Assembly

Author Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri

Heretical Thought

Proposes how contemporary social movements can better harness power to effect lasting change
Challenges the assumption that social movements must return to traditional, centralized forms of political leadership
Provides a new analysis of the dominance of finance and money
Advocates social unionism, or mixing labor organizing with social movements

Assembly

Author Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri

Description

Each year a new eruption of "leaderless" social movements — from North Africa and the Middle East to Europe, the Americas, and East Asia — leaves journalists, political analysts, police forces, and governments disoriented and perplexed. Activists too struggle to understand and evaluate the power and effectiveness of horizontal movements. Why have the movements, which address the needs and desires of so many, not been able to achieve lasting change and create a new, more democratic and just society? Some people assume that if only social movements could find new leaders they would return to their earlier glory. Where, they ask, are the new Martin Luther Kings, Rudi Dutschkes, and Steven Bikos?

Although today's leaderless and spontaneous political organizations are not sufficient, a return to traditional, centralized forms of political leadership is neither desirable nor possible. Necessary, instead, as Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri argue, is an inversion of the roles of the multitude and leadership in political organizations. Leaders should be confined to short-term, tactical action, while the multitude drives strategy. In other words, the formulation of long-term goals and objectives must come from the collective, rather than designated figureheads. Drawing on the ideas developed through their well-known Empire trilogy, Hardt and Negri have produced, in Assembly, a timely proposal for how current large-scale, horizontal movements can develop collectively the capacities for political strategy and decision-making to effect lasting and democratic change.

Assembly

Author Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri

Heretical Thought

Preface
Part I: The Leadership Problem
Chapter 1: Where Have All the Leaders Gone?
Chapter 2: Strategy and Tactics of the Centaur
Chapter 3: Contra Rousseau, or, Pour en Finir avec la Souveraineté
Chapter 4: The Dark Mirror of Right-Wing Movements
Chapter 5: The Real Problem Lies Elsewhere
Part II: The Social Production of the Multitude
Chapter 6: How to Open Property to the Common
Chapter 7: We, Machinic Subjects
Chapter 8: Weber in Reverse
Chapter 9: Entrepreneurship of the Multitude
Part III: Financial Command and Neoliberal Governance
Chapter 10: Finance Captures Social Value
Chapter 11: Money Institutionalizes a Social Relation
Chapter 12: Neoliberal Administration Out of Joint
Part IV: New Prince
Chapter 13: Political Realism
Chapter 14: Impossible Reformism
Chapter 15: And Now What?
Chapter 16: Portolan
Notes
Index

Assembly

Author Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri

Heretical Thought

Author Information

Author Michael Hardt, Professor of Literature, Duke University, and Author Antonio Negri, Emeritus Professor, University of Padua and University of Paris VIII

Michael Hardt teaches at Duke University, where he is Director of the Social Movements Lab. Antonio Negri has taught at the University of Padua and University of Paris VIII. They are best known for the Empire trilogy: Empire (2000), Multitude (2004), and Commonwealth (2009). They are also authors most recently of Declaration (2012).

Assembly

Author Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri

Heretical Thought

Reviews and Awards

"Assembly offers a wonderful exploration of the potential for the left to challenge global capital, with possible new modes of struggle offered throughout the book ... Assembly [...] is certainly a must-read for those on the radical left." - Lewis George Bloodworth, Marx & Philosophy Review of Books

"This is an important new statement from two of the most creative thinkers on the left." - Jedediah Purdy, author of After Nature: A Politics for the Anthropocene

"Are you ready for democracy? Assembly argues: don't be scared to remake it. Disturbing the tendency of resistance struggles to become hamstrung by a poverty of organization, Hardt and Negri throw question after question at left political habits and traditions of thought, imagining a New Prince from the multitude and new tools for self-governance. Some of their many propositions may seem questionable and some viscerally right, but all are thoughtful, potentially revelatory, fuel." - Lauren Berlant, author of Cruel Optimism

"A critical, broad, all-encompassing analysis of contemporary society It will be read by many activists, citizens, scholars, and other (im)material workers, who care about a better future and are looking for ways to transform society in progressive ways. A brave and intelligent intervention that will influence our debates, struggles, theories, critiques, praxis, strategies and tactics in the coming years." - Professor Christian Fuchs, Director of the Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies

"This is an impressive, full-fledged pars construens, theoretically sophisticated and politically plausible. Assembly is the crown jewel of an immensely influential production that every cosmopolitan critical thinker simply has to confront. One may disagree with Hardt and Negri, but the motivation for disagreement becomes more and more difficult, one masterpiece after the other." - Ugo Mattei, author of Plunder: When the Rule of Law is Illegal

Assembly

Author Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri

Heretical Thought

From Our Blog

Love and hate politics

'Love versus hate' has become a standard frame for describing today's primary political divide. In the face of the world-wide rise of right-wing movements and governments, and especially since the demonstration of fascist and white supremacist groups in Charlottesville, it is generally taken for granted that hatred is the prime motivation for the most horrible and destructive political forces.

Posted on September 22, 2017

Read the blog post

Cultural shifts in protest groups

Protest and counterculture in America have evolved over time. From the era of civil rights to Black Lives Matter, gatherings of initially small groups growing to become powerful voices of revolution have changed the way we define contemporary cultural movements. In this excerpt from Assembly, authors Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri examine how some minority protest groups have adapted over time to be more inclusive in their organizational models without having a sole defined leader.

Posted on September 20, 2017

Read the blog post