"We Have Populism Because There Is No People"
Mario Tronti

'Quite a number of the terms that we use all the time, and which we thus believe that we understand in all their significance, are, in reality, only fully clear to a privileged few. As in the case of the terms “circle” or “square”, which everyone uses, though only mathematicians have a clear and precise idea of what they really mean; so, too, the word “people” is on everyone's lips, without them ever getting a clear idea in mind of its real meaning'. So said the mathematician and philosopher Frédéric de Castillon, victorious participant in the 1778 contest held by the Royal Prussian Academy on the question, close to the heart of Frederick the Great, 'is it useful for the people to be tricked?' 'Normally, by “the people” we mean' – Castillon continued – 'the majority of the population, almost constantly occupied by mechanical, rough and wearisome tasks, and excluded from government and roles in public life'. Here, we are dealing with the eve of the French Revolution – but in Germany, where nation and people had not yet met, as they already had some time before in England, France and Spain, by way of their absolute monarchies. Thus we are also talking about here, in Italy. Frédéric de Castillon arrived in Berlin having come from Tuscany. Nation and people grew together in the modern age. And what brings them together is the modern state. There is no nation, without the state. But there is no people, without the state. This is important, first in order to understand the question, and moreover in order to grasp it within the time that concerns us, and in which we are engaged. Because the theme is an eternal one, Biblical more than it is historical.

My Encounter with the "Precarious and Service Workers Assembly" of Occupy Oakland
Alexander Selkirk

In early spring of 2012, announcements appeared at various internet sites calling for a “Workers Against Work -- Precarious and Service Workers Assembly,” ostensibly connected to or an outgrowth of the Occupy movement in Oakland, California.

The first leaflet I saw for it said this:

“As service workers, we are often both overworked and underpaid; with Management forcing workers to work ever faster in an ever shorter amount of time. Productivity and speed-of-service requirements increase while hours per week are slashed. It’s clear: The harder we work, and the less we get paid, the richer they get! Many of us are already in tough situations as parents, immigrants, young people and students. Racism is blatantly apparent at many of our workplaces, with Latino and immigrant workers confined to back of the house positions, maintaining a racial hierarchy to keep us separated. For some, a job at a restaurant or a café is a 2nd or even 3rd job, a result of the declining wages of other careers. Even worse, we often find ourselves forced into student loan and credit card debt because of low pay. All the while, rent, food, and transportation costs climb through the roof.

The Creativity of the Common
Nuovo Cinema Palazzo

The following considerations are food for thought derived from and developed throughout a series of meetings and debates with the occupants of the Teatro Valle occupato and other subjects sharing the process of creation of the “common”.

The constituent dimension of the common good
Let’s begin with the centrality and historical urgency of the practice we are producing with the creation of the common good. We believe that what the traditional legal models are now compelled to face is, more than the regression of state sovereignty, the relation between constitutions and social autonomies, and the regulatory claim of the first over the latter.

To this regard, our effort is not employed in the direction of a wholehearted defense of the Constitution, nor towards its absolute abolishment. It is rather aimed at creating a dialectic relationship with those institutions in which we find a potential “gap” for creative intervention, therefore penetrating the legal system, regaining the means of affirmation of our struggle, of collective action, and of a new battleground for ourselves and others.

A Letter to Bifo
Sandy's Sister

Dear Bifo,

What are we welcoming you to in post-Sandy New York? How to welcome a friend to a disaster site, especially when the disaster is surpassing our capacity to see it, yet alone bear witness, or act up to it, in response or relation to it.

What is the context here in New York, you and many other comrades must be wondering?

The storms came and went, and we are living in their wake. The city is what you would expect after a very intensive period of resistance, the energies have dispersed but remain tethered. The struggles have coalesced around a few more focused initiatives. What exploded last Fall here in the city is clearly not finished. A lot of people remain involved on an almost daily basis and at this moment, a lot of the work of the last year has translated into organizing relief efforts from the grounds of the most devastated parts of the city.