Empire: The Political Order of Globalization

Author: Hartnageli Yang Jianguo Fan Yiting
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-01-01
Features: Right before our eyes, the empire is growing and taking shape. Boundless and endless, this is the new political order of globalization—a new form of sovereignty. From postmodernism to modernity, from imperialism to empire, will humanity in the new century usher in a utopian era of peace and prosperity or face oppression and constraint? The key to the future lies in the interaction between the empire and its resistances. The imperialism we know may no longer exist, but the empire remains intact. In this innovative and bold work, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri claim that the empire is the new political order of globalization. Empire is also a utopian meditation on political philosophy, a new Manifesto of the Communist Party. Its vision transcends the exploitation and control systems of the current world order, exploring an alternative political paradigm—the foundation of a truly global democratic society. Since its publication, Empire has been translated into over 20 languages and has been called the best-selling intellectual book of the 21st century, a book that has caused much controversy and discussion about globalization. Experts say that since the publication of Empire, reading, translating, discussing, and critiquing Empire have become a major event in the global left and right academic circles. For readers interested in understanding the dynamics of contemporary academia, this book is a must-read. The empire is materializing before our eyes. Over the past few decades, as colonialism has been abandoned and the Soviet Union's barrier to the capitalist world market has finally collapsed, we have witnessed the irresistible and irreversible globalization of economic and cultural exchange. With the formation of global markets and production lines, the order of globalization, the logic and structure of a new set of rules, in short, a new form of sovereignty is emerging. The empire is a political subject that effectively controls these global flows; it is the highest power governing the world. Many believe that the globalization of capitalist production and exchange means that economic relations are becoming increasingly autonomous, detached from political control, and as a result, political power is declining. Some claim that this new era is a liberation of capitalist economies, freed from the restrictions and distortions imposed upon them by political forces. Others, however, lament this era, seeing it as the closure of the institutional pathways through which workers and citizens could influence or question the ruthless logic of capitalist profit. Indeed, alongside the process of globalization, the sovereignty of the nation-state, though still effective, has been continuously declining. The main factors of production and exchange—money, technology, labor, goods—have become increasingly easy to cross borders, and as a result, nation-states have less power to regulate the flow of these factors and impose their authority on the economy. Even the most dominant states are no longer considered supreme authorities, either within or beyond their own borders. However, the decline of nation-state sovereignty does not mean that "sovereignty" in the literal sense has declined across the entire contemporary transformation. Throughout this period, political control, state functions, and management mechanisms have continued to govern the production and exchange of economic and social life. Our fundamental assumption is that sovereignty has taken on a new form, composed of a series of national and supranational bodies integrated under a single logic of rule. The new form of global sovereignty is what we call the empire.