2023-12-16 10:53:00
Toni Negri died tonight in Paris, at the age of 90. The news, announced to the media by his wife Judith Revel, was confirmed on Instagram by his daughter Anna Negri.
Founder of Potere Operaio, leader of Autonomia Operaia, theoretician of the anti-State, considered the ideologue of the armed struggle, convicted of subversive association and then a fugitive for a long time, the philosopher and political scientist Toni Negri personified in the world of the far left, despite himself, “the bad teacher” par excellence.
Born in Padua on 1 August 1933, Antonio (Toni) Negri obtained the chair of political philosophy at the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Padua in 1967, where he became director of the Institute of State Doctrine. Considered among the major thinkers of the doctrine of the state worldwide, he has always been actively involved in movements to transform society: after the ‘years of lead’, the book that made him famous throughout the world is “Empire” ( Rizzoli, 2002), written in collaboration with the American philosopher Michael Hardt, a highly critical text of liberal globalization and modern imperialism.
After having participated in the experience of the “Quaderni Rossi” in the early Sixties, Professor Negri had a crucial importance in the theoretical development of workerism and later in the foundation of Potere Operaio (1967) and in Autonomia Operaia (1973 ). Arrested in the “7 April” operation of 1979 – on the orders of the deputy prosecutor of Padua Pietro Calogero – on charges of being part of the Red Brigades that ordered the killing of the Christian Democrat statesman Aldo Moro, he was sentenced to twelve years in prison with the accusation of being “morally responsible” at the end of a much discussed trial.
Negri has always proclaimed himself innocent and the victim of a miscarriage of justice or a conviction for a crime of opinion. In 1983 he became a member of the Radical Party and, enjoying parliamentary immunity, he left prison and took refuge in France where he continued his career as a university professor. He returned to Italy in 1997 and was finally released from prison after a plea bargain in 2003.
Between the 1960s and 1970s Negri was one of the major theorists of workerist Marxism. And again in the Seventies, alongside the intense activity of political militancy in the organizations of the extra-parliamentary left, he elaborated his theory of the “worker avant-garde” in texts such as “Crisis and workers’ organisation” (Feltrinelli, 1974), “Proletarians and the State. For a discussion on workers’ autonomy and historical compromise” (Feltrinelli, 1976), “The State form. For the criticism of the political economy of the Constitution (Feltrinelli, 1977), “Domination and sabotage. On the Marxist method of social transformation” (Feltrinelli, 1978), “Marx beyond Marx. Workbook on the Grundrisse” (Feltrinelli, 1979).
In the 1980s, while in hiding in France, he dedicated himself to the study of the political thought of Baruch Spinoza, contributing, together with Louis Althusser and Gilles Deleuze, to his theoretical rediscovery. With the affirmation of globalization, in the 2000s, in collaboration with Michael Hardt, he wrote very influential books in contemporary political theory: in addition to “Empire”, “Multitude” (Rizzoli, 2004), “Commune. Beyond the private and the public” (Rizzoli, 2010), “This is not a Manifesto” (Feltrinelli, 2012), “Assembly” (Ponte alle Grazie, 2018). His other books also include “The Constituent Power. Essay on the alternatives of the modern” (SugarCo, 1992), “Goodbye Mr Socialism” (Feltrinelli, 2006), “The Porcelain Factory. For a new political grammar” (Feltrinelli, 2008) .
“Story of a communist” (edited by Girolamo De Michele, Ponte alle Grazie, 2015) is the title of the autobiography. From childhood in the atrocious years of the Second World War and Catholic education to philosophical apprenticeship to communist militancy, from ’68 to the Piazza Fontana massacre, from Potere Operaio to Workers’ Autonomy and the ’77 movement, the story of Toni Negri is in some respects the mirror of a collective adventure of thought that dreamed and attempted an assault on the sky of injustice and exploitation. (by Paolo Martini)
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