Sublime

interiorized within the subjects themselves.

Empire dictates its laws and maintains the peace according to a model of postmodern right and postmodern law,

In Empire, no subjectivity is outside,

Whereas within its domain the nation-state and its attendant ideological structures work tirelessly to create and reproduce the purity of the people, on the outside the nation-state is a machine that produces Others, creates racial difference, and raises boundaries that delimit and support the modern subject of sovereignty.

pessimistic description of presocial human nature and attempted through reliance on a transcendental notion of power to establish the legitimacy of the state.

In disciplinary society, then, the relationship between power and the individual remained a static one:

Empire forms on this superficial horizon where our bodies and minds are embedded. It is purely positive. There is no external logical machine that constitutes it.

the entire first phase of capitalist accumulation (in Europe and elsewhere) was conducted under this paradigm of power.