>Thomas Seay wrote:
> >
> > <<It's this proposition, which derives from nothing
> > and leads to nothing,
> > which makes me think that _Empire_ is too frivolous to
> > be worth a
> > critique.>>
> >
> > Carrol, Have you even read the book?
> >
>
>I read it, carefully, in January. I reread it twice, annotating it and
>scribbling notes in August. At every single point where they made some
>claim that needed justification, they would have footnoe, cf. xxxx. And
>there is the slightest hint in the work as to how the world can be
>changed.
>
>Carrol
"Empire" I think I am right in saying, does not contain a single statistic. It is essentially, I suggest, an extensive review of the ideological constructions around the rise of the capitalist nation state, and the imminent demise of these structures as globalised markets await a globalised juridical and administrative system.
It is a book intended to capture the imagination of the progressive intelligentsia. It is seductive and teasing. You can spot initiates by those who slip the word "aporia" into their communications. But that is not to say it is without solid content.
My barbed comments on an adjacent thread were not intended primarily for Carrol, but the book is an invitation to the reader to do some active thinking for themselves. If one is still in a marxist mode that regards "State and Revolution" as the height of orthodoxy, and is ready to smite all opportunists who suggest that revolution may not come only through the violent seizure of power within each separate state, all study of Empire, no matter how diligent, will be meaningless.
It does however have a very good index.
The book deals quietly but carefully with Lenin's important arguments against super (ultra) imperialism, Kautsky and Hilferding. Pages 229 - 234.
I would invite Carrol, and others to address these comments at their strongest not at their weakest, and to say what the problems with them are. If capitalism has so interpenetrated that it has gone beyond the nation state, then marxists should start orientating their strategy and tactics to that fact. That involves active not passive involvement of anyone who is serious.
Chris Burford
London