The Refusal of Work in Guattari and Negri’s “Communists Like Us“

On this episode, the gang takes a look at Antonio Negri’s and Felix Guattari’s 1985 cowritten essay, “Communists Like US”. Guattari and Negri take a look at the state of socialist governmentality and examine the causes of the failure of the worker movement in Italy in the late seventies. The outlook seems bleak, but in these developments Negri and Guattari identify various communist potentialities in various opposition movements. Through a new pluralist approach, one that affirms singularities and seeks newer registers of solidarity, they see a promising future. This episode also explores the various schisms, some of which manifest in the discussion itself, that exist within the autonomist movements themselves. Whether you want to affirm the multitude or spread anarchy, this episode has something for you.