As Ahmet says and Carrol agrees,
> I do not understand the need for a label. <
that's right. Labels don't really help much, especially since they tend to become reified. (Also, I'm no expert on postmodernism, since I have a hard time understanding it. Myself, I'm a post-toastie instead.)
But Hardt seems to be leaning toward an old-fashioned Marxist-style (to use another label) assertion of inevitability, i.e., to say that "We can be confident that in the long run their real interests will lead global elites to support empire and refuse any project of US imperialism."
He does condition that inevitability in the next sentence, when he faces the possible "tragedy" that the "elites are incapable acting in their own interest."
This fits with my initial view that Hardt is putting forth the liberal dilemma of the conflict between what's good for society as a whole (as represented by capitalist elites) and what's good for individual elites, perhaps leading to the "tragedy." So the near-inevitability of world capitalist unity ("empire") is within a liberal framework, despite the consciousness that class can play a role.
BTW, the idea that imperialism may be bad for capitalism as a whole (i.e., being a form of capitalist contradiction) isn't new. The rabid nation-state contention (interimperialist rivalry) that characterized the first three or four decades of the 20th century (as described by people like Bukharin) helped produce not only World War I, but also the Depression and Nazism. The difference seems to be that Hardt seems to be pretty positively disposed toward ultra-imperialism (imperialist unity) or what he and Negri call "empire."
Jim
