The Subversive Seventies

Political philosopher Hardt (Assembly) offers an incisive reassessment of global radical movements of the 1970s—an often maligned decade in histories of leftist politics. According to Hardt, the ’70s is when “neoliberal discipline and control” developed as a response to the popular uprising of the 1960s. However, it is also the decade when agitators for political change, under the pressure of being considered “subversives” by governments, first innovated many of the 20th century’s most enduring tools of political resistance. Hardt’s wide-ranging analysis includes Islamic Liberation Theology, the Weather Underground bombings, and Italy’s “proletarian shopping sprees,” when large organized groups would take items from stores without paying. He focuses on evolving tactics: for example, armed militants in Germany and Italy discovered that direct combat with the state robbed them of legitimacy in the eyes of the public; and French watchmakers in the town of Lip took over their factory and inaugurated a pathbreaking experiment in workers’ self-management, but failed to achieve official recognition, revealing the futility of attempts at ground-up change without the backing of a wider social movement. (He points to worker takeovers in Chile and Portugal that were longer lasting because of the context of widespread upheaval in which they occurred.). Hardt builds powerful connections across diverse regions and histories. The result is a striking theoretical take on the murky politics of an ill-defined era. (Aug.)