摘要：This paper is part of a larger, book-length study on two apparently unrelated
concepts, sovereignty and labor, whose link must be temporarily, that is, analytically,
established and then dissolved in a new synthesis, the reduction of the former to the
latter. To be sure, a proper understanding of the problem investing sovereignty and labor
can only be acquired through an analysis which includes a history, cursory though it
might be, of the concept of sovereignty from Jean Bodin to Carl Schmitt, as well as
aspects of the juridical critique of the concept of sovereignty. This I will endeavor to
provide in the larger study I mentioned above. In the present paper, I will limit myself to
the philosophical critique of the concept of sovereignty made by Jacques Maritain, but I
will include several references to Schmitt. I will also deal with the special use that
Georges Bataille makes of the concept of sovereignty. This is important because it is
here that the link between sovereignty and labor becomes visible. My critique of
Bataille, which in part relies on Maritain’s conceptual framework, seeks to show that the
concept of sovereignty is untenable even in the unorthodox form presented by Bataille
himself and to establish the ontology of labor as the only criterion, the only site, for an
alternative way of thinking, not simply about democracy, but about common life.
