ALTHOUGH Although I have discussed the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) at length on a number of occasions, here I would like to explore his ideas on political freedom. From Spinoza’s perspective, an individual is only free to the extent that he is at liberty to understand nature – including his own – and the character of the things that surround him. At the same time, if one happens to be ‘in the state of nature’ then freedom is harder to attain.

Believing, like Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), that people are naturally selfish and that they will do virtually anything to ensure their own self-preservation, even at the expense of others, Spinoza advocated a system of political organisation that was designed to stop people from killing one another. Whilst he insisted that it was necessary to implement a consensus of rules by which it is possible to distinguish ‘right’ from ‘wrong,’ he was strongly opposed to a system that was based on laws of religion. This view was formed in seventeenth-century Holland at a time when free-thinkers were being regularly persecuted by the Protestant authorities.

Hobbes, on the other hand, may have shared Spinoza’s concerns about the darker aspects of human nature but was adamant that society should be ruled by a single sovereign with absolute power. This meant that individuals would be expected to relinquish their own natural rights in exchange for guarantees of security. This, for Spinoza, was unacceptable because the freedom to express one’s own thoughts must have primacy over any attempt to abdicate personal sovereignty and replace it with a monarchical dictatorship.

Spinoza believed that a population would always wish to rebel against such a system and that power was only legitimate if it protected the interests of the people. Besides, he argued, most kings and queens become despots merely to serve their own interests. It is virtually impossible to remove a monarch, Spinoza declared, because even in the case of an assassination the despot is likely to be replaced:

“That’s how it happens that the people can often change the tyrant, but can never destroy him, or change a monarchic state into another, of a different form.” (Theoretical-Polical Treatise, 18:32)

Similarly, aristocracy ensures that only a tiny number of people have the ability to enforce their will over the majority, so Spinoza advanced a form of democracy that allocated freedom to everyone. However, he agreed with Hobbes that sovereign power is sacrosanct and must be obeyed and that meant supporting an approach that was both voluntary and, if necessary, enforced by fear of punishment or retribution.

In other words, just as Hobbes expected people to relinquish sovereignty in favour of a monarch, Spinoza wished people to give up their individual authority in favour of the collective. This, he believed, would allow for the maintenance of human rationality:

“To look out for their own interests and retain their sovereignty, it is incumbent on them most of all to consult the common good, and to direct everything according to the dictate of reason.” (Ibid., 16:29)

Whilst this all sounds very abstract and Spinoza would not fully formulate his political opinions until the end of his life, his views on democracy – which naturally relate to the state of Holland, rather than the kind of direct rule one finds in small communities – were centred on the need to address the unpredictability of historical contingency.

Tinged with Spinoza’s own bitter experiences of having been cast out by Amsterdam’s Jewish community for accusations of heresy, something that has often led to his unfair portrayal as an ‘atheist,’ this historical approach is based around his position on the collapse of the Twelve Tribes of Israel in the wake of Moses’ death. The fact that Holland was itself a United Province whose laws were centred on theocracy, led Spinoza to suggest that such entities remain prone to disintegration in the face of rising ‘heresies’ that question the orthodoxy of the state. The root of this problem, he said, lay in the persecution of those with dissenting views:

“What greater evil can be imagined for the Republic than that honest men should be exiled as wicked because they hold different opinions and don’t know how to pretend to be what they’re not? Or that the scaffold, the scourge of the evil, should become the noblest stage for displaying the utmost endurance and the model of virtue, to the conspicuous shame of the majesty?” (Ibid., 20:35)

Unfortunately, despite claiming to be a ‘democrat’ Spinoza believed that the state should have total control over all forms of religion as well as society’s institutions. Rather than have church authorities determine the laws of a country, therefore, the philosopher preferred to ensure that everything was subject to state control. People could only be ‘free’ if they allowed the state to maintain ultimate authority, meaning that his notion of political autonomy is little more than a civic religion designed to impose ‘peace’ on its obedient citizens. Thank goodness Spinoza was better at formulating philosophy then he was at devising political solutions.