Spinoza's Democratic Instinct

Why democracy best corresponds to the natural power of the multitude.

I.

Spinoza's preference for democracy is not based on a theory of rights, a doctrine of popular sovereignty, or a belief in the wisdom of crowds. It is based on a metaphysical analysis of power. Democracy best corresponds to the natural power of the multitude because it is the form of government in which the power of the whole is most fully expressed. Other forms of government suppress or distort that power. Democracy channels it.

The argument begins with Spinoza's concept of natural right. In the state of nature, each thing has as much right as it has power. The fish has the right to swim, and the bigger fish has the right to eat it. Right is coextensive with power. This is not a moral claim. It is a description of how things are when no common authority exists to constrain them.

II.

Human beings, recognizing that the state of nature is miserable, transfer their natural right to a common authority: the state. The state's right is the collective power of the individuals who compose it. If the state rules in a way that diminishes the power of its citizens, it diminishes its own right, because its right is nothing other than their collective power.

This is the foundation of Spinoza's democratic instinct. Democracy is the form of government in which the transfer of right is most complete, because every citizen participates in the formation of the sovereign will. In a monarchy, the transfer is partial (one person rules). In an aristocracy, it is partial (a few rule). In a democracy, it approaches totality: the multitude rules itself.

III.

But Spinoza is not a naive democrat. He knows that the multitude is often governed by passions, not reason. The democratic multitude can be cruel, fickle, and self-destructive. The question is not whether the multitude is wise. It is whether any alternative is better. The monarch and the aristocrat are also governed by passions, and their passions are unchecked by the need to persuade others. The multitude, at least, must reach some kind of consensus, and the process of reaching consensus exerts a moderating pressure that solitary power does not.

This is a pragmatic argument for democracy, not an idealistic one. Democracy is not perfect. It is merely less bad than the alternatives, because it distributes power more broadly and therefore reduces the risk that power will be concentrated in the hands of a single passionate individual.

IV.

The democratic instinct also has an epistemic dimension. A democracy that protects freedom of thought and speech is a democracy that can learn. Bad ideas can be exposed. Good ideas can be refined. The process is messy, but it is self-correcting in a way that authoritarian systems are not. The tyrant who makes a mistake has no mechanism for correction, because no one can tell him he is wrong. The democratic public that makes a mistake can be corrected by argument, evidence, and the pressure of competing interests.

This is why Spinoza's defense of democracy is inseparable from his defense of free thought. Democracy without free thought is mob rule. Free thought without democracy is an intellectual luxury without political effect. The two require each other.

V.

Spinoza's democratic instinct is not a prophecy of inevitable progress. Democracy can fail. It can degenerate into tyranny, faction, or chaos. The causes of its failure are the same as the causes of any political failure: the dominance of passion over reason, the concentration of power, the suppression of thought. The maintenance of democracy requires constant work: the cultivation of adequate ideas, the defense of institutions, the management of the affects that threaten collective reason.

Democracy is not the natural condition of humanity. It is an achievement, and like all achievements, it can be lost. Spinoza's instinct for it is not a prediction. It is a commitment, and the commitment is grounded in the understanding that the power of the multitude is the only power that can sustain a free society over time.