Real submsumption means that there is no mode of production possible out of capitalism. Any form of life, language, and thus any form of resistance becomes impossible in postmodernity - which is the role of postmodernity. The paradox is that marxist subsumption was completed while at the same time, face with real subsumption, thought became weak, light. In the face of this biopower, no form of indigenous resistance was possible. Agamben thought of resistance as of something only possible as external. Other positions too traversed this too, like those of Deleuze and Guattari, Foucault. Often, first production of Foucault was interpreted as realization of this biopower. In both instances of Foucault and Guattari all references to real productivity of life were removed, drained. So that constitutive references had been removed. This is materialism versus idealism in philosophy. On one hand, constructive Machiavelli, Spinoza, Marx, on the other hand, destructive line of Rousseau, Hobbes, Descartes, Hegel. Presupposition of « constitution of time » is : if capital dominates society, that doesn’t mean that very form of antagonism is removed - it continues within subsumption. Constitution of real submsuption is that entirety of society is traversed by antagonism. The first book was concerned with trajecting the forms of real subsumption and affected organization of work, conciousness, and this is where the question of time became central. What became clear is that law of value entered the crisis, time as measurement of value - precisely because of impossibility of measuring. It is passage of time as zero point of control, to the point of expansion to entire fabric of life. Second book, Kairos, was concerned with ways of alternative modes to those of real sumbsumption. The investigation is concerned with questions of singularity, the common and multiplicity. The philosophical, ethical question is how does one creates another word. Specifically, what is the relationship between real sumsumption and our desire. This the way in which communism can be reborn. Though marxism becomes our central point of thought, communism becomes before and after it.

response by Judith Revel

Key problem one finds in Foucault’s and Negri’s work is how does one finds modes of resistance which are not at the same time confirmation of the power it resists. Reference which often found (in negri’s work, i guess) is that modernity is instrument of power. Karios is concerned with ontology of Empire. What is ontology of space without limits, that has no outside any more. large banner, "welcome to the counter-empire", she spotted recently, she said to people that there is no such thing, they changed it to « welcome to the empire ». Distinction between biopower and biopolitics is ... (missing bit). How does one exists power that so directly affects life. What one does other than what’s obvious, to whitdraw life, which is in a sense response by suicide killers. Interstin thing about distinction biower/life, which Foucault develops, is that biopower is concerned with investment in life, and what is produced this way is :

 first, to de-singularise subject, to render them into labour power
 secondly, to make them into powerless cycle of production (production is reproduction here)

This is an argument put forward in Karios, that the main mode, theme, of production last two centuries is reproduction. Mistificatory power of biopower is to make one think that reproduction is production. The answer is to face it with production. There is certain opacity in Negri’s work between labour and production creation. Living labour means only and purely the power to create being, while there’s only void - what negri repeats. Multitude is not a class concept in this sense. Toni would like to be hobby philosopher, she would like to be hobby creator.

response by Julian ...

Negri, to Judith : his own political positions starts with refusal of work, which was a fundamental form under which movements in 60-70’s in which he participated operated. It was against Fordism and it was revolutionary because it showed unsuistanbility of Fordist model. Refusal of work was also construction of self which was free from political and economical contradictions that judith mentioned earlier. Emancipation from work and liberation of work was important. He refuses to get rid of the concept of labour, because only concept of labour has the capacity of grasping the construction of life, community and political engangememnt. To refuse is to follow two lines of thought : one that work can be reduced to activity - work is expressive capacity, but that is insufficient since it disconnects labour from concept of poverty. Second line, that he also refuses to follow, which also lives in marxism since 30’s, one of Benjamin, which shows work as creation. Living labour creates being on the edge of void. New theoretical determinations of notion of class are not avoidable. And there are more profound reasons, since investigating immaterial labour gives new insight in creation. Today, labour is imidiately cooperative, while cooperation in the past came after individual work.

negri, to julian : we can not escape dialectics on war, although we would all want to. It’s a concrete problem, political one.

Question on void. negri replies that Spinoza’s universe is one of expansion, of love, of community.

Dialectics of the work has completely broken down. Ontology is constructed by material work. There’s nothing eternal in it, it’s simply what we find ourselves in it.

Multitude is in three ways :

- sociologically, reality of social labour, against the class - proposal of communism, against the people - notion of democracy which is totally alien to democracy we know

Comment by peter osbourne : communism is already ontologically present in capitalism. Today we are closer to communism than we were at the beginning of capitalism.

negri : Individualism is illusionary. Fascist concept of real subsumtion, and a Stalinist one, is ... (lost it here)

peter : we than only need to produce the act, not the new social being, since we have one.

negri : there’s something of it in my work. it links with the problem of war. Bush as a war, his construction of reality, is a formidable closure, and the war becomes zero point. Which is the condition of multitude. I’ve never seen such happy marches. ......... Concept of multitude is there to pose the problem of communism on that level.

greg : you spoke of commonality earlier. as you are aware of, capitalism started with closure of commons, which at that time was land. today, culture and science are being closed of through copyright and patents. how do you see this ?

negri : there’s a problem in reapropration of this by the multitude. the real problem is, WHAT IS THE JURIDICAL FORM BY WHICH WE CAN RE-APPROPRIATE THOSE COMMONS ? By this we have to enter law on new level. The problem for todays jurors is how to find new forms for this reapropriation of common. Which comes back to the definition of multitude. So that definition of multitude given here is one of excess. It’s no longer matter of property, but of non programmable excess of production. We move form critique of labour time and its non-mesauranbility to the point beyond measure.

eric : Why love, not desire ?

negri : because desire comes before militancy, militancy comes with love.