Let us admit then that the Powers of Europe stand to each other strictly in a state of war, and that all the separate treaties between them are in the nature rather of a temporary truce than a real peace: whether because such treaties are seldom guaranteed by any except the contracting parties; or because the respective rights of those parties are never thoroughly determined and are therefore bound—they, or the claims, which pass for rights in the eyes of Powers who recognise no earthly superior—to give rise to fresh wars as soon as a change of circumstances shall have given fresh strength to the claimants.--Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1761) "Statement of St. Pierre's Project" [here's the French]
The passage is from a text that purports to be a summary of Abbé St. Pierre's proposal of European federation tied together by a permanent peace treaty, free trade, a standing army and what we may anachronistically call a European Council with a rotating presidency. The nineteen major European powers would be represented in this Council. As Rousseau presents it, the proposal would freeze boundaries and constitutional forms in place. The argument in favor of the proposal distinguishes itself from utopian projects by claiming to present the true (as opposed to apparent) interests of rulers and subject in peace which produces the conditions for (to quote Hobbes) commodious living and virtuous cycles of economic and population growth.
The key obstacle, and this is the main point of Rousseau's critical remarks in his "judgment" on St. Pierre's project, published separately (and posthumously), but written more or less simultaneously,* is that the transition from here to there is blocked by the way sovereigns and their chief advisors understand their interests. They recognize that war is a source of possible profit for them personally and that it is a pretext and mechanism to oppress their own citizens. One understands why Rousseau waited to publish this. Although anybody familiar with the first few books of Livy's Discourses and Machiavelli, or the way of the world, could have guessed that this is Rousseau's criticism.
And this gets me to Spinoza, and in particular his Political Treatise, published posthumously alongside Ethics (etc.) For, despite the many allusions and references to Machiavelli, one way to understand the unity among the various proposals of the best constitutional orders in Spinoza's Political Treatise, is (recall my treatment of (6:12 and 7:8)) to find institutional arrangements and incentives that make war unattractive to rulers and their advisors and, as Yitzhak Melamed has recently emphasized, to make states not threatening to their neighbors (7.28); on the significance of institutional arrangements to promote peace as an end, see also 3.10; 4.2; 5.2; 8.7; 8:31; and even 11.4 the last two sentences.
The reason I mention Spinoza in the context of Rousseau's European federalism, is three-fold (and connected). First, and less interesting by itself, the quoted passage above reminded me of Spinoza (and makes me suspect that this passage is one of the places that is more Rousseau than St. Pierre [whom I have not read yet]). For, it is a doctrine notoriously associated with Spinoza:+ "every commonwealth has the right to dissolve its contract, [proinde unicuique civitati ius integrum est solvendi foedus], whenever it chooses ,and cannot be said to act treacherously or perfidiously in breaking its word, as soon as the motive of hope or fear is removed."(3.14; see also 4.6)** And, indeed, for Spinoza (and here he echoes Hobbes), the commonwealth is, relative to other states, still in the state of nature (7:22; 4.6, and especially 3:11.)).
But, second, and more interesting, in the Political Treatise, Spinoza, too, proposes a federation as a guarantee for peace in the very context in which he describes that treaties may be broken when they outlast their utility.++
Spinoza describes here the outlines of a federation of peace (more fully developed in Adam Smith and Kant). And the underlying insight is that if the state of nature of the international arena can be transformed into a state of peace when and only when the grounds of mutual fear among states are reduced. Strikingly, for Spinoza this does not require a common enemy (as nearly all the famous federations in history presupposed). Rather what's required is a transformation of their own internal dynamic or of their joint (state) system. That is to say, that once mutual accommodation can become the norm (without foolishness), in virtue of the expectation that the whole will try to maintain/impose conditions of peace, joint peace has a chance. And, looking ahead to Kant, the very growth of such a system (as more states join), the more pacific it can become.
So, to sum up, Rousseau and Spinoza both draw on Machiavellian premises to develop institutional design for perpetual peace. Both explicitly deny, and this is my third reason, their approach is utopian in character (and this ties them to Hume and Adam Smith), and takes man as he is not as he ought to be (here in Rousseau; and here, more famously, in Spinoza), that is, they model humans as rational devils. I also believe, but have provided no evidence yet, that their ideas about how to solve the transition from here to peace are roughly similar. But about that some other time.
*I am linking to Pauline Kleingeld's wonderful book also to celebrate her Spinozaprize.
+I leave aside here to what degree Spinoza deploys the social contract in PT. But unlike some, I don't think he abandons it in the Political Treatise.
**See also: "Contracts or laws...should without doubt be broken, when it is expedient for the general welfare to do so." (4.6)**This is the contract between the multitude and leaders.
++I am not the first to notice this, see, especially, the relatively neglected, George M. Gross (1996) "Spinoza and the Federal Polity." But Gross relies primarily on Spinoza's treatment of Aristocratic confederation (which are clearly modelled on United Provinces) in order to connect it with the American founding. I don't think that irrelevant because Kant also draws inspiration of the founding.
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