Antonio Negri

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This article is about the scholar. For the poet, see

Antonio Negri

Negri in 2009

Born

1 August 1933

, Kingdom of Italy

Died

16 December 2023

(aged 90)

Paris, France

Education

[

]

Academic

advisor

[

]

Philosophical work

Era

Region

Institutions

University of Padua

Main

interests

Notable

ideas

Philosophy of

globalization

theory of

constituent

power

Member of the

In office

12 July 1983 – 1 July 1987

Constituency

Personal details

(1956–1963)

(1967–1973)

(1976–

1978)

(1983–1987)

Part of

about

Imperialism studies

Concepts

People

Works

Imperialism by country

Part of

Concepts

Economics

People

Variants

Anarchist tendencies

Marxist tendencies

Other tendencies

History

Related topics

Antonio Negri

(

;

Italian:

; 1 August 1933 – 16 December 2023)

was an Italian

known as one of the most prominent

theorists of

, as well as for his co-authorship of

with

. Born in

, Italy, Negri became a professor of political

philosophy at the

, where he taught state and

constitutional theory.

Negri founded the

(Worker Power) group

in 1969 and was a leading member of

, and published highly

influential books, including

and

Negri was accused in the late 1970s of being the mastermind of the left-wing

organization

(Brigate Rosse or BR),

which was

involved in the

of former Italian prime

minister

. On 7 April 1979, Negri was arrested and charged with a

number of crimes, including the Moro murder. Most charges were quickly

dropped, but in 1984, having fled to France, he was sentenced

in absentia

30 years in prison. He was given an additional four years on the charge of

being

for the violence of political activists in the 1960s

and 1970s.

The question of Negri's involvement with

a controversial subject.

He was indicted on a number of charges, including

"association and insurrection against the state" (a charge which was later

dropped), and sentenced for involvement in two murders.

Negri fled to France where, protected by the

, he taught at

the

and the

(CIPh),

along with

, and

. In 1997,

after a plea-bargain that reduced his prison time from 30 to 13 years,

returned to Italy to serve the end of his sentence. Many of his most

influential books were published while he was behind bars. After his release

he lived in Venice and Paris with his partner, the French philosopher

. He was the father of film director

Early years

[

]

Antonio Negri was born in

, in the

region of

in 1933. His father was an active communist

from the city of

(in the Northeastern

), and although he died

when Negri was two years old, his political engagement made Negri familiar

with

from an early age, while his mother was a teacher from the town

(in the

, Lombardy).

He began his career

as a militant in the 1950s with the activist Roman Catholic youth organization

Gioventù Italiana di Azione Cattolica (GIAC). Negri became a

in 1955

when working at the

in central Israel. The kibbutz was

organised according to ideas of

and its the members were

Jewish communists.

He joined the

in 1956 and

remained a member until 1963, while at the same time becoming more and more

engaged throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s in Marxist movements.

Negri studied philosophy and was hired as a professor at the

, soon after receiving his doctorate in 1956.

There, he taught

dottrina dello Stato

("state doctrine"), an Italian field similar to the

, covering state and

In the

early 1960s, Negri joined the editorial group of

, a journal

that represented the intellectual rebirth of Marxism in Italy outside the

realm of the

Negri was part of the group that

left

Quaderni Rossi

in 1964 to found

, and he contributed

to the journal as a writer and editor.

In 1969, together with

and

, Negri was one of the founders of the group

(Workers' Power) and the

(

lit.

workerism

)

movement.

Arrest and flight

[

]

On 16 March 1978,

, the party leader of

and

the former Italian prime minister, was kidnapped in Rome by the

. Forty-five days after the kidnapping and nine days before

the Red Brigades called his family and informed Moro's

wife of his impending death.

The conversation was recorded and later

broadcast. While a number of people who knew Negri at the time identified

him as the probable author of the call, the caller was later revealed to

On 7 April 1979, Negri and other activists were charged with kidnapping,

assassination and insurrection.

Padua's Public Prosecutor Pietro

Calogero accused them of being involved in the political wing of the Red

Brigades, and thus behind

in Italy. Negri was charged

with a number of offences, including leadership of the Red Brigades,

masterminding the 1978 kidnapping and murder of the President of the

Christian Democratic Party, Aldo Moro, and plotting to overthrow the

government.

At the time, Negri was a political science professor at

the University of Padua and visiting lecturer at Paris'

. The Italian public was shocked that an academic could be

involved in such events.

A year later, a leader of the BR, having decided to cooperate with the

prosecution, testified that Negri "had nothing to do with the Red

Brigades."

The charge of 'armed insurrection against the State' against

Negri was dropped and he consequently did not receive the 30-year plus

life sentence requested by the prosecutor, but did receive 30 years for

being the instigator of political activist Carlo Saronio's murder and

having 'morally concurred' with the murder of Andrea Lombardini, a

, during a failed bank robbery.

Some of his peers found little fault with Negri's activities.

commented, "Isn't he in jail simply for being an

intellectual?"

French philosophers

and

also

signed in November 1977

L'Appel des intellectuels français contre la

répression en Italie

(The Call of French Intellectuals Against Repression in

Italy) in protest against Negri's imprisonment and Italian

On the other hand, in the late 1980s Italian President

described Antonio Negri as "a psychopath" who "poisoned

the minds of an entire generation of Italy's youth."

In 1983, four years after his arrest and while he was still in prison

awaiting trial, Negri was elected to the Italian legislature as a member for

the

He was freed from prison claiming parliamentary

immunity and was released, fleeing to France with the help of Félix Guattari

and

His release was later revoked when the

voted to strip him of his immunity.

Negri remained in

exile in France for the next 14 years, where he was protected from

extradition by the

In France, Negri began teaching at the

and also at

the

founded by

Although the conditions of his residence in France prevented him from

engaging in political activities, he wrote prolifically and was active in a

broad coalition of left-wing intellectuals.

In 1997, he returned to Italy

to serve out his sentence, hoping to raise awareness of the status of

hundreds of other political exiles from Italy.

His sentence was commuted

and he was released from prison in 2003, having written some of his most

influential works while behind bars.

Political thought and writing

[

]

Negri was one of the central theorists of

and was a prominent philosopher within

and

He also wrote various works on

, and

Labor of Dionysus: A Critique of the State-Form

(1994)

[

]

Written together with Michael Hardt, the authors ask themselves in this

book, "How is it, then, that labour, with all its life-affirming potential,

has become the means of capitalist discipline, exploitation, and domination

in modern society?" The authors expose and pursue this paradox through a

systematic analysis of the role of labour in the processes of capitalist

production and in the establishment of capitalist legal and social

institutions. Critiquing liberal and socialist notions of labour and

institutional reform from a radical democratic perspective, Hardt and Negri

challenge the state-form itself.

Insurgencies: Constituent Power and the Modern State

(1999)

[

]

This book, written solely by Negri, "explores the drama of modern

revolutions-from Machiavelli's Florence and Harrington's England to the

American, French, and Russian revolutions-and puts forward a new notion of

how power and action must be understood if we are to achieve a radically

democratic future."

Empire

(2000)

[

]

Main article:

In general, the book theorises an ongoing transition from a "modern"

phenomenon of

, centred around individual

, to an

emergent

construct created among ruling powers which the authors

call "Empire", with different forms of warfare:

According to Hardt and Negri's

Empire

, the rise of Empire is the end

of national conflict, the "enemy" now, whoever he is, can no longer

be ideological or national. The enemy now must be understood as a

kind of criminal, as someone who represents a threat not to a

political system or a nation but to the law. This is the enemy as a

terrorist ... In the "new order that envelops the entire space

of ... civilization", where conflict between nations has been made

irrelevant, the "enemy" is simultaneously "banalized" (reduced to an

object of routine police repression) and absolutized (like the

Enemy, an absolute threat to the ethical order"

Empire

elaborates a variety of ideas surrounding constitutions,

global war, and class. Hence, the Empire is constituted by a

monarchy (the United States and the

, and

such as

, the

or the

), an

(the

and other nation-states) and a democracy (the

various

and the United Nations).

Part of the book's analysis deals with "imagin[ing] resistance",

but "the point of Empire is that it, too, is "total" and that

resistance to it can only take the form of negation – "the will

to be against".

The Empire is total, but

persists, and as all identities are wiped out and replaced with a

universal one, the identity of the poor persists.

Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of

Empire

(2004)

[

]

Main article:

Multitude

addresses these issues and picks up the thread where

Empire

leaves off. In order to do so, Hardt and Negri argue, one

must first analyse the present configuration of war and its

contradictions. This analysis is performed in the first chapter,

after which chapters two and three focus on multitude and

democracy, respectively.

Multitude

is not so much a sequel as it

is a reiteration from a new point of view in a new, relatively

accessible style that is distinct from the predominantly

academic

style of

Empire

. Multitude remains, the authors

insist, despite its ubiquitous subject matter and its almost

casual tone, a book of philosophy which aims to shape a

conceptual ground for a political process of democratisation

rather than present an answer to the question 'what to do?' or

offer a programme for concrete action.

Commonwealth

(2009)

[

]

Main article:

In 2009 Negri completed the book

Commonwealth

, the final in a

trilogy that began in 2000 with

Empire

and continued with

Multitude

in 2004, co-authored with Michael Hardt.

Antonio Negri holding a copy of

, with co-author

In this book, the authors introduce the concept of "the republic

of property": "What is central for our purposes here is that the

concept of property and the defence of property remain the

foundation of every modern political constitution. This is the

sense in which the republic, from the great bourgeois revolutions

to today, is a republic of property".

Part 2 of the book deals

with the relationship between modernity and anti-modernity and

proposes

. Altermodernity "involves not only

insertion in the long history of antimodern struggles but also

rupture with any fixed dialectic between modern sovereignty and

antimodern resistance. In the passage from antimodernity to

altermodernity, just as tradition and identity are transformed,

so too resistance takes on a new meaning, dedicated now to the

constitution of alternatives. The freedom that forms the base of

resistance, as we explained earlier, comes to the fore and

constitutes an event to announce a new political project."

For

in a review "What is newest in

Commonwealth

is its take on the fashionable idea of the common. Hardt and

Negri mean by this not merely the natural resources that capital

seeks to appropriate, but also "the languages we create, the

social practices we establish, the modes of sociality that define

our relationships", which are both the means and the result of

biopolitical production. Communism, they argue, is defined by the

common, just as capitalism is by the private and socialism (which

they identify in effect with statism) with the public."

For

Negri and Hardt "in the search of an altermodernity

– something that is outside the dialectical opposition between

modernity and anti-modernity – they need a means of escape. The

choice between capitalism and socialism, they suggest, is all

wrong. We need to identify something entirely different,

communism – working within a different set of dimensions."

Harvey also notes

that "Revolutionary thought, Hardt and Negri argue, must find a way to contest

capitalism and 'the republic of property.' It 'should not shun identity politics but

instead must work through it and learn from it,' because it is the 'primary vehicle

for struggle within and against the republic of property since identity itself is

based on property and sovereignty.'"

In the same exchange in

between Harvey and Micheal Hardt and Antonio

Negri, Hardt and Negri attempt to correct Harvey in a concept that is important within the argument of

Commonwealth

As such, they state that "We instead define the concept of

, contrasting it to the figure of the individual

on the one hand and forms of identity on the other, by focusing on three aspects of its relationship to multiplicity:

Singularity refers externally to a multiplicity of others; is internally divided or multiple; and constitutes a

multiplicity over time – that is, a process of becoming."

After

Commonwealth

, he wrote multiple notable articles on the

and

movements, along with other

social issues.

Occupy movements of 2011–2012 and

Declaration

[

]

In May 2012, Negri self-published (with Michael Hardt) an electronic pamphlet on the

called

that argues the movement explores new forms of democracy. The introduction was

published at

under the title "Take Up the Baton". He also published an article with Hardt in

Foreign Affairs

October 2011 stating "The Encampment in Lower Manhattan Speaks to a Failure of Representation."

Assembly

and essay collections (2013–2023)

[

]

In 2013, Negri published

Spinoza: Politics and Postmodernity

, a collections of essays on Spinoza and his contemporary

relevance to philosophy and political theory, translated into English by William McCuaig.

In 2017, Negri and Michael Hardt published

Assembly

The book provides a series of reflections on the nature of

contemporary capitalism and social movements, drawing together the concepts and ideas explored previously in their

Empire

'trilogy' such as the common, the multitude, and globalisation. It also introduces a new political concept of

'assembly', which draws on Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's concept of an 'assemblage' (French:

agencements

) as a

way of thinking about mass movements and the role of constituent power. It also provides analyses of events that

occurred in the years since

Commonwealth

was published in 2009, such as the rise of

, the

of work, and the

. It continues their reflections on the character and goals of

leaderless movements, and especially focuses on the ways in which these movements can seek to self-organise in

and egalitarian ways. They propose that instead of the usual model of leadership and movement in

which leadership serves to articulate the long-term and 'large scale' programme of the multitude, this relationship

should instead be inverted: leadership instead comes to serve specific, tactical, and short-term ends (such as the

organisation of specific moblisations, protests, direct action, strikes, etc.), while the multitude (or collective)

serves to "articulate the long-term goals and objectives" to which the leadership must submit and facilitate.

The book received generally positive reviews. Writing for

, Kyle Perry argues that the central claim

of the book is that "advocates for a truly democratic world must no longer refuse the demands of leading,

strategizing, decision making, and institution building that can otherwise remain variously secondary, absent, or

anathema amid left, liberatory, and progressive causes."

It also rejects as a false binary the idea that liberal-

democratic institutions should either be occupied or destroyed; instead, "The better move is to get creative about

inventing new, effective, and crucially 'nonsovereign' institutions. Such institutions are not meant to 'rule over us'

but to 'foster continuity and organization" and to "help organize our practices, manage our relationships, and together

make decisions'." Writing for the

, Terence Renaud argues that "Given how much the

political terrain has changed since

Empire

appeared in 2000, much of Hardt and Negri's project appears dead. It has

said all that it's going to say. Even so, the authors do an excellent job of highlighting the internal challenges that

a resurgent left will face. Every new left risks degenerating into sectarian conflict, heavy-handed leadership, and

complacency about its own righteousness. Hardt and Negri insist on a self-critical and internally democratic left that

never ceases to call its own assumptions into question. In order to transform society, the left must first transform

itself."

Between 2016 and 2019, Negri published a three-volume collection of essays written in various years, but translated,

collected and published together in English in these volumes. The first volume was titled

Marx and Foucault

, and

published on 16 December 2016.

In this first volume, Negri aims to show "how the thinking of Marx and Foucault were

brought together to create an original theoretical synthesis – particularly in the context of Italy from May '68

onwards." The second volume was titled

From the Factory to the Metropolis

, and was published in February 2018. This

second volume turns towards an analysis of the passage from the traditional proletarian 'mass worker' of industrial

capitalism (especially as found in Marx's writing) to the contemporary 'socialised worker', as well as of the modern

'metropolis', which Negri describes as "a space of antagonisms between forms of life produced, on the one hand, by

finance capital (the capital that operates around rents), and on the other by the 'cognitive proletariat'. The central

question is then how 'the common' of the latter can be mobilised for the destruction of capitalism."

The third and

final volume of this 'trilogy' was titled

Spinoza: Then and Now

, which was published in February 2020.

In this third

volume, Negri "examines how Spinoza's thought constitutes a radical break with past ideas and an essential tool for

envisaging a form of politics beyond capitalism."

On 29 October 2021, Negri published the first volume of a new trilogy of books. This first volume is titled

Marx in

Movement: Operaismo in Context

, and seeks to provide an account and examination of the history of Italian Autonomist

(or '

') thought, particularly in terms of Negri's theoretical development of the concept of the

'social worker' as an attempt to update Marxism in light of the changes since the factory-based industrial labour of

Marx's time.

Personal life and death

[

]

Negri married Paola Meo in 1962.

They had two children (Anna and Francesco) and later divorced.

He has another

daughter, Nina Negri, from a separate relationship. He met the philosopher

in 1996; they married in

2016.

Negri died in Paris on 16 December 2023, at the age of 90.

Electoral history

[

]

Election

House

Constituency

Party

Votes

Result

13,521

Elected

Bibliography

[

]