Designing institutions for real human beings
Approach the final treatise without overlooking its unfinished state or the distance between its proposals and present-day democracies.
An original introduction. This guide accompanies the work; it is neither the complete text nor a translation.
Beginning with human passions
The Political Treatise criticises abstract theories for imagining people as we would like them to be. Spinoza seeks institutions that work with actual affects rather than depending on exceptional virtue in rulers. Identify the behaviours a rule assumes and those it may itself produce, even when its stated intention appears admirable.
Right and power
Spinoza’s vocabulary of natural right refers to the effective power of beings. This does not amount to a moral recommendation of every possible act of violence. The argument explains how forces combine and how a community can become more stable. Ask what an institution can actually do, not merely what it declares itself authorised to do.
Reading the exclusions too
The work considers several forms of government, but its discussion of democracy remains unfinished. Its exclusions, notably of women, must not be erased to manufacture a perfectly contemporary author. They expose a tension between a general account of human power and historical prejudices that restrict the political recognition of particular groups.
A realistic politics examines affects, relations of power and the exclusions built into its own institutions.
Your turn to think.
- Does an institution depend too heavily on one person’s goodwill?
- Who remains excluded when a system claims to represent the whole community?
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