Occupy: ‘Struggles for the common’ or an ‘anti-politics of dignity’? Reflections on Hardt and Negri and John Holloway

Abstract

This article provides a critical examination of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's and John Holloway's theory of revolutionary subjectivity, and does so by applying their theories to the Occupy movement of 2011. Its central argument is that one should avoid collapsing 'autonomist' and 'open' Marxism, for whilst both approaches share Tronti's (1979) insistence on the constituent role of class struggle, and also share an emphasis on a prefigurative politics which engages a non-hierarchical and highly participatory politics, there nevertheless remain some significant differences between their approaches. Ultimately, when applied to Occupy Movement whilst their theory isn't entirely unproblematic, I will argue that Hardt and Negri's 'autonomist' approach offers the stronger interpretation, due mainly to their revised historical materialism.

Huey P. Newton’s Intercommunalism: An Unacknowledged Theory of Empire

“…Across the three books that make up their trilogy on empire, Hardt and Negri offer political proposals such as universal basic income, the eradication of borders and open access to the commons that they believe could unite the disparate singularities that would constitute the multitude. Negri (2009, 2012), for instance, espouse the virtues of the anti-globalization and Occupy movements as bearers of the possible non-hierarchical and horizontal democratic structures of the multitude (Harrison, 2016).…”