Empire by Antonio Negri, Professor Michael Hardt Page B

grubbed old mole!’’17 Well, we suspect that Marx’s old
    mole has finally died. It seems to us, in fact, that in the contemporary
    passage to Empire, the structured tunnels ofthe mole have been
    replaced by the infinite undulations ofthe snake.18 The depths
    ofthe modern world and its subterranean passageways have in
    postmodernity all become superficial. Today’s struggles slither si-
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    T H E P O L I T I C A L C O N S T I T U T I O N O F T H E P R E S E N T
    lently across these superficial, imperial landscapes. Perhaps the in-
    communicability ofstruggles, the lack ofwell-structured, communi-
    cating tunnels, is in fact a strength rather than a weakness—a strength
    because all ofthe movements are immediately subversive in them-
    selves and do not wait on any sort ofexternal aid or extension to
    guarantee their effectiveness. Perhaps the more capital extends its
    global networks ofproduction and control, the more powerful any
    singular point ofrevolt can be. Simply by focusing their own powers,
    concentrating their energies in a tense and compact coil, these
    serpentine struggles strike directly at the highest articulations of
    imperial order. Empire presents a superficial world, the virtual center
    ofwhich can be accessed immediately from any point across the
    surface. If these points were to constitute something like a new cycle
    ofstruggles, it would be a cycle defined not by the communicative
    extension ofthe struggles but rather by their singular emergence,
    by the intensity that characterizes them one by one. In short, this
    new phase is defined by the fact that these struggles do not link
    horizontally, but each one leaps vertically, directly to the virtual
    center ofEmpire.
    From the point ofview ofthe revolutionary tradition, one
    might object that the tactical successes ofrevolutionary actions
    in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were all characterized
    precisely by the capacity to blast open the weakest link ofthe imperialist chain, that this is the ABC ofrevolutionary dialectics, and thus
    it would seem today that the situation is not very promising. It is
    certainly true that the serpentine struggles we are witnessing today
    do not provide any clear revolutionary tactics, or maybe they are
    completely incomprehensible from the point ofview oftactics.
    Faced as we are with a series ofintense subversive social movements
    that attack the highest levels ofimperial organization, however, it
    may be no longer useful to insist on the old distinction between
    strategy and tactics. In the constitution ofEmpire there is no longer
    an ‘‘outside’’ to power and thus no longer weak links—ifby weak
    link we mean an external point where the articulations ofglobal
    power are vulnerable.19 To achieve significance, every struggle must
    attack at the heart ofEmpire, at its strength. That fact, however,
    A L T E R N A T I V E S W I T H I N E M P I R E
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    does not give priority to any geographical regions, as ifonly social
    movements in Washington, Geneva, or Tokyo could attack the
    heart ofEmpire. On the contrary, the construction ofEmpire, and
    the globalization ofeconomic and cultural relationships, means that
    the virtual center ofEmpire can be attacked from any point. The
    tactical preoccupations ofthe old revolutionary school are thus
    completely irretrievable; the only strategy available to the struggles
    is that ofa constituent counterpower that emerges from within
    Empire.
    Those who have difficulty accepting the novelty and revolu-
    tionary potential ofthis situation from the perspective ofthe strug-
    gles themselves might recognize it more easily from the perspective
    ofimperial power, which is constrained to react to the struggles.
    Even when these struggles become sites effectively closed to com-
    munication, they are at the same time the maniacal focus of the
    critical attention ofEmpire.20 They are educational lessons in the
    classroom ofadministration and the chambers