Chapter 1: Subjective Figures of the Crisis ... - Negri in English

afterthought. The encamped protesters—being together,
discussing, disagreeing, struggling—seem to have rediscovered a
truth that Spinoza foresaw: real security and the destruction of
fear can be achieved only through the collective construction of
freedom.
Constitute Yourself
You don't represent me! i Que se vayan todos ! Such
refusals of representation and representative governmental
structures have been pronounced by millions during the crisis of
neoliberalism at the beginning of the twenty-first century. One
novelty of these protests and these refusals consists in the fact
that they immediately make clear that the crisis is not only
economic, social, and political, but also constitutional.
Representative structures and liberal governance regimes are all
thrown into question. The audacious conceptual leap made by
the theory' and practice of parliamentary' representation (from
the "will of all" to the "general will") has finally proven to be fatal,
and even the new forms of governance pulled out as a safety net
to catch the falling acrobat have proven too weak and frayed. It's
increasingly hard for anyone to believe in the resurrection and
redemption of the constitution. Ancien regime was once the
name for the rule of those in powdered wigs, but now instead the
representative machine is an ancien regime! The republican
constitutions have had their time, more than two centuries. Isn't
that enough
Political and constitutional debate has to be reopened. And
the radical change demanded today is not only about content
(from the private and the public to the common) but also about
form. How can people associate closely together in the common
and participate directly in democratic decision making How can
the multitude become prince of the institutions of the common
in a way that reinvents and realizes democracv This is the task
of a constituent process.
When financial debts have been transformed into social
bonds, when singularities interact in productive networks, and
when the desire for security is freed from fear, then, from the
inversion of these three figures, subjectivities capable of