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

history of constitutional reform has always involved constructed
mediations, which regarded, first, in the case of liberal
constitutions, the mercantile relations of exchange and, later, in
the case of welfarist constitutions, a dialectic between capital and
labor. It is difficult to imagine today what mediations could be
constructed regarding the processes of financialization that live
at the heart of the contemporary' economy. Categories such as
representation and democracy, let alone national sovereignty,
cannot be redefined without recognizing that global financial
markets have become the preeminent seat of the autonomous
production of legality and politics. The command exercised by
finance tends increasingly to leap over the institutional
mediations of the nation-states and impose a kind of blackmail
by which not only employment and salaries but also the
enjoyment of basic rights (from housing to health) depend
ineluctablv on the dynamics and fluctuations of financial
markets.
And yet, in this situation, numerous political struggles,
especially the encampments of 2011, have put forward new
principles that have great constitutional relevance. They have
made of these principles a new common sense and designated
them as the basis of a project of constituent action. Believing that
only a constituent process based in the common can provide a
real alternative, we thus hold these truths to be self-evident, that
all people are equal, that they have acquired through political
struggle certain inalienable rights, that among these are not only
life, liberty', and the pursuit of happiness but also free access to
the common, equality in the distribution of wealth, and the
sustainability of the common. It is equally evident that to secure
these rights, democratic governance must be instituted, deriving
its just powers from the participation of the governed and the
transparency of governmental organization. It is evident, finally,
that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of
these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and
to institute new government, laying its foundation on such
principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall
seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness.