The Multitude Public Square

The people are the result of a centripetal movement: from atomized individuals, to the unity of the "body politic," to sovereignty. The extreme outcome of this centripetal movement is the One. The multitude, on the other hand, is the outcome of a centrifugal movement: from the One to the Many.

The general intellect, or public intellect, if it does not become a republic, a public sphere, a political community, drastically increases forms of submission... The sharing of linguistic and cognitive habits is the constituent element of the post-Fordist process of labor. All the workers enter into production in as much as they are speaking-thinking... The publicness of the intellect, when it does not take place in a public sphere, translates into an unchecked proliferation of hierarchiesas groundless as they are thriving.