An Inclusive Litany

12/13/01

Three months after terrorist attacks shook America, Time magazine included Antonio Negri, co-author of the neo-Marxist tome Empire, in its series of seven influential "thinkers exploring new ideas." Time notes that Negri is "living under house arrest in Rome," but does not explain why. In fact, Negri was associated with the Red Brigade terrorist group in the 1970s, and is believed to have had a hand in the kidnapping and murder of Italian prime minister Aldo Moro—by calling Moro's wife to taunt her just before Moro was shot dead.

[Ed.: A sample from the book: "In the passage from disciplinary society to society of control, a new paradigm of power is realized which is defined by the technologies that recognize society as the realm of biopower. In disciplinary society the effects of biopolitical technologies were still partial in the sense that disciplining developed according to closed, geometrical, and quantitative logics. Disciplinarity fixed individuals within institutions but did not succeed in consuming them completely in the rhythm of productive practices and productive socialization; it did not reach the point of permeating entirely the consciousness and bodies of individuals."]