The argument I'm making is that theorists of post-Fordism radically
> overstated the case and that I think Hardt and Negri - some caveats aside -
> do as well. Yes, technology and informatics have changed industrial and
> market structures, and even some/many aspects of politics, but the idea
> that
> there's been the kind of qualitative change that would suggest we redefine
> politics away from class, etc., towards a multitude radically overstates
> contemporary conditions.
>
I think the stakes you see in their argument are leading you to reject it when you don't need to (that is what I meant by a priori; not that you haven't studied it, which I commend you for saying--so many people brag about not reading it). There is no turn away from class. The "multitude"--yes, it's an overused term, probably the least interesting in their writings--as far as I can see, is a way of arguing that class is still the central dynamic of politics in spite of the fact that the global workforce is no longer strictly attached to industrial production.
It's very much about class--maybe some of you are familiar with Negri's earlier writings, Marx Beyond Marx or even all the way back to pamphlets like "Domination and Sabotage" that landed him in prison along with the interesting material on Keynes etc. I think there is significant continuity and his trajectory has been to argue for the central role of worker's power (self-valorization in some works, constituent power in others) EVEN in so-called post-Fordist economies with their symbolic economies.