The Subversive Seventies

July 15, 2023
An academic inquiry into the democratic impulse behind the progressive and revolutionary movements of the 1970s. Whereas the social movements of the 1960s "marked the end of an era," those of the subsequent decade "mark the beginning of our time," writes Hardt, a professor of political theory in the literature program at Duke. "Subversives" spent the decade "challenging authority, laying siege to the es-tablished order, undermining the time-honored way of life." Most importantly, they combined political activism with "autonomous democratic social project[s]" meant to create "a new society." The strategy was to "dismantle and overthrow the social structures of domination" and experiment with new forms of work, collective governance, and property ownership. The movements avoided hierarchical decision-making, pursued autonomy from the state and capitalism, refused to prioritize one form of inequality and oppression (e.g., worker exploitation) over another (e.g., women's liberation), articulated the intersectionality of injustice, and embraced the strategic multiplicities essential to collective struggle. Hardt offers numerous examples from around the world: peasant liberation in Nicaragua; the Kwangju uprising against military dictatorship in South Korea; the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa; opposition to the building of Narita airport 50 miles outside of Tokyo; Black autoworker insurgency in the U.S.; anti-colonial movements in Portuguese colonies; and gay liberation in the U.K.; among many others. So threatening were these movements that states abandoned mediation and reform for violence and repression, and capitalists redirected investment to nonunionized, low-wage countries. Although many of these movements failed to realize their goals, Hardt insists that "we need to analyze and appreciate [them] relatively independently from the resulting outcomes." Here were the seeds for greater autonomy, recognition of the multiplicity of life, heightened democracy, and personal and collective liberation, "the master concept for the era." In this major contribution to movement politics, Hardt deftly combines inspirational stories with strategic insights.

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September 18, 2023
Political philosopher Hardt (Assembly) offers an incisive reassessment of global radical movements of the 1970s—an often maligned decade in histories of leftist politics. According to Hardt, the ’70s is when “neoliberal discipline and control” developed as a response to the popular uprising of the 1960s. However, it is also the decade when agitators for political change, under the pressure of being considered “subversives” by governments, first innovated many of the 20th century’s most enduring tools of political resistance. Hardt’s wide-ranging analysis includes Islamic Liberation Theology, the Weather Underground bombings, and Italy’s “proletarian shopping sprees,” when large organized groups would take items from stores without paying. He focuses on evolving tactics: for example, armed militants in Germany and Italy discovered that direct combat with the state robbed them of legitimacy in the eyes of the public; and French watchmakers in the town of Lip took over their factory and inaugurated a pathbreaking experiment in workers’ self-management, but failed to achieve official recognition, revealing the futility of attempts at ground-up change without the backing of a wider social movement. (He points to worker takeovers in Chile and Portugal that were longer lasting because of the context of widespread upheaval in which they occurred.). Hardt builds powerful connections across diverse regions and histories. The result is a striking theoretical take on the murky politics of an ill-defined era.