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Negri, A. (2008) The labor of the multitude and the fabric of biopolitics,Mediations,2(2)! "#2$.

ad the pleasure of driving Toni Negri to the McMaster University campus for his brief stay as theHooker Distinguished Visiting Professor. This lecture !as delivered on "# $pril %&&'.( $scontingency !ould have it) !e approached the city from the east) since * had picked him up at

+rock University. $nyone familiar !ith Hamilton kno!s that this necessitates driving past theheart of ,-teelto!n. Negri) in a driving practice true to his theoretical orientation) e/citedlyre0uested that !e follo! the route most pro/imal to the mills and smokestacks of -telco andDofasco. He asked many 0uestions about the history of steel!orkers1 labor struggles) thecomposition of the labor force) its level and form of organi2ation) and the role of heavy industryin the 3anadian economy.

Negri1s keen interest in the conditions of a 0uintessentially material form of industrialproduction provides a necessary counterpoint to the strong poststructuralist inflection of hislecture. $fter all) his stated focus !as on the sub4ective) the cultural) and the creative as keymodalities of labor under globali2ation. These contrapuntal elements bring us to the heart ofNegri1s pro4ect) !herein the conceptual deployments of Michel 5oucault and 6illes Deleu2e actas articulated elements of his longstanding and ongoing commitment to Mar/ist theory and

pra/is. *t is) of course) an open Mar/ism) iterable as necessitated by our historical moment. +utthen innovation) as opposed to orthodo/y) has been a hallmark of Negri1s distinguished andsometimes incendiary career.

*n the lecture that follo!s) Negri asks t!o basic 0uestions. 5irst) ho! can !e understand theorgani2ation of labor under neoliberal globali2ation) !here it has been anchored in the bios7-econd) !hen and by !hich modalities does life itself enter into the field of po!er and become acentral issue7 *n ans!ering these 0uestions) he offers an e/citing reconceptuali2ation of po!erpace 5oucault( that provides a uni0ue and provocative lens through !hich to e/amineglobali2ation in relation to the human condition. The purpose of this brief introduction !illtherefore be both to conte/tuali2e the !ork of Negri and to introduce key concepts used in thelecture) namely biopo!er8biopolitics and the crisis of measure.

Negri may be most familiar to some through his scholar8as8celebrity status achieved !ith the

massive success of 9mpire."*n *taly) ho!ever) he has been producing important !ork since the":'&s. The autonomist Mar/ist tradition from !hich Negri emerged ; historicallycalled operaismo !orkerism( in *talian ; !as distinguished by turning orthodo/ Mar/ism ,on itshead) as it !ere. *ts fundamental conceptual innovation !as to reverse the dynamic of labor8capital po!er relations. eft in *taly !as

certainly the largest and most febrile in 9urope.%*t !as also polyvalent) active both !ithinrepresentative democracy and on an e/traparliamentary level. Throughout the ":=&s) the9urocommunism of 9nrico +erlinguer1s *talian 3ommunist Party !as tantali2ingly close togaining po!er) falling only four percent short of plurality behind the ruling 3hristian Democrats in":='. The Party1s institutional successes created a !ider s!ath for more critical and open >eftpolitics. Negri !as a preeminent part of this tradition) long active in the more radicale/traparliamentary >eft) both as a revolutionary militant and as professor and head of the*nstitute of Political -cience Department of the University of Padova. 3lashes gre! moreconstant) not only bet!een the variegated radical >eft and the *talian state but !ith the *talian

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3ommunist Party as !ell. *ndeed) Negri1s !ork from that time cannot be properly understood!ithout recogni2ing that the antagonism it e/presses is directed as much against the *talian3ommunist Party as the state and capital. $fter the murder of *talian prime minister $ldo Moro in":=# by the eninist8vanguardist ouis $lthusser to deliver aseries of lectures at the prestigious ?cole Normale -up@rieure) eventually transcribed as Mar/+eyond Mar/.A+ased on the 6rundrisse) the lectures evinced not the despair of post8insurrectionary failure but a liberatory focus on making Mar/ more ade0uate to a historicalmoment in !hich post85ordism !as beginning to take flight through neoliberal globali2ation. $ssuch) it signaled an e/panded theoretical perspective that !ould lead Negri increasingly to5oucault) Deleu2e) and the conceptual cornerstones of his Hooker lecture) !hich follo!s.

Negri identified a ,crisis of measure in the Mar/ist labor theory of value as both anemergent characteristic of global capital and a ne! path for radical political) social) andeconomic change. $ key factor in the breakdo!n of a simple temporal measure of theproductivity of labor is the radical transformation of the production process though informationand communication technology. This facilitates the rise of ,immaterial labor and the ,general

intellect as the dominant productive forces) as opposed to unmediated material labor.Bhat is innovative about the interpretation by Negri and other autonomists is that this is

primarily a sub4ective process ; hence the increasingly poststructuralist tra4ectory. Mar/) inthe 6rundrisse) posited ,general intellect as accumulating in the fi/ed capital of machinery.Ho!ever) the ,sub4ective reading of the autonomists situates this value in ne! laboringsub4ectivities) the technical) cultural) and linguistic kno!ledge that makes our high8techeconomy possible. -uch sub4ectivities become an immediate productive force. $nd) asautonomist Paolo Virno notes) ,They are not units of measure) but rather are the measurelesspresupposition of heterogeneous operative possibilities.CThe temporal dis4unctionprovocatively situates immaterial labor beyond the commodity form) signaling a ,scissor8like!idening of the gap bet!een !age labore/change value and this ne! sub4ective productiveforce.

5or Negri) such a force is diffused ; albeit asymmetrically ; in an individuated manneracross society) and it e/presses the ,global potentiality !hich has !ithin it that generali2edsocial kno!ledge !hich is no! an essential condition of production.E*n short) this ne!,sub4ective condition of labor is the liberatory potential of !hat Negri !ould later call the,multitude. Thus inscribed in this ne! po!er dynamic is the possibility of labor being not onlyantagonistic to capital but autonomous from ; as opposed to !ithin ; capital.

5oucault1s biopo!er offers a ne! conceptual foundation. Here Negri helps make visible thestrong lines of affinity bet!een 5oucault and Deleu2e( and autonomist Mar/ism that have beenlargely overlooked. Bhat is taken from 5oucault is a thoroughly reconfigured understanding ofpo!er. Bhat it enables us to see !ith greater precision is the intert!ining of life and po!er inmyriad productive formations. 5oucault identified biopo!er as a form emergent since the end ofthe eighteenth century in the !ake of the inade0uacies of sovereign and disciplinary po!er. This

is a productive form of po!er relations that ,manages populations not individual bodies( in a,preventive fashion to ma/imi2e their productivity as opposed to) say) punishing them after thefact as !ith sovereign po!er 5oucault offers se/ual health and early epidemiology as initiale/amples(. $s 5oucault notes) ,biopo!er uses populations like a machine for production) for theproduction of !ealth) goods) and other individuals.'

Thus far) biopo!er has been presented as a more sophisticated form of command) but sucha unidimensional interpretation obscures the very aspects that make it so favored byautonomists. Mauri2io >a22arato emphasi2es this in his important essay) ,5rom +iopo!er to+iopolitics. >a22arato reminds us that 5oucault distinguished constituted biopo!er

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a dispositif of command) management) and domination( from biopolitical becoming creativityand resistance(.=*t is the latter biopolitical form that holds the capacity for freedom andtransformation identified by Negri in his lecture. Po!er) be it in the labor8capital dyad or inbiopolitical8biopo!er form) is al!ays in an indissoluble linkage bet!een resistance and control.The pursuit of its productive) creative) and liberatory potential is the real heart of Negri1s lecture)and it contributes to bringing about more desirable forms of globali2ation. F9d.G

The Labor of the Multitude and the Fabric of Biopolitics

* !ould like to discuss the problem of the anchoring of the organi2ation of labor ; and of thene! postmodern political field !hich results ; in the bios. Be !ill see in a moment !hen andaccording to !hich modalities life enters into the field of po!er and becomes an essential issue.

>et1s take as a starting point the 5oucauldian definition of biopolitics. The term ,biopoliticsindicates the manner in !hich po!er transforms itself in a certain period so it can govern notonly individuals through a certain number of disciplinary procedures but also the set of livingthings constituted as ,populations. +iopolitics through local biopo!ers( takes control of themanagement of health) hygiene) diet) fertility) se/uality) etcetera) as each of these different fieldsof intervention have become political issues. +iopolitics thus comes to be involved) slo!ly but

surely) in all aspects of life) !hich later become the sites for deploying the policies of the !elfarestate its development is in effect entirely taken up !ith the aim of a better management of thelabor force. $s 5oucault says) ,the discovery of population is) at the same time as the discoveryof the individual and the trainable FdressableG body) the other ma4or technological nucleusaround !hich the political procedures of the Best !ere transformed.#+iopolitics is thus basedon principles !hich develop the technologies of capitalism and sovereignty these are largelymodified by evolving from a first form ; disciplinary ; to a second) !hich adds to disciplinesthe dispositifsof control.:*n effect) !hile discipline presented itself as an anatomo8policy ofbodies and !as applied essentially to individuals) biopolitics represents on the contrary a sort ofgrand ,social medicine that applies to the control of populations as a !ay to govern life. >ifehenceforth becomes part of the field of po!er.

The notion of biopolitics raises t!o problems. The first is tied to the contradiction that !e findin 5oucault himself in the first te/ts !here the term is used) it seems connected to !hat the6ermans called in the nineteenth century the Polizeiwissenschaft) that is to say themaintenance of order and discipline through the gro!th of the -tate and its administrativeorgani2ation. >ater on) ho!ever) biopolitics seems on the contrary to signal the moment that thetraditional nation-tate dichotomy is overtaken by a political economy of life in general. $nd it isthis second formulation that gives rise to the second problem is it a 0uestion of thinkingbiopolitics as a set of biopo!ers7 Ir) to the e/tent that saying that po!er has invested life alsosignifies that life is a po!er) can !e locate in life itself ; that is to say) in labor and in language)but also in bodies) in desire) and in se/uality ; the site of emergence of a counterpo!er) thesite of a production of sub4ectivity that !ould present itself as a moment of desub4ectiondsassujettisement(7 *t is evident that this concept of biopolitics cannot be understood solelyon the basis of the conception that 5oucault had about po!er itself. $nd po!er) for 5oucault) isnever a coherent) stable) unitary entity but a set of ,po!er relations that imply comple/historical conditions and multiple effects po!er is a field of po!ers. 3onse0uently) !hen5oucault !rites of po!er) it is never about describing a first or fundamental principle but ratherabout a set of correlations !here practices) kno!ledge) and institutions are inter!oven.

The concept of po!er becomes totally different ; almost totally postmodern ; in relation tothis Platonic tradition that has been permanent and hegemonic in a good part of modernthought. The 4uridical models of sovereignty are thus sub4ect to a political criti0ue of the -tatethat reveals first the circulation of po!er in the social) and conse0uently the variability ofphenomena of sub4ection to !hich these models give rise parado/ically) it is precisely in the

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comple/ity of this circulation that the processes of sub4ectifi cation) resistance) andinsubordination can be given.

*f !e take these different elements) the genesis of the concept of biopo! er should then bemodified as a function of the conditions in !hich these elements have been given. Be !ill no!seek to privilege the transformation of !ork in the organi2ation of labor !e have here thepossibility of !orking out a periodi2ation of the organi2ation of labor in the industrial era that

permits us to understand the particular importance of the passage from the disciplinary regimeto the control regime. *t is this passage that !e can see) for instance) in the crisis of 5ordism) atthe moment !here the Taylorist organi2ation of labor no longer sufficed to discipline the socialmovements) as !ell as the Jeynesian macroeconomic techni0ues that !ere no longer able toevaluate the measure of labor. -tarting in the ":=&s) this transformation !hich !ill provoke inturn a redefinition of biopo!ers( !as most clearly seen in the ,central countries of capitalistdevelopment. *t is thus in follo! ing the rhythm of this modification that !e can understand theproblemati2ation of the theme of production of sub4ectivity in 5oucault and Deleu2e byunderlining that these t!o schools of thought have common ground. *n Deleu2e) for instance)the displacement of !hat he takes to be the genuine matri/ of the production of sub4ects ; nolonger a net!ork of po!er relations e/tending throughout society but rather a dynamic centerand a predisposition to sub4ectification ; seems completely essential. 5rom this point of vie!)

!hen !e speak of the themes of discipline and control and of the definition of po!er !hichfollo!s) Deleu2e does not limit himself to an interpretation of 5oucault but integrates labor anddevelops his fundamental intuitions.

Ince !e have established that !hat !e mean by biopolitics is a non8static) non8hypostati2ed process) a function of a moving history connected to a long process that brings there0uirement of productivity to the center of the dispositifsof po!er) it is precisely that history thatmust be understood.

The danger to avoid is to read at the heart of biopolitics a sort of positivist vitalism andormaterialist in effect !e could very !ell find ourselves before !hat Mar/ called ,a sadmaterialism(. This is !hat !e find) for instance) in certain recent interpretations of the politicalcentrality of life. These interpretations develop a reading of biopolitics that creates a sort ofconfused) dangerous) even destructive magma a tendency !hich refers much more to a

thanatopolitics) a politics of death) than to a genuine political affirmation of life. This slippageto!ard thanatopolitics is in reality permitted and fed by a great ambiguity that !e lend to the!ord ,life itself under the cover of a biopolitical reflection) !e slide in reality to a biological andnaturalistic understanding of life !hich takes a!ay all its political po!er. Be have thus reducedit to) at best) a set of flesh and bones. Be !ould have to ask at !hat point a Heideggerianontology doesn1t find in this move from the zoto biosan essential and tragic resource."&

5urthermore) the fundamental specificity of biopolitics in 5oucault ; the very form of therelationship bet!een po!er and life ; !hich immediately becomes) in Deleu2e as in 5oucault)the space for producing a free sub4ectivity !as given an indiscriminately vitalistic interpretation.+ut as !e !ell kno!) vitalism is a dirty beastK Bhen it begins to emerge in the seventeenthcentury) after the crisis of ife and death are locked in a relation of great ambiguity the !ar bet!eenindividuals becomes essential) the co8presence of an aggressive animal and a societye/asperated by the market ; !hat !e call the dynamic of possessive individualism ; ispresented as a natural norm) that is to say) precisely as life.

Vitalism is thus al!ays a reactionary philosophy) !hile the notion of bios) as it is presentedin the biopolitical analysis of 5oucault and Deleu2e) is something entirely different it !aschosen in order to rupture this frame of mind. 5or us !ho follo! their lead) biopolitics is not a

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return to origins) a manner of re8embedding thought in nature it is on the contrary the attempt toconstruct thought starting from !ays of life !hether individual or collective() to remove thoughtand reflection on the !orld( from artificiality ; understood as the refusal of any naturalfoundation ; and from the po!er of sub4ectification. +iopolitics is not an enigma) nor a set ofsuch ine/tricable fu22y relations that the only !ay out seems to be the immuni2ation of life it ison the contrary the recovered terrain of all political thought) to the e/tent that it is crossed by the

po!er of processes of sub4ectification.5rom this point of vie!) the idea of a biopolitics accompanies in an essential manner the

passage to the postmodern ; if !e understand by this a historical moment !here po!errelations are permanently interrupted by the resistance of the sub4ects to !hich they apply. *f lifehas no ,outside) if it must by conse0uence be totally lived ,inside) its dynamic can only be oneof po!er. Thanatopolitics is neither an internal alternative nor an ambiguity of biopolitics but itse/act opposite an authoritarianism transcendent) adispositifof corruption.

To finish this point) let me rapidly mention t!o last things regarding thanatopolitics. *t is noaccident that it !as particularly affirmed in the e/periences that are sometimes called,revolutionary conservatism let us think for e/ample of a figure such as 9rnest Lnger() that isto say) a type of thought !here individualist and vitalistic anarchism functioned as a genuineforeshado!ing of Na2i thought. Be can think today of !hat is meant by the act of a kamika2e if

!e make an abstraction of the suffering and desperation that leads to such choices ; sufferingand desperation that are absolutely political ; !e are then again face8to8face !ith the suicidalreduction of the biosto thezo !hich suffices to remove all biopolitical po!er from the act thatone commits not!ithstanding the 4udgment that !e may have on this act(.

*t is important to note the type of methodological approach that biopolitics necessitates. *t isonly by confronting the problem from a constitutive genealogical( point of vie! that !e canconstruct an effective biopolitical discourse. This discourse must be founded on a seriesof dispositifsthat have a sub4ective origin. Be are perfectly a!are that the concept of dispositif)as it appears in 5oucault and in Deleu2e) is used by the t!o philosophers as a group ofhomogeneous practices and strategies that characteri2e a state of po!er in a given era. Bethus speak of dispositifsof control or of normativedispositifs. +ut to the e/tent to !hich thebiopolitical problemati2ation is ambiguous) because it is at the same time the e/ertion of po!er

over life and the po!erful and e/cessive reaction of life to po!er) it has seemed to us that thenotion of dispositifshould assume the same ambiguity the dispositifcould e0ually !ell be thename of a strategy of resistance.

Bhen !e speak of ,dispositif) !e !ant therefore to speak here of a type of genealogicalthought !hose development includes the movement of desires and reasonings !e thussub4ectify the po!er relations that cross the !orld) society) institutional determinations) andindividual practices.

Ho!ever) this line of argument) !hich !as that of 5oucault and Deleu2e) finds a profoundanchoring in the non8teleological philosophies that have preceded Historismusor that havedeveloped in parallel to this.""These schools of thought) from 6eorg -immel to Balter+en4amin) have brought !ith them theoretical formulations that permitted) through the analysisof forms of life) the reconstruction of the ontological !eave of culture and society. 5rom this

point of vie!) and beyond our legitimate insistence on the origins of the concept of biopolitics in5rench poststructuralist thought) it !ould be e0ually interesting to find in 6erman thought at theend of the nineteenth and beginning of the t!entieth centuries an epistemological developmentof the same type. The fundamental figure !ould clearly be Niet2sche !e !ould have in effect toanaly2e all the Niet2schian efforts to destroy positivist and vitalist teleology and the manner in!hich !e find in this same effort the pro4ect of a genealogy of morals. The genealogy of moralsis simultaneously an ensemble of sub4ectification processes and the space of a materialistteleology that both accepts the risk of pro4ectuality and recogni2es the finiteness of its o!n

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sub4ective source. This is !hat !e have chosen to call) many years later) and follo!ing apostmodern reinvestment of -pino2ist thought) a ,dystopia.

*t is therefore possible to push the analysis of biopolitics as it !as in the liberal andmercantile era ; and the resistance to it ; to!ard the location of the functions it takes) onceremoved from modernity) in the conte/t of the ,real subsumption of society under capital Ftoparaphrase Mar/ 9d.G. Bhen !e speak of real subsumption of society under capital that is to

say) ho! capitalism is actually developing() !e mean the mercantili2ation of life) thedisappearance of use value and the coloni2ation of forms of life by capital) but !e also mean theconstruction of resistance inside this ne! hori2on. Ince again) one of the specificities ofpostmodernity is this character of reversibility that profoundly marks the phenomena !hich arepresent all domination is also al!ays resistance. In this point) one must underline thesurprising convergence of certain theoretical e/periences !ithin Bestern or postcolonialMar/ism !e can think here obviously of *talian operaismoor certain *ndian culturalist schools(and the philosophical positions formu lated by 5rench poststructuralism. Be !ill come back tothis.

*n addition) !e have already insisted on the importance of ,real subsump tion) to the e/tentthat one must consider it as the essential phenomenon around !hich the passage from themodern to the postmodern has occurred. +ut this transition1s fundamental element seems also

to be the generali2ation of resistance on each of the nodes that make up the great !eave of realsubsumption of society under capital. This discovery of resistance as a general phenomenon)as a parado/ical opening inside each of the links of po!er) as a multiform dispositifof sub4ectiveproduction) is precisely !hat comprises the postmodern affirmation.

+iopolitics is therefore a contradictory conte/t of!ithin life. +y its very definition) itrepresents the e/tension of the economic and political contradiction over the entire social fabric)but it also represents the emergence of the singulari2ation of resistances that permanently cutacross it.

Bhat do !e mean e/actly by ,production of sub4ectivity7 Here !e1d like our analysis to gobeyond the anthropological definition assumed in 5oucault as in Deleu2e. Bhat seemsimportant in this perspective is in effect the historical also productive( concreteness of theconstitution of the sub4ect. The sub4ect is productive the production of sub4ectivity is thus a

sub4ectivity that produces. >et us insist at present on the fact that the cause) the motor of thisproduction of sub4ectivity) is found inside po!er relations) !hich is to say in the comple/ set ofrelationships that are nonetheless al!ays traversed by a desire for life. Ho!ever) to the e/tentthat this desire for life signifies the emergence of a resistance to po!er) it is this resistance thatbecomes the genuine motor of production of sub4ectivity.

-ome have 4udged this definition of the production of sub4ectivity to be unsatisfactorybecause it makes the mistake of reintroducing a sort of ne! dialectic po!er includesresistance) resistance could even feed po!er. $nd) on another level) sub4ectivity !ould beproductiveO the productivity of resistances could even construct sub4ectivity. *t is not difficult tostymie this argument it only suffices to return to the concept of resistance !e spoke of earlier)that is to say) the productive link that binds the concept of resistance to sub4ectivity andimmediately determines the singularities in their antagonism to biopo!er. Be do not understand

very !ell !hy all allusion to antagonism must be necessarily reduced to a return to the dialectic.*f this is truly a singularity that acts) the relationship that develops !ith po!er can in no casegive rise to a moment of synthesis) of e/cess) ofAufhebung; in sum) the negation of negationin the Hegelian manner. In the contrary) !hat !e1re dealing !ith is absolutely a8teleologicalsingularity and resistance become e/posed to risk) to the possibility of failure) but the productionof sub4ectivity nonetheless al!ays has the possibility ; better still) the po!er ; to give itself asan e/pression of surplus. The production of sub4ectivity can therefore not be reabsorbed into theheart of dialectical processes that seek to reconstitute the totality of the productive movementunder transcendental forms. 3ertain effects of ,reabsorption are of course inevitable as

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underlined by the particularly subtle schools of modern sociological thought such as >uc+oltanski and eviathanian figure of a unilateralnegotiator and resolver of problems that is precisely !hat po!er consists of. *n the eighteenthcentury) theories of the ,raison d1?tat included not only the arts of violence but also the arts ofmediation. Bhen !e move the theme of po!er into the conte/t of biopolitical relations) !hatappears ; and !hat is ne! ; is e/actly opposed to this capacity of neutrali2ation orimmuni2ation. *t is in effect the emergence of rupture that forms alongside the production ofsub4ectivity ; the intensity of this surplus is its defining characteristic.

T!o !ords on this concept of surplus ; or) as !e have sometimes called it) the notion ofe/cessiveness. This idea !as born inside a ne! analysis of the organi2ation of labor) a momentat !hich value comes from the cognitive and immaterial product of a creative action) and !hen itescapes at the same time from the la! of labor value if !e understand this in a strictly ob4ectiveand economistic manner(. The same idea is found at a different level in an ontologicaldissymmetry that e/ists bet!een the functioning of biopo!er and the po!er of biopoliticalresistance !here po!er is al!ays measurable and !here the idea of the measure and the gapare in fact precise instruments of discipline and control( or po!er is on the contrary the non8measurable) the pure e/pression of non8reducible differences.

$t a third level) one must be attentive to !hat is happening in -tate theories the surplus isal!ays described as a production of po!er ; it takes) for e/ample) the face of the ,state ofe/ception."%et this idea is inconsistent) even grotes0ue the state of e/ception can only be

defined on the inside of the relationship that links po!er and resistance in an indissolublemanner. -tate po!er is never absoluteO it only represents itself as absolute) it offers a panoramaof absoluteness. +ut it !ill al!ays be made up of a comple/ set of relations that includeresistance to !hat it is. *t is not by chance if) in the theories of dictatorships that e/ist in

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Mar/ism locked labor po!er and variable capital inside relations that !ere ob4ectively prefiguredby the la!s of the economy. +ut it is precisely thisprefiguration having the value of necessity ;more closely resembling the Heideggerian conception of techni0ue than the liberation desire ofproletarians ; !hich certain Mar/ists) starting in ":'#) began to break into pieces. This is thepoint of theoretical convergence bet!een the operaismoof >aboratory *taly in the ":=&s)schools of *ndian postcolonial thought) and the analysis of po!er formulated by 5oucault and

Deleu2e.>et us return to the link bet!een sub4ectivity and social labor. $s !e have said) labor

possesses genuinely ne! dimensions. The first remarkable thing is !ithout a doubt thetransformation undergone by the temporal dimension in the postmodern modification ofproductive structures. *n the 5ordist era) temporality !as measured according to the la! of laborvalue conse0uently it concerned an abstract) 0uantitative) analytic temporality) !hich) becauseit !as opposed to living labor time) arrived at the composition of the productive value of capital.

$s it is described by Mar/) capitalist production represents the synthesis of the living creativityof labor and of the e/ploitive structures organi2ed by fi/ed capital and its temporal la!s ofproductivity. *n the era of post85ordism) on the contrary) temporality is no longer ; nor totally ;enclosed !ithin the structures of constant capital as !e have seen) intellectual) immaterial) andaffective production !hich characteri2es post85ordist labor( reveals a surplus. $n abstract

temporality ; that is to say) the temporal measureof labor ; is incapable of understanding thecreative energy of labor itself.

In the inside of the ne! figure of the capitalist relation) the surplus permits the creation ofspaces of self8valori2ation that cannot be entirely reabsorbed by capital in the best case) it isonly recuperated by a sort of permanent ,pursuit8race of this mass of autonomous labor ; or)more e/actly) of this multitude of productive singularities. The constitution of capitalisttemporality that is to say) capitalist po!er( can therefore no longer be ac0uired in a dialecticalmanner the production of goods is al!ays follo!ed by the sub4ectivities that oppose it) underthe form of a virtually antagonistic dispositifthat comes to frustrate any capitalist synthesis ofthe process. The 5oucauldian distinctions bet!een regimes of po!er and regimes of sub4ectivityare therefore totally reinvested inside this ne! reality of capitalist organi2ationO they arerepresented by the scission bet!een capitalist timevalue and the singular valori2ation of labor

po!er.Be must thus return to an essential problem that !e have already 0uickly mentioned the

problem of the simultaneous measure of capital1s labor and time. *f !e start from the idea thatliving labor is the constituent cause and motor ; material or immaterial ; of all forms ofdevelopment) if !e think that the production of sub4ectivity is the fundamental element thatpermits us to escape the dialectic of biopo!er and to construct) on the contrary) a fabric ofbiopolitics to complete the passage from a simple disciplinary regime to a regime that e0uallyintegrates the control dimension and permits at the same time the emergence of po!erful andcommon insurgencies) then the theme of measure that is to say) of the 0uantified rationality ofvalori2ation( becomes central once again. et it only becomes central in a parado/ical mannerbecause all the measures that capital !anted to discipline and control henceforth becomeevasive.

Bithout a doubt) it !ill be necessary to one day open a ne! field of research so !e canunderstand if the thematic of measure can be proposed once again today on a terrain of socialproduction) according to ne! forms and modalities that !ill have to be defined. *n that case) theontological rupture that !e have located bet!een living labor and constant capital !ill have tobe considered as the presupposition of any analysis. The fact is that the surplus of living labor inrelation to constant capital presents itself as production ,beyond measure ; that is to say) as,outside 0uantitative measurement ; and it is in this that the difficulty forever reappears.

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an absolutely affirmative and positive manner ; the po!er of living labor. This is ho! itbecomes possible to foresee at least tendentiallythe end of e/ploitation. $nd it is !ithout a doubt!hat 5oucault and Deleu2e allude to !hen they speak of the process of sub4ectification.

Be have thus arrived at the edge of a ne! definition of capital as crisis ; a capitalistrelation !hich) from the point of vie! of constant capital) seems from no! on totally parasiticO !ehave also arrived at the center of !hat is perhaps the possibility of a recomposition of

antagonisms that engage !ith both the production of sub4ectivity and the e/pression of livinglabor.

Be started by attempting to close in on the terms of biopo!er) biopolitics) discipline) andcontrol. *t seems no! essential to address the 0uestion of multitude.

*n effect) all our analyses constitute in reality this presupposition of the multitude. >et ustherefore propose) as a point of provisionary support that !e !ill have to reformulate andmodify) the follo!ing definition. The concept of multitude is derived from the relationshipbet!een a constitutive form that of singularity) of invention) of risk) to !hich all thetransformation of labor and the ne! measure of time has brought us( and a practice of po!erthe destructive tendency of valuelabor that capital is today obliged to put in effect(. +ut !hilecapital !as in the past capable of reducing the multiplicity of singularities to something close tothe organic and unitary ; a class) a people) a mass) a set ; this process has today failed

intimately it no longer !orks. The multitude should thus be necessarily thought of as adisorgani2ed) differential) and po!erful multiplicity. +ut this could be the sub4ect of anotherlecture.

* thank you.". Michael Hardt and $ntonio Negri) Empire3ambridge) M$ Harvard UP) %&&&(. F9d.G

+$3J%. There are three e/cellent sources for an overvie! of the *talian autonomist Mar/ist movement. -. >otringer

and 3hristian Mara22i1sItaly: AutonomiaPost!Political PoliticsNe! ork -emiote/te() ":#&( has contributionsfrom core members of the movement and !as !ritten in the !ake of the state crackdo!n. -teve Bright1s"tormingHea#en: $lass $omposition and "truggle in Italian Autonomist %ar&ism>ondon Pluto Press) %&&%( offers acomprehensive historical overvie!. 5inally) Michael Hardt and Paolo Virno1s'adical (hought in Italy: A PotentialPoliticsMinneapolis U of Minnesota P) "::'( is a collection of essays that both assess the tradition of autonomistthought and propose future directions. F9d.G

+$3JA. $ntonio Negri) %ar& )eyond %ar&: *essons on the +rundrisseNe! ork $utonomedia) ":#:(. F9d.G

+$3JC. Paolo Virno) ,Notes on the 6eneral *ntellect) %ar&ism )eyond %ar&ism) ed. -aree Makdisi) 3esare

3asarino) and

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translated as ,apparatus) ,arrangement) or ,deployment) the dispositifis a methodological frame for understandingpo!er. $ dispositifis both discursive and non8discursive. 5oucault describes it thusly ,F*t isG firstly) a resolutelyheterogeneous ensemble consisting of discourses) institutions) architectural forms) regulatory decisions) la!s)administrative measures) scientific statements) philosophical) moral and philanthropic propositions ; in short) thesaid as much as the unsaid %::(. Thus dispositifsare al!ays in the middle of things) comprising a comple/ ,systemof relations of discursive and non8discursive elements. Be can see that the dispositifbrings together heterogeneouselements that have distinct registers from the materialityof institutions) to the regulationof 4uridical processes) to

the e&pressionof !hat else!here might be called ideology) and finally to the techni>uesandpracticesof particularsub4ectivities. There is a comple/ composition to these distinct elementsO yet this heterogeneity) in part) is designed togo beyond the reductive schema of an all8determining mode of production. This shift to more comple/ causalrelations reflects 5oucault1s ine/orable turn to seeing po!er as diffused) decentrali2ed) and arranged in microphysicalrelations. Methodologically) this means not 4ust e/amining each element of this heterogeneous composition butfocusing on the effects of a given dispositive ; in terms of !hat !e can say) see) or be. F9d.G

+$3J"&. 6iorgio $gamben Homo "acer: "o#ereign Power and )are *ife-trans. Daniel Heller8