Tournament: MHL | Round: 3 | Opponent: Princess | Judge: Zelda
The accumulation of capital and the form of the modern international economy takes the form of Empire. Empire is a form of sovereignty consolidated by hegemonic governments, international corporations, and organizations representing the people.
Ansaldi 2001, (Saverio, “The Multitude in Empire: Biopolitical Alternatives” in Rethinking Marxism vol. 13 no. 3-4 page 137)
Therein lies the response of imperial and biopolitical capital. The control over biopower exerted by the immaterial work of the multitude finds its point of application in the infinite ramifications of real subsumption. The autonomous and cooperative production of the multitude requires a normalization that is carried out through the institution of a "global constitution" that represents and synthesizes the imperial sovereignty of postmodern capital. Hardt and Negri describe this global constitution as a three-tiered pyramid in which each level includes several components. At the summit is the United States, which acts in accord with the components represented by the United Nations, the G-7 countries, and the associations of major financial groups.
And the affirmative has become the flag bearer of Empire. Hardt and Negri explain how the affirmative team perpetuates transnational capitalism as well as the articulation of the world through capital.
Hardt and Negri 2000 (Michael and Antonio, Empire pgs. 31-33)
In asking ourselves how the political and sovereign elements of the imperial machine come to be constituted, we find that there is no need to limit our analysis to or even focus it on the established supranational regulatory institutions.
The impact is quality of life. Those whose production-value is managed and exploited – face a life of brutal violence, starvation, and poverty.
O’Neill 2002 (John, “Empire versus Empire: A Post-Communist Manifesto” in Theory Culture Society vol. 19 Page 199-200)
The prospect of Empire is underwritten by the US dollar, trusting in the one-eyed god that watches from the great pyramid overlooking the New Age of Global Order – Novus Ordo Seculorum. It is a ?nancial, corporate and military order faced by the G8, GATT, WTO, World Bank, IMF, all towering over the UN, Church, media and NGOs that are charged with representing the interests of the world’s people. Yet, as much as Empire strives for constitutional status, it becomes the very site (non-place) of its own contestation abroad as a sovereign political and economic order whose macro-spectacle of consumptive desire is simultaneously shot through with anxiety and fear among its micro-subjects unsure of its centre, as we remarked earlier.
The Alternative is to reject the affirmative’s attempts at biopolitical control and endorse an exodus from Empire.
This means neither a reactionary resistance to exploitative production, nor a restructuring of capitalism, but simply an abandonment of the system.
Bowring 2004 (Finn, “From the Mass Worker to the Multitude: A Theoretical Contextualization of Hardt and Negri’s Empire” in Capital and Class no. 83 Summer 2004 pgs. 101-132)
If Empire can be superseded neither by the reappropriation of productive forces, nor by the defence of regional autonomy and the assertion of distinctive cultural identities, what mode of resistance is most appropriate to the new global configuration of capital? Though Hardt and Negri are as vague on this question as they are on any subject they address in their work that requires the identification of agents, acts and effects, one political response they do seem to favour is conveyed by the notion of 'exodus'.
The alternative solves because it is an affirmation of the capability of intellectual labor to provide a means of social relations outside of the exploitative structures of Empire.
Ansaldi 2001, (Saverio, “The Multitude in Empire: Biopolitical Alternatives” in Rethinking Marxism vol. 13 no. 3-4 page 137)
The imperial political model thus does not only imply a redefinition of sovereignty and its modalities of application; it also brings up to date profound and irreversible changes in the modes of production. And it is there where we locate the question of biopolitics. In effect, we have seen that imperial sovereignty crosses, in an immanent manner, all the subjectivities onto which it exercises its action. It is thus an eminently bioproductive sovereignty.