Paulo Virno (2004) _A Grammar of the Multitude: For an Analysis of Contemporary Forms of Life_, trans. Isabella Bertoletti, James Cascaito, Andrea Casson, New York: Semiotext(e).

general statement:

Virno defines the concept of the multitude in some detail, drawing particularly on the contrasting views of Hobbes and Spinoza. His understanding is partly derived from the idea of 'public intellect' that in Marx, is called general or mass intellect, and probably owes something to the 'nous poietikos' (productive, poietic intellect) from Aristotle (2004: 38). Virno's thesis in extremely concise form is: 'if the publicness of the intellect does not yield to the realm of the public sphere, of a political space in which the many can tend to common affairs, then it produces terrifying effects. _A publicness without a public sphere_: here is the negative side - the evil if you wish - of the experience of the multitude.' (2004: 40) 

He is arguing that post-Fordist labour is shared, collective, communicative. As such, it both erodes the traditional division of labour and can also foster dependence. However, the publicness of the 'intellect' is not a positive public force unless it is at the same time political. 

labour and action (cf. arendt) and performance:

The once unquestionable separation of labour (or poiesis), action (or praxis) and intellect has dissolved. The production of free software might illustrate the point: to make public, as a result of mass intellect and labour. This, again, is a positive force, if if it as the same time a result of political work, action, thinking. Virno is extending the work of Hannah Arendt in this respect (in _The Human Condition_ [1958], see 2000). She argues that politics has imitates labour, whereas Virno thinks the opposite that labour imitates politics  - or indeed, that poeisis has taken on the appearance of praxis (2004: 50-1). That labour increasingly takes on the forms of political action or indeed depoliticised action explains the current' crisis of politics, the sense of scorn surrounding political praxis today, the disrepute into which action has fallen' (2004: 51).'

The purpose of the activity is found in the activity itself. Quoting Aristotle, Virno further explains the point:
'For while making has an end other than itself, action cannot; for good action [understood both as ethical conduct and as political action, Virno adds] itself is its end.' (2004: 52) 

Virno's example of this is in his discussion of 'virtuosity' to indicate the special capabilities of a performing artist. He is drawing upon Arendt's observation that the performing arts have a strong affinity to politics. A performance is characterised by its lack of an end product, or at least a product that is indistinguishable from the performance itself (2004: 52). Furthermore, it operates in real-time and has its own sense of purpose or fulfillment. In this context, it would appear that many of these attributes could be assigned to the virtuosity of programmers and programs.

That an audience is required for the virtuoso performance emphasises the dependence on others and the link to politics, and the lack of an end product. Both politics and the performance require a 'publicly organized space' as does labour under post-Fordism (Virno 2004: 55). Virno also links this sense of vituousity to speech as a phenomena that has purpose in itself, and does not produce an end product independent of the act of speech itself, and operates in a publicly organised space. He continues:
'It is enough to say, for now, that contemporary production becomes "virtuosic" (and thus political) precisely because it includes within itself linguistic experience as such.' (2004: 56) 

The question for Virno is: ' what is the _score_ which the virtuosos-workers perform? What is the script of their linguistic-communicative _performances_?' (2004: 63). The score is 'general intellect' as the 'know-how on which social productivity relies', as a 'attribute of living labour' (2004: 64-5). General intellect in this virtuosic sense requires political action as it results from human living labour involving communication. The script is by no means determined and does not have an end product in sight, it is contrast: 'virtuosity without a script, or rather, based on the premise of a script that coincides with pure and simple _dynamis_, with pure and simple potential' (2004: 66). 

For Virno, this potential of utilising general intellect for political action is something necessary and he proposes two strategies of civil disobedience and 'exit' or defection in opposition to servility. Perhaps one should simply conclude that the script, score, code is indeterminate and thereby full of radical potential. Potential is that which is not yet present, and this is as important to capitalism as it is for alternatives to capitalism. Virno claims that 'Post-Fordism is the "communism of capital"' (2004: 110) as it incorporated aspects of socialism and general intellect in paradoxical form. If under capitalism potential is commodified, then positive potential must remain without end product, remain in the public realm, and remain performative.

Idle talk represents this potential. In contrast to Heidegger's position of idle talk as a poor experience, Virno insists that idle talk is performative (in the sense that John Austin describes in _How to Do Things with Words_, 1962). In idle talk (the non-referential aspects of language), words determine actions and events, and there is something fundamentally performative in this. For example: 'In the assertion "I speak," I _do_ something by _saying_ these words; moreover, I declare what it is that I do while I do it.' (2004: 90) Work is now bound to speaking and the use of communications technologies. 
[note: Virno argues that it is not the parole but the langue which is mobilised (2004: 91).]