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

Is it possible to make these "post-state" aspects of
federalism the basis for a legislative power that is not closed and
centralized This begins to take form when we think of a
legislative power as following the temporality of the social
movements and adjusting its federal structures to their spatial
dimensions, which are at once local and widely disseminated.
The complexity of this arrangement, in fact, becomes productive:
the networks can serve to measure and weave together in
relation to the singular dimensions of legislative functions.
The assemblies established in the encampments and
occupied squares of 2011 spread power in such a federalist
fashion. Each assembly functions according to its own rules and
develops its own techniques for expression and decision making.
In some cases simple mechanisms are used, such as shaking
your hands in the air or following on Twitter to show approval for
a proposition. The assemblies all share, though, the intention to
disrupt the ingrained tendencies to centralize power in a small
group of leaders, and instead they provide a mechanism by which
all can be included in deliberation and decision making. The
assembly form, in other words, serves as a tool for creating a
democratic legislative power in these movements among
hundreds and sometimes thousands of participants. The
assemblies, of course, have not always fulfilled the aspirations
for equal and democratic participation during their brief
existence, but they do nonetheless present a powerful model for
thinking about a possible federalism.
Taking the assemblies as a model for a federalist legislative
power immediately raises a question of scale. How can their form
be extended beyond the confines of the square to society as a
whole The skeptic responds that, just as we learn from ancient
Greece, democratic decision making is possible only among a
small and limited population. Throughout modernity, though,
numerous projects have sought to extend participation in
decision making widely across society, which, even when not
ultimately successful, suggests strategies that we might pursue
today.
Several twentieth-century' socialist initiatives, for example,
sought to spread power in a federalist manner by putting power
in the hands of workers and constructing the means for workers