Absolutism and History
I don't think we can see the sovereign as the subject because there is no constitutive (reciprocally defining) antagonist--the bourgeoisie has the state, king, aristocracy and/or superstitions (or whatever), the proletariat has the capitalists, feminists the patriarchy, anti-colonialism imperialism, etc. The subject defines itself through this struggle, and that's what makes "history." The only equivalent for the sovereign would be something like "disorder" or "division," but that would grant the necessity of such antagonists, and of defining sovereignty in that relation, which we wouldn't want to do if we contend that sovereignty can be made secure.'
I'll think about the other issue and get back to you.
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You are right about the problem I am trying to solve there. This is obviously something we'll be discussing quite a bit--the entire discipline of economics needs to be revised, but that obviously can't be done arbitrarily. My preliminary thinking is that we should think about value as value for the sovereign, just like Achilles's prowess ultimately finds its value in service to Agamemnon's enterprise. Achilles, of course, can withhold his services (as he in fact does), or offer them to another sovereign--but they have to be of value to some sovereign. The same is true in less obvious ways of all forms of work. The sovereign, then, is responsible for establishing institutional forms in which limited competition with a determinate goal is embedded. This would probably prioritize the military and harness production for those ends. And then, yes, there would be rules, a more or less fair playing field, and all the rest.
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I would be interested in seeing where you see the ambivalence
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I see. Thanks. Yes, you have a point. I may simply be channeling Gans's ambivalence. He speaks both of "reducing" and "recycling" resentment--my observation that if resentment can be reduced it can be eliminated, since what would elimination be other than continual reduction until there's nothing left? derives from my questioning of that concept in particular. I've more or less accepted the notion of "recycling," even if I rarely use it myself. I usually speak either in terms of "framing" and "donating" resentments--"framing" is not too different from "recycling," but "donating" is something different, and so maybe it's better to stick with that. The center then converts the resentment to discipline, which I suppose is a kind of "recycling" but more loosely so insofar as here the recycled material becomes something qualitatively different--recycled glass is still glass. Perhaps in this way I can resolve my own ambivalence toward resentment, which I inherit from Gans but which has persisted for me in somewhat different forms. Rather than struggling to distinguish productive from destructive forms of resentment, I can just just distinguish resentment from discipline. Well, we'll see how that works.
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Well, even in that case there'd be no point to speaking of "reducing" or "recycling" resentment, both of which assume that it's some kind of "excess" that needs to be "discharged" (another terms Gans uses). Unless there's a "normal" level of resentment and the problem is with "excessive" resentment--but the whole problem here lies in thinking about in quantitative terms, as if it can be measured--that is what needs to be rejected, one way or another. Once we're clear about this the rest may be semantics.
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Yes, but I don't think it's exclusive to Buddhism. I think this is central to Jewish and Christian monotheisms--since God has given you everything, you are obliged to give all of yourself to God. This is how we transcend the gift economy and the imperative order (a god you can issue imperatives to is a god you cut deals with--the imperative you issue is that he uphold his end of the bargain because you followed his imperative. That's what I AM THAT I AM transcends).