neonascent

This week in Biopolitics we have been looking at the concept of the Multitude, as well as an associated concept - Netwar.

Multitude is conceived of by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, and explained in detail in their book Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire. Previous to this book, Hardt and Negri had collaborated in writing a seminal book - Empire - that has been described as the Communist Manifesto of the 21st century. Given Negri’s neo-Marxist slant, this moniker is quite apt. Negri has, in fact, been pursecuted for his political activities and theories; having been arrested and in exile from Italy for many years as a result of their targetting of (regime-) critical intellectuals.

In essence Multitudes are (as far as my reading suggests) dynamic political groups that, though made up of individual people with their own sets of beliefs and convictions, are defined by their common targets and idiologies. This is distinct from The People, which is a homogenized collection of people which ligitimises its own sovereignty. Negri is overwealmingly optimistic regarding the Multitude’s power to effect idiology change through what he describes as Biopolitical production. This ammounts to a production of subjectivities / culture which influences the Hegemony.

I had several issues with Hardt and Negri’s description of the power and form of Multitude:

• Negri links the form of economic production up with the type of resistence, yet seems to suggest that all modern resistence is biopolitically productive, despite the fact that many societies’ economies are not based on immaterial production (i.e. production of brands and ideas).
• Multitude has been critisized as a purely perspectual framework - Negri describes the Multitude being “brought into being” by a political project.
• Though the Multitude can produce subjectivities to positively effect the overall worldview, there are far more people caught up in Biopolitical production within the hegemonic ideologies, so that there is no hope of making a difference. I.e. there are many many mainstream nodes of the multitude.
• Negri describes the Multitude as allowing “Absolute Democracy”, though his ideas of (the fundermentally contended concept of) Democracy are not made clear… For example it is in the nature of the Multitude to be self-involved, and so Plurality and minorities interests will not be advantaged.

It has been pointed out to me that the form of “Democracy” discussed in Multitude is very muc h seen as a creative form of living, and not so much to be taken as a governmental system.

In addition an analogy has been offered between Hegemony/Multitude and Proprietry/Open-Source software, which is intended to allow for resistance to a hugely powerful ruling ideology. However, the very nature of Open Source involves transparency - something which cannot be guaranteed with a media under the control and totally ensconced within a repressive, capitalist Empire.

Netwar is described in a RAND report called The Advent of Netwar (Revisited) as a new method of political activism (both negative/millitant/terroristic, and positive/peaceful/benign) that uses a networked communication structure and modern technologies to create an effective platform. In contrast to tradition group structures of militaristic vertical hierarchies, or SPIN (Segmented Polycentric Ideologically Intergrated Network) groups, groups engaged in netwar are horizontally arranged, with many cells. Hardt and Negri’s descriptions of the Multitude inform/hold ressonance with these Netwar groups, though this second reading is more analytical and backs up claims with real-world data.