He spent several years in prison before finally being acquitted, after which he organized the publication Luogo Comune (Italian for "commonplace") in order to vocalize the political ideas he developed during his imprisonment.
In 1977 Virno presented his doctoral thesis on the concept of work and the theory of consciousness of Theodor Adorno, while actively participating in the movement of 1977, which organized around the precariousness of workers.
After being sentenced in 1982 to 12 years in prison for "subversive activities and creation of an armed group" (though the charges of belonging to the Red Brigades did not materialise), Virno appealed and was released pending trial in the second instance; in 1987 he would eventually be acquitted, along with Piperno.
His experience during these years were fed into the organization of the Luogo Comune publication, devoted to the analysis of life forms within postfordism.
The philosophical concepts, however, maintained a close link with theory and action-related policies; notions of "world", "power", "potential" or "history", which have been the focus of many of his works, were in fact conceived in key by Marx.
Virno maintains the status of historical and linguistic concepts as being political-state, sovereignty, obedience, legality, legitimacy, which are accepted in social theory and philosophy as invariant, although polemically are considered to have been invented in the 17th century, with very specific and controversial political objectives.