In The Common, Antonio Negri returns to one of the concepts that sat at the centre of his later political thought: forms of life, labour, knowledge and social wealth that cannot be adequately understood as either private property or state possession.

Written across different moments in Negri’s career and gathered here into a single argument, the book moves from the decline of the postwar political settlement and the crisis of sovereignty toward the possibility of the “common” as something actively produced through social cooperation. Negri explores what contemporary capitalism already depends upon but struggles to contain, all through collective knowledge, communication, care, social labour and forms of association that exceed straightforward ownership.

The later essays widen this into questions of democracy, federalism, institutions, revolution and what it might mean to construct political forms adequate to an era in which the old distinction between public and private has become increasingly useless. Dense, combative late Negri: part Marxist analysis, part political diagnosis, part attempt to name what could exist after both market ownership and state administration cease to look like the only available options.

Edition & condition: Polity Press, 2023. First English edition. Paperback. Light shelf wear; clean and unmarked internally. Very good condition.