Potentia : Hobbes and Spinoza on Power and Popular Politics

We live in an age of growing dissatisfaction with the standard operations of representative democracy. The solution, according to a long radical democratic tradition, is the unmediated power of the people. Mass plebiscites and mass protest movements are celebrated as the quintessential expression of popular power, and this power promises to transcend ordinary institutional politics. But the outcomes of mass political phenomena can be just as disappointing as the ordinary politics they sought to overcome, breeding skepticism about democratic politics in all its forms. Potentia argues that the very meaning of popular power needs to be rethought. It offers a detailed study of the political philosophies of Thomas Hobbes and Benedict de Spinoza, focusing on their concept of power as potentia, concrete power, rather than power as potestas, authorized power. Specifically, the book's argument turns on a new interpretation of potentia as a capacity that is dynamically constituted in a web of actual human relations. This means that a group's potentia reflects any hostility or hierarchy present in the relations between its members. There is nothing spontaneously egalitarian or good about human collective existence; a group's power deserves to be called popular only if it avoids oligarchy and instead durably establishes its members' equality. Where radical democrats interpret Hobbes' "sleeping sovereign" or Spinoza's "multitude" as the classic formulations of unmediated popular power, Sandra Leonie Field argues that for both Hobbes and Spinoza, conscious institutional design is required in order for true popular power to be achieved. Between Hobbes' commitment to repressing private power and Spinoza's exploration of civic strengthening, Field draws on early modern understandings of popular power to provide a new lens for thinking about the risks and promise of democracy. "This book offers a detailed study of the political philosophies of Thomas Hobbes and Benedict de Spinoza, focussing on their concept of power as potentia, concrete power, rather than power as potestas, authorised power. The focus on power as potentia generates a new conception of popular power. Radical democrats-whether drawing on Hobbes's 'sleeping sovereign' or on Spinoza's 'multitude'-understand popular power as something that transcends ordinary institutional politics, as for instance popular plebsites or mass movements. However, the book argues that these understandings reflect a residual scholasticism which Hobbes and Spinoza ultimately repudiate. Instead, on the book's revisionist conception, a political phenomenon should be said to express popular power when it is both popular (it eliminates oligarchy and encompasses the whole polity), and also powerful (it robustly determines political and social outcomes). Two possible institutional forms that this popular power might take are distinguished: Hobbesian repressive egalitarianism, or Spinozist civic strengthening. But despite divergent institutional proposals, the book argues that both Hobbes and Spinoza share the conviction that there is nothing spontaneously egalitarian or good about human collective existence. From this point of view, the book accuses radical democrats of pernicious romanticism; the slow, meticulous work of organizational design and maintenance is the true centre of popular power"-- Provided by publisher This book offers a detailed study of the political philosophies of Thomas Hobbes and Benedict de Spinoza, focussing on their concept of power as potentia, concrete power, rather than power as potestas, authorized power. The focus on power as potentia generates a new conception of popular power. Radical democrats—whether drawing on Hobbes’s ‘sleeping sovereign’ or on Spinoza’s ‘multitude’—understand popular power as something that transcends ordinary institutional politics, as, for instance, popular plebiscites or mass movements. However, the book argues that these understandings reflect a residual scholasticism that Hobbes and Spinoza ultimately repudiate. Instead, on the book’s revisionist conception, a political phenomenon should be said to express popular power when it is both popular (it eliminates oligarchy and encompasses the whole polity) and also powerful (it robustly determines political and social outcomes). Two possible institutional forms that this popular power might take are distinguished: Hobbesian repressive egalitarianism and Spinozist civic strengthening. But despite divergent institutional proposals, the book argues that both Hobbes and Spinoza share the conviction that there is nothing spontaneously egalitarian or good about human collective existence. From this point of view, the book accuses radical democrats of pernicious romanticism; the slow, meticulous work of organizational design and maintenance is the true centre of popular power. Cover......Page 1 Potentia......Page 4 Copyright......Page 5 Dedication......Page 6 Contents......Page 8 Acknowledgements......Page 10 Note on Sources......Page 12 1. Introduction......Page 16 Part I......Page 38 2. Relational Power......Page 40 3. Juridical Politics......Page 70 4. The Political Problem......Page 93 5. Repressive Egalitarianism......Page 122 Part II......Page 160 6. Ethics and Efficacy......Page 162 7. The Power of Producing Effects......Page 190 8. Nature’s Indifference......Page 214 9. Civic Strengthening......Page 250 Bibliography......Page 280 Index......Page 292