Solutions to the Ambivalent Quality of Life in Common

Abstract

In the previous chapter we have seen how the tragic character of life in common was first recognized in Greece and Israel. We are still far from the tragic dimension of the modern age, which we will discuss later, and yet we can already discern the prodromes that much later will evolve into modern humanism. In this chapter I wish to outline some of the solutions or, as we shall see, some of the escape routes that have been proposed in response to the fragility of the communitas. These solutions have in common what Esposito and others have called immunitas, albeit none of them mention that the main place of immunitas is actually the market, the economic space — which is what I try to demonstrate in the final part of this essay.

Unable to strengthen justice, they have justified might; so that the just and the strong should unite, and there should be peace, which is the sovereign good.

Blaise Pascal, Pensées