society. This world order
ended in 1989-90, when the Berlin Wall came down and the Stalinist regimes
collapsed.
In the post-war period, the huge movements for national independence and
the increase cost of direct imperialist rule compelled the imperialist
powers to give up colonialism. Colonial imperialism gave way to neo-colonialism
- a new phase or stage of imperialism. The old powers ceded political
independence but retained direct or indirect economic control over former
colonial territories. This economic control was exerted effectively with
exceptional growth of monopoly capitalism during 1950-75. Western monopolies
totally controlled, and still do, world production and trade.
Many economic and political factors were behind the ending of the long
capitalist upswing, the golden age of capitalism, which was built on the
ruins of World War II. However, during 1974-75, the world experienced
its first simultaneous recession and economic downturn (since the end
of the World War II). The decline in profit and, at the same time, rising
inflation (the rate of increase of prices) sent a clear message to the
capitalists that the boom had exhausted itself. 'Globalisation' became
a means of trying to restore profitability and in order to achieve that
a new capitalist ideology had to be constructed. Globalisation did not
follow out of a worked-out plan or arise because of some kind of conspiracy.
It was the crisis itself that compelled the capitalists to find other
ways to increase their profits and share of the national income. This
global capitalist reconstruction inevitably meant turning the screw on
workers and the poor; downsizing and destroying industrial capacity, dismantling
the welfare state and abolishing subsidises on food, intensifying exploitation,
de-regulations, privatisations, labour flexibility and the abolition of
capital controls. Furthermore, the process of globalisation was given
a powerful new impetus by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
Neo-liberalism
Neo-liberalism is
the political expression of globalisation. In economic terms globalisation
is driven by a rapid increase in world trade, the export of capital, foreign
direct investment (FDI) and a truly internationalisation of production.
The number of companies operating on a global plane has gone through a
spectacular development over the last 15 years. A rapid expansion of international
production and dependence on export has followed. One main aspect of globalisation
is the deepening of the process of economic integration and the development
of a partly new international division of labour. The multinational companies
have built up a sophisticated global network of suppliers and sub-contractors.
This in turn has underlined the fact that the fight to change society
has to be armed with an international perspective, that workers and youth
in struggle in any country have to try to win international support.
The multinational companies' aim to take home maximum profits is the driving
force behind globalisation. The world economy is led by a few hundred
giant multinationals, which are often larger than nations. Many sectors
of the global economy are controlled by only a handful of multinational
companies.
More than 50 of the world's 100 leading economies are multinational companies.
The combined sales of the top 200 corporations exceed the total income
of all the countries in the world apart from the nine largest economies.
The multinationals have also become bigger and more powerful after the
recent wave of cross-border mergers and acquisitions, i.e. one company
absorbing another. This has meant that the concentration of wealth and
capital has reached an unprecedented level.
The multinational companies account for four-fifths of world industrial
output and more than two-thirds of world trade. The multinational companies
make up as much as forty percent of world trade. Furthermore, Intra-firm
trade is frequently used as a means to avoid paying taxes.
Is
the nation state still relevant?
Does this mean that
the nation state is becoming irrelevant, as some commentators have argued?
Certainly capitalism has been able to partially overcome the nation state
by developing the world market. Some globalisation enthusiasts refer to
'transnational' companies bestriding the world, free of any controls.
However, the term multinational is a more accurate description. Hardly
any of the huge multinational companies can be described as 'transnational'.
The multinational companies are not completely footloose or "homeless".
They operate on a global scale, but have strong roots through ownership,
production, employment, management, research and development in their
respective home countries. Whether large or smaller companies, they still
depend to some extent on national or regional markets, infrastructure
and various forms of state protection (subsidies, tax rebates, legal protection,
etc.) provided by their own national governments.
Another important feature of globalisation is that speculation has replaced
production as the most profitable economic activity, which in a way shows
that the system as a whole has reached a cul-de-sac. It is amazing that
Hardy t& Negri do not point to the speculative and parasitic nature
of modern capitalism, which breeds corruption, sleaze and crony capitalism.
Globalisation is a "fluid, infinitely expanding and highly organized
system that encompasses the world's entire population", but which
lack any "place of power" wrote the New York Times, 7 July 2001,
encapsulating the views of Empire.
Many capitalist commentators claim that globalisation is a new technological-economic
system based on the microchip and run by financial investors, funds and
multinational corporations, free from any nation state or power structures.
These postmodernist ideas are very much echoed, from a leftist point of
view, by Hardt & Negri.
But as the Leftwing US magazine Monthly Review commented: "The notion
of global free market hegemony without the nation state and without discernible
centers of power (only highly visible instruments of the market) means
a concept of capitalism that has become virtually synonymous with globalization.
There is, it is proclaimed, no alternative because there is nothing outside
the system, and no center within the system. The ideological fog that
pervades all aspects of the globalization debate is bound to dissipate
eventually, as it becomes clear that the contradictions of capitalism,
which have never been surmounted, are present in more universal and more
destructive form than ever before" (Monthly Review, January 2002).
Empire is not saying that the system cannot be changed, but as soon the
question of how change can be made is posed the authors loose touch with
all reality. They hope that migration and the almost mystical power of
"refusal to work" is going to alone do the job of bringing about
meaningful change.
In the Preface to Empire the authors make unsustainable statements and
turn hypotheses into "facts", which then forms the basis on
which their conclusions are drawn. Unfortunately this method is a common
thread in the book. The authors assume that globalisation is "irresistible
and irreversible" and following on from this notion they argue that
a new "borderless" Empire is taking shape. But how could an
Empire manifest itself without a decision-making centre or centre of power?
There is no telephone number or even a postbox to the Empire. Instead
it is supposed to be everywhere and bound together by diffuse networks.
"Our postmodern Empire has no Rome," state the authors (p317).
Reading Empire you cannot avoid asking the question: where is the power
to overthrow?
Marxism
versus post-modernism
Hardt & Negri
try to reconcile the ideas and methods of revolutionary socialism (Marxism)
with what could be described as a postmodernist trend within the international
Left. The task is to "reorganize and redirect them " [the processes
of globalisation] toward new ends. The creative forces of the multitude
that sustain Empire are also capable of autonomously constructing a counter-Empire,
an alternative political organization of global flows and exchanges"
(Preface, pxv). The aim is to "construct a new city… to form
a new form of struggle that is based not in direct opposition but in a
kind of struggle by subtraction - a refusal of power, a refusal of obedience.
Not only a refusal of work and refusal of authority, but also emigration
and movement of all sorts that refuses the obstacles that block movement
and desire" (quoted from Negri during an online discussion, 3 May
2000).
The authors write off the trade unions "the institutional workers'
organizations" as they described them (p308), the industrial working
class and what they described as 'old' proletarian internationalism. The
struggle against the Empire needs neither collective consciousness and
class organisation or any programme, tactics or strategy, according to
the authors. The liberation will come anyway as the oppressed resist and
the counter-Empire gains strength.
The world, however, is not ruled by an imaginary 'empire', but by the
dominant capitalist powers and the ruling classes of the 'Triad' of the
US, the EU states and Japan. Imperialism is far from 'dead'; the epoch
of imperialism entered a new stage or phase with the process of globalisation.
The US ruling class has seen globalisation as a means of expanding its
position in the world market at the expense of other capitalist powers.
This has increased the contradictions inherent in capitalism and, at the
same time, given way to the re-emergence of an anti-capitalist mood especially
directed against US multinationals and the super-exploitative nature of
imperialism.
Empire was written before the change in world relations following the
events of 11 September (2001). Many of the assumptions made by the authors
have already proved to be false or one-sided, such as, "the U.S.
world police act not in imperialist interest but in imperial interest".
The US according to the authors, acts not in the interest of its ruling
class, "in the universal interest" (p180). There is no mention
of rivalry, divisions and competition between different ruling classes
and imperialist powers in the book. But if the US ruling class and government
do not primarily act in order to defend US capitalisms' hegemony, markets,
profits and prestige, what then dictates policy and actions? Decisions
have to be taken somewhere and they are taken in Washington, not by "supranatural"
bodies scattered across the world. The reaction to 11 September and its
aftermath have illustrated to what extent the US ruling class is prepared
to defend and expand its power and dominance. The present trend of unilateralism
on the part of George W. Bush and his administration is the opposite of
what is described as "universalism" in the pages of Empire.
"The war on terrorism is simply a euphemism for extending US control
in the world, whether it is by projecting force through its carriers or
building new military bases in central Asia", says professor Paul
Rodgers, Bradford University Department of Peace studies, (London Observer,
10 February 2002).
The reassertion of US power and unilateralism at the expense of others
is bound to fuel instability as well as tension between the nations and
the different capitalist blocs. The authors make a mistake when they assume
that capitalism has been able overcome the barriers set by the nation
state and the private ownership of the means of production.
The present trend towards unilateralism will, of course, go into reverse
at some stage and the US ruling class may be compelled to look for other
alternative ways, defend its dominant position.
What is striking is that the authors provide no real arguments, facts
or figures to substantiate their claim that globalisation has given birth
to an entirely new social, political and economic order - the Empire.
Instead of analysing the past, present and future, the reader is given
voluminous quotes from a countless number of thinkers and philosophers
topped up with abstract comments, such as the following: "power is
everywhere, but is everywhere because everywhere is in play, the nexus
between virtuality and possibility. A nexus that is the sole province
of the multitude" (p361). (As this extract illustrates, sometime
Empire becomes unreadable).
Role
of the IMF, WTO etc.
Hardt & Negri
claim that international capitalist organisations and institutions such
as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, World Trade Organisation
(WTO), World Economic Forum in Davos etc. are part of a supranational
power structure. But these organisations and the gathering of the capitalist
elite at Davos are not so much part of "a supranational structure"
as a means by the imperialist powers to impose a neo-liberal agenda and
to open up new markets for the export of goods and capital, i.e. to safeguard
the interests of Western capitalism in general and US imperialism in particular.
The IMF, for example, is so much under the control of the US that its
emergency plan for Argentina (in 2002) was worked out by the US Treasury.
During economic crisis in South East Asia (1997-98) US imperialism, after
pushing aside any attempt by Japanese capitalism to intervene, used the
IMF as a cover to expand its influence. Representatives from the US Treasury
were in charge of the IMF team negotiating with the different crises-ridden
South East Asian countries. "The US behaved like looters after an
economic cyclone" as one bosses in Australia remarked. The US magazine
Newsweek, describe this kind of classical imperialist intervention in
the following words, "The Americans have returned with a vengeance
[to South East Asia]. This time it has taken the form of U.S. Investment
banks, asset and hedge funds and speculators like George Soros, all of
them riding a tide of triumphalism as the West's powerful markets overwhelm
the closed financial system that Japan inspired throughout Asia. As the
Asian contagion topples economy after economy, the U.S. firms are pricing
open these systems with a ferocity that 150 years of US trade negotiations
could not achieve". If this is not imperialism, what is?
"The proletariat is not what it used to be", write the Empire
authors (p63). They dismiss the working class and their industrial and
political organisations. They are things of the past, and instead of parties
the authors put forward the idea of "self-organizing" and mention
the Zapatista movement as a model to follow.
It is notable that in listing many of the movements and struggles of the
1960s, the authors do not mention the ten-million strong general strike
in France 1968: a movement so powerful that the French president, Charles
de Gaulle, said to the US ambassador at the time, "There has been
a Communist revolution in France and there's nothing we can do about it".
After that, de Gaulle fled to a military base in Germany.
Proletarian internationalism and even the struggle for socialism are regarded
as old-fashioned by Empire and linked to the era when the nation state
was an organic part of capitalism. But today's condition, write the authors,
demands a new movement "that corresponds to the post-Fordist and
informational regimes of production" (p409). Leave aside that the
bosses' rule and the hierarchical structure of capitalism are not exactly
an 'informational regime', the book has very little more to say about
the struggle in the workplaces. It does not even mention the fact that
globalisation has reinforced the need for 'proletarian internationalism'
in deeds and actions.
The writing off of the working class and the silence about the need to
build genuine, revolutionary socialist parties follows from the false
premises and analyses made at the beginning of the book. The authors'
hypotheses never become anything more than abstractions dressed up in
obscure, quasi-intellectual language. Statement after statement is made
without being substantiated. Lenin's analysis of "imperialism and
its crisis", for example, is said to lead "directly to the theory
of Empire" (p234). But Lenin argued the opposite against the 'super-globalisers'
of his time.
Earlier on in the pages of Empire, the Bolsheviks are accused of having
"entered the terrain of nationalist mythology" (p112) on account
of their sensitive and Marxist approach to the national question and the
struggle of the oppressed nationalities against Tsarism in Russia - which
Hardt & Negri see as a concession to nationalism. They give no arguments
to support this remarkable but also vacuous statement.
What Hard & Negri are doing is drawing the ultimate conclusion of
what could be described as a theory of 'super-globalisation'. Globalisation,
however, has in fact aggravated the fundamental contradictions inherent
in capitalism, i.e. the collision between the forces of production and
the relations of production (the social and political framework within
which the capitalist system operates: international relations, the role
of the nation state, the government, relations between the classes, etc).
It is this basic collision that leads to crisis, wars and revolutions.
Contradictions
of capitalism
Capitalism by its
very nature is unable to develop a single trend to its ultimate end. Monopoly
capitalism does not abolish the anarchy of the market or competition.
The present international capitalist order is just one moment in history,
not its endpoint. Globalisation, as with every other phase in the development
of capitalism, sows the seeds of its own downfall. The nation state and
the private ownership of the means of production are acting more and more
as absolute barriers on the development of society.
Capitalism is still rooted in the nation state, which is a social formation
with historical elements, such as a common language, culture, territorial
property, etc. Each national ruling class depends on various kinds of
support and protection provided by its state apparatus. In the last analysis,
the capitalist state is reduced to 'armed bodies of men' (the police,
military, intelligence agencies, and so on) and their material appendages,
i.e. prisons etc. The state is not a 'neutral' body in a capitalist society;
it is firmly under the control of the capitalist class. The state provides
the capitalists with protection against competitors abroad and 'the enemy
within', as Margaret Thatcher once termed Britain's striking miners in
the 1980s.
Whatever the capitalists say about the 'self-regulating forces of the
free market', when they are up against the wall they will cry for help,
protection and support from their own state apparatus. In response to
a an economic downturn in the US, President Bush recently decided to impose
tariffs on steel import from other countries and to continue subsidies
its own agriculture sector. "Mr Bush slapped tariffs on imported
steel, moved to protect US lumber producers from Canadian competition
and happily signed a farm bill that set back the course of free trade
in agriculture by about 30 years" (Financial Times 13 June 2002).
As one capitalist nation, or group of nations, expands at the expense
of the position of others, there will always be a tendency towards national
protectionism or the emergence of continental or regional blocs.
The very nature of every agreement between capitalist states tends to
be temporary and uneasy, reflecting the present balance of forces. Faced
with growing social and political turmoil at home, and tougher competition
on the world market, the different national capitalist classes will do
whatever is necessary to protect their own skins. Capitalism does not
uphold any holy principle other than the drive for profit. It is one thing
to be in favour of a single currency, free trade and international co-operation
when 'all are winners'. But when margins are shrinking and markets are
lost, the capitalists squeal for the state to protect them against competition
from abroad, and to implement measures that strengthen their own position
at the expense of others. This mainly expresses itself in the form of
the different blocs taking action against each other, but also of countries
taking action against a specific rival. An emerging protectionism and
measures to control and restrict the flow of capital begin to reverse
globalisation trends, with some similarities to the reversal of the process
of rapid integration at the beginning of the 20th Century with the outbreak
of the First World War and then the crisis of the 1930s.
The imaginary Empire
is ruled, it is claimed, by a network - what forces are included in the
network is not explained - and bases its power on money, the bomb (forces
of destruction), and control of communication and information. By implication,
world capitalism has entered its post-industrial era and that is why,
according to the authors, the industrial working class "has lost
its hegemonic position" (p256).
Empire's definition of all oppressed strata as part of a 'multitude' is
another way of reducing the working class to at best an auxiliary role
in future struggles. Furthermore, the authors totally ignore the political
and ideological outcome of the collapse of Stalinism.
Socialists have always argued against those who define the working class
as only the industrial workers. This is a stereotype, a rigid definition,
which has little to do with Marxism. The production and distribution of
commodities under modern capitalism has become more social and international
than ever before, involving different layers of workers on a national
as well as a global plane. The production and realisation of profits depends
not only on workers employed in factories.
It is due to its role in production and distribution that the working
class develops and acts as a collective power. It is this collective power
and action that the authors keep silent about. But even worse, the position
taken by the authors would tend to alienate workers from the anti-capitalist
movement.
The conditions of workers in the public sector or in services are largely
the same as the conditions faced by industrial workers. At the same time,
a large section of the middle classes no longer enjoy a privileged and
secure position in society. A proletarianisation of the middle class is
taking place in all capitalist countries. A crisis, as shown by Argentina
and Turkey (2001-2002), could overnight lead to the pauperisation of the
middle class. The middle class in Argentina is now referred to as"
those who once had".
Events in Argentina have illustrated that the struggle to change society
needs to be consciousness and armed with a political programme. The outcome
of the class struggle will at the end of the day be decided by political
factors and to what extent the working class is aware of its role and
its strength.
The social weight and potential power of the working class, the wage labourer,
has never been greater. But the lack of a political alternative, combative
organisations and, above all, a leadership able to face up to the task
of leading the struggle for a socialist transformation, have created an
unprecedented gap between the potential power of the working class and
the present situation of an onslaught against workers' rights.
It is claimed that Empire will arm the anti-capitalist movement with an
understanding of the present global capitalist regime, but it fails completely.
This is a case of the Empire's new clothes: a lot of pages with very little
content.
|
ESF:
A Socialist World is Necessary
