Marxism

Toni Negri and Michael Hardt’s recent works, Empire and Multitude, have earned these authors great popularity in the Anglo-Saxon world. Negri is known in Italy for belonging to autonomia operaia in the ’70s and for being on the receiving end of political persecution by the Italian state at the end of that decade. His earlier work (above all Marx Beyond Marx) was a valid contribution to the understanding of the nature of capitalism and influenced many among us who sought an answer to Marxist objectivism and a theory of history based on class struggle. However, Negri’s earlier work circulated among a restricted public, via obscure publishers. The new Toni Negri for the ‘new’ era emerges in 2000 with Empire. A tome written with literature professor Michael Hardt, Empire was warmly welcomed even by the bourgeois press.

Introduction
One of the main contentions at the core of Autonomist Marxism is that all human activity in either the sphere of production or in circulation and reproduction is potentially productive, that is, can contribute to the valorisation of capital.

Introduction

Three years ago, Loren Goldner circulated a draft of his ‘Remaking of the American Working Class’ for comments among a number of groups and individuals. At first sight it seemed to present an interesting new approach to the development of both capitalism and the class struggle since World War II.

Bakunin's essay refutes the claims made by some Marxists, then and now, that early social democracy played a largely progressive role within the working class movement. In this particular case, Bakunin's comments are also far more radical than anything Marx and Engels were willing to say publicly at the time on the subject.