8.9.25

Marx beyond Marx


Communism is only reversal of work in so far as this reversal is suppression: of work. Liberation of the productive forces: certainly, but as a dynamic of a process which leads to abolition, to negation in the most total form. Turning from the liberation-from-work toward the going-beyond of-work forms the center, the heart of the definition of communism. We must not be afraid to insist on this theoretical moment: the liberation of living labor exalts its creative power, the abolition of work is what gives it life in every moment. The content, the program of communism are a development of universal needs which have emerged on the collective but miserable basis of the organization of waged work, but which in a revolutionary way signify the abolition of work, its definitive death.

Antonio Negri
1933 - 2023