Situating the common. De Angelis, Agamben and non-capitalist outside

Abstract

In my article I propose to see the global, multidirectional movement for the commons as a project which lies in a horizon emerging from Karl Marx’s Capital. I treat the commons as a non-capitalist alternative, organized around direct producers’ practices, which experience dispossession not only through extraction of surplus value, but also through the loss of the whole commonweal caused by the dominance of the commodity form. I use Rosa Luxemburg’s writings and books, co-authored by Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt, to point out the weaknesses of the theoretical perspective that combines the common with the disappearance of the non-capitalist outside and transformation of its inside. I refer to Massimo de Angelis to present the common as an outside and to Giorgio Agamben to exhibit the Franciscan form-of-life as a project which exceeds the inside/outside division. Different interpretations of the common in the light of the theory of the non-capitalist outside refer to competing visions of commonism.