The Common

This final volume in Antonio Negri’s new trilogy aims to clarify and develop the ‘common’ as a key concept of radical thought. Here the ‘common’ is understood in a double sense: on the one hand, as a collective of production and consumption in which the domination of capital has been completely realized; on the other hand, as the cooperation of workers and citizens and their assertion of political power. The maturation of this opposition was the sign of the limits of capitalism in our age; the common showed itself as the active force that recomposed production, society and life in a new experience of freedom.

Today the promise of freedom seems undermined by the very institutions founded to uphold it, as charters of Western democracy seek to prioritise individualism. Negri advocates instead a free society which is founded on the premise that the good life will be collectively ordered – in other words, a society which elevates the common. In his vision, giving political expression to those who work and produce is the only way of overturning totalitarian exploitation and enabling each citizen to participate in the development of the city.

Like its companion volumes, this new collection of essays by Negri will be a valuable resource for anyone interested in radical politics and in the key social and political struggles of our time.