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Value and AffectAuthor(s): Antonio Negri and Michael HardtReviewed work(s):Source: boundary 2, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Summer, 1999), pp. 77-88Published by: Duke University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/303792 .

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Value and Affect

Antonio Negritranslatedby MichaelHardt

I do not thinkthat, in the polemics that have now for two hundredyears accompanied the development of the theoryof value, politicalecono-mists have ever succeeded indecouplingvalue from abor.Eventhe margin-alist currents and the neoclassical schools, whose vocation is dedicated tothis decoupling, are forced to take this relationship nto account (along withits support, mass livinglabor)every time they confrontpoliticaleconomy inthe concrete. Inneoclassical theory,the analyses of market,entrepreneu-rial,financial,and monetaryrelations all refutein principleevery referenceto labor:in fact, it is no surprise that neoclassical theorists have nothingtosay when they are faced withpoliticaldecisions. The theory of labor-valuesprings forth again-and they are frozen in their tracks by it-preciselywhere the founders of the disciplinesituated it.The place ofthe conflict(andthe eventual mediation)ofthe economic relationshipas a social relationshipreveals the ontology of economic theory.What has irreversibly hanged, however,from the times of the pre-dominance of the classical theory of value, involves the possibilityof devel-boundary2 26:2, 1999. Copyright? 1999 by Duke UniversityPress.


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78 boundary / Summer 999

opingthe theoryof value interms of economic order,orrather, he possibilityof considering value as a measure of concrete labor,either individuallyorcollectively.The economic consequences of this difficulty re certainlyim-portant,butequally importantare its anthropologicaland social presuppo-sitions. These latter elements are what I willfocus on here-on this noveltythat transforms the theory of value "frombelow," rom the base of life.Inthe centuries of capitalist modernization(in the passage, that is,from manufacturing o large-scale industry, o use Marx's erms), the pos-sibilityof measuring labor,which had functioned more or less inthe periodof accumulation, progressivelydeclined for two reasons. Inthe firstplace,the possibilityof measurement declined because labor-as it became morehighlyqualifiedand more complex, both individually nd collectively--couldnot be reduced to simple, calculable quantities.Secondly, the possibilityofmeasurement declined because capital, which was becoming more finan-cially oriented and more embedded in State regimes, made increasinglyartificialand manipulable,and thus more abstract, the mediation betweendiverse sectors of the economic cycle (production,social reproduction,cir-culation,and the distribution f incomes).But all this is prehistory.Inthe global market,in postmodernity, heproblemof measure itself cannot be located.Itis certainlytruethat inthe periodof the passage to postmodernity,in the phase of the anti-imperialist nd anticolonialstruggles, the theory oflabor-valueseemed to rise up again in macroeconomic terms, as a theoryof the internationaldivisionof labor,of "unequalexchange,"of postcolonialexploitation.But this renaissance quicklyproved illusory,as soon as it be-came evidentthatthe set of productiveprocesses, beyond being immersedin the multinationalization f industrialactivityand financialglobalization,was furtherintensified by the technological processes of cybernetics andcommunication,as well as by the investment of immaterialand scientificlabor.This does not mean that the internationaldivisionof labor and post-colonialexploitationhave come to an end. On the contrary, hey have beenextraordinarilyccentuated. Butat the same time,they have lost theirspeci-ficity(and thus the possibilityof reactivating he theory of value in concreteinstances) because that type of exploitationhas itself become globalized,has flooded metropolitanterritories,and the measure of exploitationhasdefinitivelydeclined.Inthe economy of postmodernityand in the territoriesof globaliza-tion, the productionof commodities comes about through command, thedivisionof laboris given throughcommand, and the articulationof the mea-


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Negri Valueand Affect 79

sures of labor is undone inglobal command.Thatsaid, however,mythemehere, "valueand affect,"has not been broachedthus farexcept throughthesuggestion of a reconsiderationof the problemof value "frombelow."In effect, when we look at things from the point of view of politicaleconomy-in other words, "fromabove"-the theme of "value-affect"s sointegratedinto the macroeconomic process that it is virtually nvisible.Eco-nomics ignores the problemwithoutany recognitionof difficulties.Amongthe numerous cases, consider two that are exemplary.The first case con-cerns the domestic labor of women and/or mothers/wives. Now, in the tra-dition of politicaleconomy, this theme can in no way be posed outside ofthe consideration of the direct or indirectwage of the worker(male, head offamily),orrather, nmorerecenttimes, outside of the disciplinaryechniquesof the demographic control of populations (and of the eventual interestsof the State-the collective capitalist-in the economic regulationof thisdemographic development).Value is thus assumed by stripping tfrom labor(the labor of women-in this case, mothers and wives), stripping t, inotherwords, fromaffect. A second example resides at the extreme opposite endof the spectrum. This case deals no longer withthe traditionalparadigmsof classical economics but with a reallypostmodern theme: the so-calledeconomy of attention. By this term, one refersto the interest in assumingin the economic calculation the interactivityof the user of communicationservices. In this case, too, even in the clear effort to absorb the produc-tion of subjectivity,economics ignores the substance of the question. As itfocuses attentionon the calculation of "audience,"tflattens, controls,andcommands the productionof subjectivityon a disembodied horizon. Labor(attention)is here subsumed, stripping tfrom value (ofthe subject), that is,fromaffect.Todefine the theme of value-affect,we have to leave behind the igno-rance of politicaleconomy. We have to understand itprecisely on the basisof an apparent paradoxthat Iwould liketo pose in this way: The more themeasure of value becomes ineffectual,the more the value of labor-powerbecomes determinant n production;he more politicaleconomy masks thevalue of labor-power, he more the value of labor-poweris extended andintervenes in a global terrain,a biopolitical errain. Inthis paradoxicalway,laborbecomes affect, or better, laborfinds its value in affect, ifaffect is de-fined as the "power o act"(Spinoza).The paradoxcan thus be reformulatedinthese terms: The more the theory of value loses its reference to the sub-ject (measure was this reference as a basis of mediationand command),the more the value of labor resides in affect, that is, in livinglaborthat is


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80 boundary / Summer 999made autonomous in the capital relation,and expresses--through all thepores of singularand collective bodies-its powerof self-valorization.

DeconstructionMyfirst thesis, a deconstructive and historicalthesis, is that mea-

suring labor,and thus orderingitand leading itback to a theory of value, isimpossible when, as today, labor-power s no longereitheroutside or insidecapitalistcommand (and its capacity to structurecommand).Toclarifyhowthis is ourcontemporarysituation,allowme to referto two cases.First case: Labor-power,or really the use-value of labor-power, soutside of capital. This is the situation in which the labortheory of valuewas constructed in the classical era. Being outside of capital, labor-powerhad to be broughtwithin t.The process of primitive ccumulationconsistedin bringingwithincapitalistdevelopment (and control)the labor-power hatlived outside. The exchange-value of labor-powerwas thus rootedina use-value that was constituted, in large part,outside of the capitalistorganiza-tion of production.What, then, was this outside? Marx poke extensively onthis question. Whenhe spoke of labor-poweras "variable apital"he alludedin fact to a mixtureof independence and subjectivity hat was organized in:(a) the independence of "small-scale circulation" the linkto the earth, thefamilyeconomy, the traditionof "gifts," nd so on); (b) the values properto "worker ooperation"as such, in other words, the fact that cooperationconstitutes a surplusof value that is prior,or at least irreducible,o the capi-talist organizationof labor,even if it is recuperatedby it;and (c) the set of"historicaland moral values"(as Marxput it)that is continuallyrenewed asneeds and desires by the collective movement of the proletariatand pro-duced by its struggles. The struggle over the "relativewage" (which RosaLuxemburgstrongly highlightedin her particular nterpretationof Marxismfromthe perspective of the productionof subjectivity)represented a verystrong mechanism available to the "outside."Use-value was thus rootedfundamentally,even if in a relativeway,outside of capital.A long historiography which spans from the workof E. P.Thomp-son to that of the "workerist"talians and Europeans of the 1970s, andamong which we could situate the brilliantworkof South Asian subalternhistoriographers)describes this situation and translates it into a militantvocabulary.Fora long historicalperiod,then, capitalist development has under-gone an independent determinationof the use-value of labor-power,a de-


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Negri ValueandAffect 81terminationthat is posed (relatively)"outside"of capitalistcommand. Theprice of "necessary labor" to reproducethe proletariat) s thus presented,inthis period,as a quantity hat is natural(and/orhistorical),butinany caseexternal--a quantity hat mediates between the productiveeffectivityof theworkingclass and its social and monetaryinclusion.The specificity of the Marxiananalysis, in the tradition hat aims touse the classical theory of value toward revolutionary nds, is based alsoon the consideration of the (relative)extraneousness of the substance ofuse-value fromlabor-powerwithrespect to the unityof capitalistcommandover the development of accumulation. One could add that, for Marx,theunit used for measuring value was formed outside (or at least alongside)the capitalist process of the productionand reproductionof society.Second case: Labor-power,or really its use-value, is inside capi-talist society. Throughoutits development, capital has continuallyand in-creasingly led labor-powerbackto within ts command;ithas progressivelytaken away labor-power's onditions of reproductionexternal to the capital-ist society and thus has increasinglysucceeded at definingthe use-valueof labor-power nterms of exchange-value-no longer only relatively,as inthe phase of accumulation, but absolutely. "Arbeitmacht Frei."One neednot be a postmodernist to recognize how this reduction(or subsumption)of use-value to a coercive and totalitarianregime of exchange-value wasimplemented beginning in the 1930s in the United States, in the 1950s inEurope,and inthe 1970s inthe ThirdWorld.

Certainlythere are still situations, in the ThirdWorldas well as theFirst, in which importantforms of independence exist in the formation ofproletarianuse-value. But the tendency of theirreabsorption s irreversible.Postmodernitydescribes a continuous,impetuous,and rapid endency.Onecould, in fact, claim that, in distinctionto what stillpersisted in the time ofMarx'sanalysis, today one cannot imagine a definitionof use-value thatcould be given even partially ndependent of exchange-value.Therefore, the economic calculation, originatingwith classical andMarxisteconomics, that foresaw an independent unit of measure (an "out-side") as the basis of the dialectic of capital no longer has any reason toexist. This disappearance is real, and the theory of the measure of valuehas thus become circularand tautological:There is no longeranythingex-ternalthat can offer ita ground.Ineffect-and here, too, there is no need tobe a postmodernistto recognize it-ever since the 1960s (forwhat interestsus here), every use-value has been determined by the regime of capitalistproduction.And also, every value that in the theory of accumulationwas


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82 boundary / Summer 999not posed in an immediatelycapitalistregime (such as the social capacityof reproduction, he productivesurplus of cooperation,the "small-scalecir-culation," he new needs and desires produced by the struggles, and soon), all such value is now immediatelyrecuperatedand mobilizedwithin heregime of (globalized)capitalistcontrol.

Thus, if (to stick to classical terminology)the theory of value mustdeterminea criterionof measure, it can find one today onlywithin he globalconstitution of exchange-value. Now, this measure is money. But money,precisely, is neithera measure of nora relationshipover use-value, but-atthis pointof development-its pureand simple substitution.Inconclusion, the theory of value has ceased to fulfill ts rationalizingfunctionin politicaleconomy (notto mention its foundingrole).This comesout of capitalistdevelopment at the marginsof postmodernity, ransfiguredinto monetary theory--constructed on the horizon of globalization,orga-nized by imperialcommand. "Adollaris a dollar."Money is no longer theproductof a regimeof exchange (between capitaland more or less subjec-tivized labor-power)but the productionof a regimeof exchange. The theoryof value is banalized as an instrumentof monetary measure, of the orderof money.Butthe value of productionhas not been abolished. When the valueof productioncannot be broughtback to measure, it becomes s-misurato(immeasurableand immense). I mean to emphasize here the paradox ofa labor-powerthat is no longer either outside or inside capital: Inthe firstcase, the criterion that allowed for its control, through measure, was itsrelativeindependence (whichtoday no longerexists-labor-power is reallysubsumed); inthe second case, the criterion hat allowedfor the commandof labor-power,despite the absence of measure, consisted in its absorptionin the monetary regime (Keynesianism,to mention the most refinedtech-nique of control).But also this second criterionhas disappeared insofarasmonetarycontrolhas become completelyabstract.We must thus concludethat labor-power,which we findagain inpostmodernity (inthe globaland/orimperialsystem of the capitalisteconomy), is situated in a non-place withrespect to capital.

How Can We Define This Non-Place?To introducethis discussion, one must, first of all, identifythe theo-reticaldisplacement that the globalizationof capitalistexploitationhas de-termined. Now, when one speaks of globalization,one reallyspeaks of it


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Negri Valueand Affect 83ina double sense: extensively, as the global enlargement of the productivefabricthroughmarkets;and intensively,as the absorptionof all of social lifewithincapitalist production.Inthe firstsense, labor-power s presented inmobile and interchangeable,materialand immaterialaggregations (orsub-jectivities),the productionpowerof which is organized accordingto mecha-nisms of mobilization(and/or of segregation, segmentation, and so on):Productive force is here separated from circulation.Inthe second sense,labor-poweris presented as the social fabric, as populationand culture,traditions and innovation,and so forth-in short, its productiveforce is ex-ploited withinthe processes of social reproduction.Production becomescoextensive with reproduction, n the "biopolitical"ontext. (The term bio-politicalhere defines a context of social reproduction,which integratespro-duction and circulation,along withthe politicalmechanism that organizesthem. This is notthe place to explorethis theme more fully:Allowme simplyto introduce the term.)The non-place of labor-power s thus negativelydefinedbythe disso-lutionofthe separationthathad existed among the forms ofthe realizationofcapital--the separate forms that classical economics had recognized. Thenon-place can be positivelydefined both bythe intensityof the mobilizationand by the consistency of the biopoliticalnexus of labor-power.

ConstructionWe have thus far posed a numberof affirmations: 1)that the mea-sure of labor-value,groundedon the independence of use-value, has nowbecome ineffectual;(2) that the rule of capitalistcommand that is imposedon the horizon of globalizationnegates every possibilityof measure, even

monetary measure; and (3) that the value of labor-power s today posed ina non-place and that this non-place is s-misurato (immeasurableand im-mense)--by which we mean that it is outside of measure but at the sametimebeyondmeasure.Toaddress the theme of value-affectnow,we wouldpropose delvinginto one among the many themes that the introduction o this discussionhas presented-that of the nexus between productionand social repro-duction-and investigatingit according to the indications that the analysishas suggested: first, from below, and second, in the immeasurable andimmense non-place.To do this, one must still refuse the temptationto go down a simplepaththat is presented to us: the pathof reintroducinghe Marxianigures of


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84 boundary / Summer 999use-value and pretendingto renovate them inthe context of the new situa-tion. How do the philosophersand politicianswho situate themselves inthisperspective proceed? They reconstruct a fictional use-value that they nos-talgicallyoppose to the growingprocesses of globalization; notherwords,they oppose to globalizationa humanistic resistance. Inreality, ntheir dis-course, they bring o lightagain allthe values of modernity,and use-value isconfiguredinterms of identity. Even when use-value is not invokedexplic-itly, t ends up being inserted surreptitiously.)One example should suffice:the resistance of workers' trade unions to globalization.To establish thisresistance, they resurrect the territorializationnd the identityof the use-value of labor-power,and they insist on this, blind to the transformationsof productivity,desperate, incapable of understandingthe new power thatthe immeasurable and immense non-place offersto productiveactivity.Thispaththus cannot be taken.We must then search for another one. But where can we findit?Wehave said "frombelow."Up until his point,infact, we have reasoned on thebasis of a Marxianrelation that led fromproductionto social reproductionand thus fromvalue to the biopoliticalreality. nthis relation-seen widely-could be includedalso affect;affect could emerge as a power to act on thelowerlimitof the definitionof use-value. Butthis end pointof the deductionof the conditionsof value has onlydeterminedimportant ffects when it hasbeen assumed abstractlyas an element of the unityof calculation. Now,then, one must change the direction of the reasoning, avoid that deduc-tion, and assume ratheran induction--fromaffect to value-as the line ofconstruction.

This lineof constructionhas been adopted withgood results, butthefindingsare nonetheless not sufficientto demonstrate to us the powerof af-fect inthe radicalityand the extension of the effects thatnow, inpostmoder-nity,await us. Iam referringhere to those historiographicaland dialecticalschools Icited earlier-from E. P.Thompson, to the European"workerists"of the 1970s, to the "subaltern" istoriographers.Now,from this theoreticalperspective, affect is assumed from below. Moreover, t is presented, in thefirst place, as a productionof value. Throughthis production,it is repre-sented, then, in the second place, as a productof struggles, a sign, andan ontologicaldeposit or precipitateof the struggles. Affectthus presents adynamicof historicalconstructionthat is rich in its complexity.And yet it isinsufficient.Fromthis perspective, the dynamic of the struggles (and theiraffective behaviors) determines, in fact, in every case, the restructuringofcapitalistcommand (intechnical terms, political erms, and so on). The de-


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Negri/ Valueand Affect 85

velopment of affect is closely related to a dialectic that ends up presentingits dynamicas completely circular-as a dialectic, tout court. Andthere isno good dialectic to separate here fromthe bad dialectic:All the dialecticsare bad. Allare incapableof liberating hemselves fromhistoricaleffectivityand itsenchantment.The dialectic,even a dialectic frombelow,is incapableof presenting radicalinnovationin the historicalprocess, the explosion ofthe powerto act (affect) inall its radicality.A line of reconstructionfrom below must thus be added to the per-ception of the non-place. Only the radicalassumption of the pointof viewof the non-place can liberate us from the dialectic of modernity, n all itsfigures, even those thattriedto develop from below the dialectical construc-tion of affect. What does itmean, then, to add the approachfrombelow,theperceptionof the non-place, and the ruptureof every dialectical instance ina paththat goes from affect to value?Affect can be considered, as a firsthypothesis, as a power toact thatis singularand at the same time universal. It is singularbecause it posesaction beyond every measure that power does not contain in itself, in itsown structure,and in the continuous restructurings hat it constructs. It isuniversal because the affects construct a commonality among subjects. Inthis commonalityis posed the non-place of affect, because this common-ality is not a name but a power; it is not the commonalityof a constrictionor a coercion but of a desire. Here, therefore,affect has nothingto do withuse-value, because itis not a measure buta power,and itdoes not runintolimits butonly obstacles to its expansion.But this firstdefinitionof affect as powerto act opens towardotherdefinitions. We could, in fact, note, inthe second place, that ifthe relation-ship between singularityand commonality (or universality) s not static butdynamic,if inthis relationshipwe witness a continuous movement betweenthe singular that is universalizedand "whatis common" that is singular-ized-well, we couldthen define affect as a power of transformation, forceof self-valorization,which insists on itself in relation o what is common andwhich thereforebringswhat is common to an expansion that does not runinto limits butonly obstacles.Butthis process is not formal:Itis rathermaterial. It s realizedinthebiopoliticalcondition. Inthe thirdplace, then, we speak of affect as powerof appropriation,n the sense that every obstacle that is overcome by theaction of affectdetermines a greaterforce of action of the affect itself, inthesingularityand universalityof its power.The process is ontologicaland itspower is ontological.The conditions of action and transformationare from


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86 boundary / Summer 999time to time appropriatedand go towardenrichingthe powerof action andtransformation.Inthe fourthplace, we could bring together the definitions of affectas power to act in a further definition: affect as an expansive power. Inother words, it is a power of freedom, ontological opening, and omnilateraldiffusion. Really, this furtherdefinition could be seen as pleonastic. If infact affect constructs value from below, if it transformsit according to therhythmof what is common, and if it appropriatesthe conditions of its ownrealization,then it is more than evident that in all of this there resides anexpansive power. But this definition s not pleonastic. We can see that, onthe contrary, t adds a new concept when we insist on the positive tonalityof the non-place, on the irresistibility f affect as power beyond measure,and on its consequent absolutely antidialecticalcharacter.(Playingwith thehistoryof philosophy,which deserves nothingmorethan such a game, onecould add that whereas the first three definitions of affect are Spinozian,this fourth definitionrecuperates a Nietzschean effect.) In any case, theomnilateralexpansivityof affect demonstrates, one could say, the momentthat transvaluates its concept, to the point of determiningthe capacity tosustain the shock or impactof postmodernity.

Back to PoliticalEconomySince value is outside of every measure (outside of both the "natu-ral"measure of use-value and monetary measure), the political economyof postmodernity looks for it in other terrains: the terrainof the conven-tions of mercantileexchange and the terrain of communicative relations.Conventions of the marketand communicativeexchanges would thus bethe places where the productivenexuses (and thus the affective flows) are

established--outside of measure, certainly,but susceptible to biopoliticalcontrol. Postmodernpoliticaleconomy thus recognizes that value is formedinthe relationof affect,that affect has fundamentalproductivequalifications,and so forth.Consequently,politicaleconomy attemptsto controlit,mystifyits nature, and limit ts power. Politicaleconomy must in every case bringproductiveforce undercontrol,and thus it must organize itself to superim-pose over the new figures of valorization and new subjects that produce it)new figures of exploitation.We should recognize here that, reshapingthe system of its conceptsin this way,politicaleconomy has made an enormous leap forwardand hasattemptedto present itself (withoutnegatingthe instance of domination hat


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Negri Valueand Affect 87

defines it but ratherreproducing hat domination n new languages) outsideof the classical dialecticof capital.Itaccepts the impossibilityof determininga measure of the productivity f labor-power hat is objective (transcendentin the case of use-value or transcendental in the case of money). Itthussets its theoryon the terrainmarkedout bythe productionof subjectivityor,really, by productive subjectivity.The latent recognitionthat politicalecon-omy gives to the fact that value is now an investmentof desire constitutes areal and properconceptual revolution. Once again playingwiththe historyof philosophy,which is almost always a disciplineof mystification,one couldhighlighthowtoday AdamSmith's Theoryof MoralSentiments is given pri-orityover The Wealthof Nations,Marx's arly writingsover Capital,Mauss'sSociology of the Giftover MaxWeber'sEconomyand Society, and so forth.)Inany case, this revolutionnpoliticaleconomy is revealing nthat itinvolvesdominating he context of the affects that establish productiverealityas thesuperstructureof social reproductionand as the articulationof the circula-tion of the signs of communication. Even if the measurement of this newproductiverealityis impossible, because affect is not measurable, none-theless in this very productivecontext, so rich in productivesubjectivity,affect must be controlled. Politicaleconomy has become a deontologicalscience. Inotherwords, the projectof the politicaleconomy of conventionsand communication is the controlof an immeasurableproductivereality.And yet the question is more difficult han politicaleconomy sus-pects. We have already highlighted he fact that immeasurabilitymeans notonly"outside measure" butalso, and primarily, beyondmeasure."Probablythe central contradiction of postmodernityresides in this very difference.Affect (and its productive effects) is at its center. Politicaleconomy says,Okay,we willrecognize that what is outside measure cannot be measured,and we will accept that economics thus becomes a nondialectical theo-reticaldiscipline. But that does not take away the fact, politicaleconomycontinues, thatthis outside measure can be controlled.Convention(inotherwords,the set of productivemodes of lifeand exchange) wouldthus presentto politicaleconomy the opportunity o bring back the immeasurabilityofaffect-value under control. This projectof politicaleconomy is certainlyafascinatingand titanic effort!

Nevertheless, what escapes political economy (but which alsofreezes politicaleconomy in its tracks) is the other aspect: value-affectbe-yond measure. Thiscannot be contained.The sublime has become normal.


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88 boundary / Summer 999To Begin the Analysis over AgainAn economy of desire is the order of the day. This is true not onlyin philosophicalterms but also in the (disciplinary) erms of the critiqueof

politicaleconomy-in other words, on the basis of (not so much the modelas) the standpoint proposed by Marx:the standpoint of the oppressedthat constructs insurrectionand imagines a revolutionary econstruction,astandpoint from below that richlyconstructs a non-place of revolutionaryreality.Value-affectopens the way to a revolutionarypoliticaleconomy inwhich insurrection s a necessary ingredientand which poses the theme ofthe reappropriation f the biopoliticalcontext by the productivesubjects.Whatdo we want and what can we do? Responding to these ques-tions scientificallyis not only outside measure but also beyond measure.But it is paradoxicallyeasy to say it inwhat is common, indialogue amongpeople, in every social struggle-when the events are charged withaffec-tivity.Such is the distance between being and affect. In fact, our sociallife, not to mention our productivelife, is submerged by the impotence ofaction, bythe frustrationof notcreating,and bythe castrationof our normalimagination.Where does this come from? Froman enemy. Iffor the enemy mea-suring value is impossible, forthe producerof value the very existence ofa measurer of value is unreal. On the basis of affect, the enemy must bedestroyed. Whereas affect (production,value, subjectivity) s indestructible.

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