Is the emperor wearing clothes?
A review of Negri and Hardt's Empire
from an anarchist perspective
The publication of Empire in 2000 created an intense level of discussion in left academic circles that even spilled over at times into the liberal press. This should please the authors, Antonio Negri, one of the main theoreticians of Italian 'autonomous Marxism' and a previously obscure literature professor Michael Hardt. It is clear that they see Empire as the start of a project comparable to Karl's Marx's Das Kapital. The Marxist Slavoj Zizek has called Empire "The Communist Manifesto for our time".
Whether or not you think Empire will be as useful as Capital it has certainly made an impact. The web is full of reviews of Empire from all angles of the political spectrum. Hardt and Negri are often accused in these reviews as being anarchists, which they are not. Now at last you can read a review written from an anarchist perspective that summarises the ideas of Empire and criticises its lack of understanding of libertarian theory and history.
Read the review In English http://struggle.ws/andrew/empirereview.html Or as a PDF file http://struggle.ws/pdf/empire.html
In Swedish http://www.yelah.net/articles/analys020319
There is a bulletin board for discussing the review and
Empire itself connected via http://struggle.ws/andrew/empirereview.html
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International anarchism
Issues-> http://struggle.ws Me -> http://struggle.ws/andrew.html