ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the contours of a 'postmodern biopolitics'. It is linked to the concept of Empire, which Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri use to describe a new global system of domination characterized by a tight interlocking of economic structures with juridico-political arrangements. 'Biopolitical production' refers to dissolving divisions between economics and politics and between nature and culture, denoting a hitherto unknown stage of capitalist production. The chapter focuses on the elaboration of Hardt and Negri's argument regarding Multitude and Commonwealth. The argument in Multitude is that a hitherto unknown collective subject, the multitude, is emerging within the new global order; this denotes a transformative power that evades the political representation of peoples, nations, or class structures. In Commonwealth, Hardt and Negri discuss the idea of the commons, claiming that it presents a radical alternative to the dominant forms of property and the prevailing modes of political organization and imagination.
