Abstract

In answering a question by M. Lazzarato on the relation between the concept of multitude and that of working class, P. Virno points out the analogies and the differences between the concept of multitude such as it was investigated by the s8th-century philosophers, supposing a right to resistance, and the contemporary multitudes from whom emerge forms of non-representative democracy, menacing the mechanisms of sovereignty. The contemporary multitudes do not mark the end of the working-class : the concept of multitude is opposed to that of the people, not to that of the working-class. Being multitudes does not exclude producing surplus value. In Marx, we also encounter forms of working-classes that are also multitudes on the political level