Multitudes 3 on Europe and Empire

* Special issue: Multitudes #3: Europe et Empire

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Article 1: L.F. Bravo: Empire and Sovereignty

Michel Bauwens, 2004:

Bravo starts by pointing out that for many schools of thought, usch as that of Luhman, the concept of sovereignty is obsolete, since:

   - society and the state now interpenetrate themselves and
   - the state has dissolved itself in subsystems, none of which dominates the other

Foucault himself said the regime of sovereignty characterized by 'faire mourir et laisser vivre', had been replaced by the disciplinary regime of the 18th and 19th cy: 'faire vivre et laisser mourir'. Only then did the state start determining fields of discipline (army, school, poorhouse/factory, hospital, and psychiatric ward), each with the regulation of their own knowledge, aimed at directing behaviour,i.e. living .

With the breakdown of the factory discipline of Fordism, the whole system became obsolete. And with it, the sovereignty of the nation-state, the post-war social compromise, and the Keynesian economy. The new post-fordist society needs finer mechanisms of control, as well as for the management of risk, in the context of globalisation, i.e the new sovereign power of Empire.