Photo by Eric Perrone
In Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s recent book, “CommonWealth” the authors focus on the idea of the city as a location where the disenfranchised are able to organize and take what they have to contend their marginalized position. In other words, the authors look at the common resources available to people and how, when individuals come together,they can leverage their “common wealth” to overcome obstacles.
Referring to this common wealth as the Commons, the authors note that it refers not only to what 18th century European social theorists saw as commonly held land and other physical resources, but also to the brain power or services that individuals are able to provide. For the authors, what makes the Commons visible between individuals is what they call the Felicitous Encounter, or the moment when two individuals come together and because of their interaction, combine their mutual resources to the benefit of a common good. This idea of of the Felicitous Encounter is what Hardt and Negri say is the “great wealth” of the city.
“The great wealth of the metropolis is revealed when the felicitous encounter results in a new production of the common—when, for instance, people communicate their different knowledge’s, different capacities to form cooperatively something new. The felicitous encounter, in effect, produces a new social body that is more capable than either of the single bodies was alone.” (Hardt & Negri, 2010, p. 254)
