Will, Democracy, Equality, Plurality

Spinoza offers two derivations of Democracy--one from the universality of Natural Rights, the other from the commonality of Reason. The weakness of the former is the potential of Democracy to degenerate into an arena of self-indulgence, while that of the latter is the factual variability of rational capacity, each of which exposes the vulnerability of Democracy as an Egalitarian principle. However, his system includes the grounds of a different derivation. For, he asserts that every entity endeavors to increase its strength, and that a composite entity is itself an entity, from which it follows that a polity seeks to increase its strength. Now, one way that a polity can accomplish that is by maximally empowering the Wills of each of its participants, i. e. by a process of Democratization. In other words, Democracy can perhaps be more soundly conceived as the product of pluralization than as one of equalization.