is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at Duke University. Among his publications are
“We need alternatives to the thought that our only options are either private or public ownership”, said Michael Hardt when he presented his and Antonio Negri’s forthcoming book “Common Wealth” at the European Social Forum in Malmö in September. The book elaborates on the theories set out in Empire and Multitude, focusing on the common as an alternative to capitalism and socialism.
Is capitalism losing its progressive dimension, turning destructive instead? Is it perhaps even coming to its end? This line of reasoning sounds familiar, but the question is more widely discussed today than has been for a long time. Michael Hardt and Samir Amin, two of the main critics of today’s capitalism, talk about the future of the system, the movements resisting it and the alternatives they propose.
Drawing on their book Empire, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri show how the resistance of the working class has prefigured the globalisation of capital. Now, they contend, we face a new, universal order that accepts no boundaries or limits – Empire. The local focus of a nostalgic Left is in this situation both false and damaging.
