Breaking the circle that turns our contestation into a fuel for what dominates us, marking a rupture in the fatality that condemns revolutions to reproduce what they have driven out, shattering the iron cage of counter-revolution-this is the purpose of destitution. The notion of destitution is necessary in order to free the revolutionary imaginary of all the old constituent fantasies that weigh it down, of the whole deceptive legacy of the French Revolution. It is necessary to intervene in revolutionary logic, in order to establish a division within the idea of insurrection. For there are constituent insurrections, those that end like all the revolutions up to now have ended: by turning back into their opposite, those that have been made "in the name of" - in the name of whom or what? the people, the working class, or God, it matters little. And there are destituent insurrections, such as May '68, the Italian creeping May and so many insurrectionary communes. Despite all that it may have manifested that was cool, lively, unexpected, Nuit debout, like the Spanish movement of the squares or Occupy Wall Street previously, was troubled by the old constituent itch. What was staged spontaneously was the old revolutionary dialectic that would oppose the "constituted powers" with the "constituent power" of the people taking over the public space. There's a good reason that in the first three weeks of Nuit debout, Place de la Republique, no fewer than three committees appeared that gave themselves the mission of rewriting a Constitution. What was re-enacted there was the old debate that's been performed to a full house in France since 1792. And it seems there's no getting enough of it. It's a national sport. […] It must be said that the idea of constitutional reform presents the advantage of satisfying both the desire to change everything and the desire that everything stay the same-it's just a matter, finally, of changing a few lines, of symbolic modifications. As long as one debates words, as long as revolution is formulated in the language of rights and the law, the ways of neutralizing it are well-known and marked out.
The Invisible Committee, Now, p.76-77
Fernand Deligny said: "In order to fight against language and the institution, the right phrase is perhaps not to fight against, but to take the most distance possible, even if this means signaling one's position. Why would we go and press ourselves against the wall? Our project is not to take and hold the square." Deligny was dearly being what Toni Negri cannot abide, "a destituent." But observing what happens when a constituent logic of combining social movements with a party aiming to take power, it does look like destitution is the way to go. Thus we saw, in the last few years, Syriza, that political party "issuing from the movement of the squares," becoming the best relay for the austerity policies of the European Union. […] The latest deplorable political intrigues that now make up the life of Podemos moved certain of its members to make this bitter observation: "They wanted to take power, and it is power that has taken them." As for the "citizens movements" that decided to "squat power" by taking possession of the Barcelona mayor's office, they've confided to their former friends of the squats something they still can't declare in public: by gaining access to the institutions, they were indeed able to "take power," but there was nothing they could do with it from there, apart from scuttling a few hotel projects, legalizing one or two occupations and receiving with great ceremony Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris.
The Invisible Committee, Now, p.83-84