Stephen Connelly
A practical
comprehension of Spinoza’s theory of natural right allows us to begin to use
this conceptual tool to construct our world. This is the essence of Spinoza’s
ethico-political project: how to use the doctrine of natural right to construct
machines that increase our power. Consequently, when we come to the question of
the organisation of society, virtuous law and politics amount to the endeavour
to build-right augmenting machines, which Spinoza calls imperia.
Let us begin our brief
survey with Spinoza’s definition of sovereignty in his Tractatus Politicus
(“TP”) II[17]:
Hoc ius, quod multitudinis potentia definitur, imperium
appellari solet. Atque hoc is absolute tenet, qui curam reipublicae ex communi
consensu habet…
This right, which is defined by the power of the multitude, is
usually called the imperium. It is held absolutely by whoever has oversight of
the republic by common consensus. (my trans.)
Spinoza thus settles
upon the idea that the imperium is an
expression of common power, that is, it is an expression of power of a group of
individuals insofar only as they act as one. Notice that according to a principle
of superposition of powers we do not obtain a ‘new’ consciousness unless those
powers determine the bodies on which they act to some existence. It is
therefore appropriate to define this mode. We define:
An imperium is
a singularity of projection which does not appear in the field of right as an
origin prior to that projection.
In Spinozan terms of
Extension, this amounts to saying that given any locality there is a transition
occurring which is not due to difference of motion and rest at that point i.e.
there is no individual in the sense of EIIP13 Lem.1.From this we
propose:
The principle of common right:
every act of β1, β2…βn
in union is a partial solution to the aggregate natures of each of β1,
β2…βn, and each such act expresses their
common nature as an imperium.
More simply, when
people determine to work together, they seem to posit a common power which is
localisable in no One, and this seeming power is their common right. Contrary
to some interpretations, it is an ethical strength, not a weakness (see the
forthcoming article on Multitude).
Now, given that the
virtue of any number of humans is variable, it is likewise possible to posit a series
of imperia, each of which express common right, that is, the common natures of
each constituent, with greater reality. It seems that a form of this principle
is readily adopted by Marx in his chapter of Capital on Co-operation,
though following John Bellers, he is keen to notice that combination of power
also generates a “collective power” where 10 men straining to lift a ton
is qualitatively not equivalent to 100 men each using a finger, an observation
far beyond Spinoza’s frame of reference [1]. It is this working hypothesis of a
series of imperia, each with a common right appropriate to itself, which allows
us to understand the flow of Spinoza’s Tractatus politicus, to which we
now turn.
