Empire

Capitalism is becoming increasingly global. As free trade agreements are signed, as barriers preventing trade are removed, the world has seen the rise of global capitalism, globalization, and a new entity: the multi-national corporation. Obviously, there are a variety of economic and maybe social implications of this trend today, but Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, two post-Marxist philosophers, focus on the implications that globalization has on sovereignty, and this new entity known as Empire.

As a result of globalization, the sovereignty of the nation-state has declined. This can be seen when individual countries have less influence over corporations because of their ability to relocate overseas and ignore regulations. However, to Hardt and Negri, this does not mean sovereignty has declined, but rather, is shifting to a global level. This is where they coin the term Empire.

Unlike the sovereignty of the nation-state, Empire is deterritorialized. This means (roughly, not really) that while nation-states are defined by clear boundaries, a central locus of power, Empire is fluid, and lacking in any clear center, composed, rather, "of a series of national and supranational organisms united under a single logic of rule."

However, under this Empire, there is also possibility for change. Here, Hardt and Negri introduce the concept of the Multitude, where the conditions of the Empire enable its overthrow. Global capitalism obviously exploits many workers and is an overall oppressive system (that's a blog post for another time, I guess), and thus, Empire, no longer limited by national boundaries, allows a truly global reorganization of democracy, a counter-Empire.

This new development of sovereignty is pretty clearly relevant to the United States today. The ceding of our own nation's sovereignty to a fluid, immanent Empire may have drastic implications. No longer is the United States a solely imperialist power, but rather, merely a piece in the globalized phenomenon known as Empire.

These are rhizomes. They are relevant somehow.

Source:
http://culturalstudiesnow.blogspot.com/2017/03/empire-hardt-and-negri-summary.html