Multitude and resistence. Rethinking with Foucault and Negri the criticism to neoliberalism

Abstract

The publication of Empire, for over a decade, has been a central political and philosophical event in our age. In this work, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri make an attempt to rebuild the Marxian project, in order to list the contradictions of contemporary capitalism. Largely relying on the analyses made by Paolo Virno, they construct a critical building where subjectivity processes play a crucial role. Thus, the category of multitude appears as postmodern translation of the factory proletariat. Despite this descriptive strength, theorizing of the multitude is burdened by the idea of a real subsumption of labor in capital which distorts the critical analysis of the present. At this point the Michel Foucault’s philosophical framework allows us to produce a double articulation with the proposal of authors: on the one hand it supports the analysis of neoliberalism, and on the other hand, it provides a historical depth and conceptual density that prevents all idealization and divorce from history of multitude.