The Sovereign Subject

Richard Ostrofsky
(October, 2002)
Political sociologists believe that all large organizations are necessarily
hierarchical in structure, with a tiny clique at the top doing the formal
decision making, and a much larger elite below them who can sometimes
exert some influence on the decisions taken. If this is so, then democracy
and democratic accountability can amount only to this: some ability of
common folk like us to register an approval or disapproval of decisions, that
must be taken into account by ruling and advisory elites who wish to keep
their power. Parliamentary representation and the ballot are crude steps in
that direction, but that is all they are. In the systems called “democratic”
today, the voters’ collective will is easily manipulated or circumvented, and
the elite gets to have things pretty much its own way – often against the
public interest, and sometimes against the will of a majority, as shown by
opinion polls. We ask: Is this sham democracy the best we can hope for? We
know it will not be enough to curb the multi-national corporations (barely
accountable even to their own share holders), and to prevent capital from
remaking the world in its own image.
I think a more genuine democracy must depend on the evolution of what
I’ll call “the sovereign subject” – ordinary people who live under and accept
the power of others, while defending their rights, their dignities, and their
fundamental autonomy. We need to think about how to do this.
Everyone is supposed to be a leader today; but this is really nonsense. If
everyone is trying to lead, the result is just chaos, and no one goes
anywhere. Sensible politics requires just the opposite – that we followers
understand and wisely use our residual powers of witness, protest, boycott,
and civil disobedience. The point of democracy is not (or not only) that we
choose our leaders, but that we provide them with useful information on
where we are willing (and unwilling) to be led. In a pinch, we must be able
to dig our heels in, say no, and take the consequences.
What I am suggesting then is a political culture that is neither elitist nor
egalitarian, but communitarian and (what we might call) voluntarist.
Governments have to arrange the rules to ensure that the struggle for profit
and private advantage is subordinated to certain general needs and values of
the whole community. This idea is profoundly conservative, in one sense.
We have to find our way back to a mindset before capital became entirely
autocratic. This will probably require some new version of spirituality,
broad and plural enough to be a basis for the global society now struggling
to be born. In principle, this concept of spirituality will look back to a time
when wealth was still just a means to the good life – not yet the whole
purpose and meaning of life. There is nothing new about this idea.
By contrast, what I am calling “voluntarism” would require a new level
of political and spiritual maturity, reflected in a new sense of irony about
power. Men and women would assert and accept the inequalities inherent in
political and economic life in a spirit of role play, without arrogance on one
side or resentment on the other. It would be understood that the elites serve
the commoners as much as the other way round. On both sides, there would
be pride in difficult roles voluntarily accepted and well performed.
Commoners would understand that intelligent service and obedience (not to
be confused with mindless docility) are reasons for pride – if the orders
themselves are intelligent and public spirited. We would be sensitive on this
point, and capable of effective protest when obedience is abused. Elites, in
consequence, would know better than to abuse it, recognizing that in doing
so they would be undermining the basis of their own power.
In a nutshell, the voluntarist idea is that political relationships are
necessarily relationships of dominance and submission; and that this is fine
so long as they are between consenting adults.