The Multitude and its Doppelgänger: An Exploration of Global Smooth Space

Abstract

Deleuze and Guattari’s global smooth space of capital, coupled to the war machine and Hardt and Negri’s ‘Empire’ and ‘multitude,’ serve as jumping-off points for an exploration of the tools and techniques used by the ‘secret state’ to achieve Pax Americana and Full Spectrum Dominance—contemporary militarist and ‘intelligence’ doctrines associated with the rise of the US Neoconservative movement, but rooted in a deeper geohistory of globalization and post-fascist transnational corporatism. The basic argument put forth is that Hardt, Negri, Deleuze, and Guattari do not sufficiently explicate (nor barely even acknowledge) the cryptic rhizomatics of the global corporatocracy, thus their support of global resistances and revolutions falls short and is theoretically weakened. This article explores a diverse array of ‘conspiratorial’ topics, largely through ‘geopolitical forensics’ lenses suggested by a materialistic reading of A Thousand Plateaus. The ‘spectral networks’ of International Communism and International Terrorism are presented as doppelgängers of the multitude—networks of bogeymen largely in the employ of Empire. The conclusion offers suggestions for several tunnels of approach to rhizomatic revolution, including confederated ‘vacuoles’ and holey spaces as foils to Full Spectrum Dominance. It is argued that neither ‘Empire’ nor the worldwide smooth space of peaceful terror take into account the continued existence of the ‘deep’ power centers of Russia and China, both of which, while drawn deeply into global capitalism, resist submission to the one-world, onesystem model projected by the West as a necessary state of security for the planet. Beyond these two are other emerging vacuoles of nation-state resistance that manage to maintain just enough separation from Western destabilization to be able to devise new modes of revolution at the state level—a prime example being Bolivia.