Beyond the democratic state: anti-authoritarian interventions in democratic theory

VI. Libertarian or Anti-Authoritarian Democracy 
Libertarian theorists, such as Friedman and Hayek, begin from an understanding of 
freedom that leads them to adopt an anti-democratic, individualistic politics. I hope to have 
shown why their conceptualization of freedom is problematic and, in doing so, to open the door 
to an alternative account of freedom and self-determination, one that seems to entail not a 
withdrawal from politics, but engagement with politics. Non-domination is a fully relational 
concept of freedom (i.e. freedom is defined as a particular kind of relationship with other people) 
and these non-dominating relationships imply a very basic sort of democratic politics: ongoing 
negotiations between persons in the context of participatory institutions. As such, libertarians 
and anti-authoritarians more broadly should endorse a radically democratic politics, where 
democracy is understood as 
a political organization characterized by non-domination
. Such a 
position can be endorsed while maintaining their justified skepticism toward statist, majoritarian 
forms of democracy. Non-domination links freedom and democracy together conceptually: a 
commitment to freedom implies a commitment to democracy, radically understood as condition 
in which 
no person has enough power over another person that they are able to arbitrarily 
interfere with them
. Thus, when Hayek (2007, 60) says, “We know that we are fighting for 
freedom to shape our life according to our own ideas…” he invokes a principle of self-
determination and, if my argument is correct, it is the relational concept of self-determination to 
which he should be committed. Not only does this view of freedom avoid the problems raised by 
concepts of self-sovereignty and independence, it is a richer concept of freedom. It is one thing 
to have the freedom to respond to conditions in the world that we have no control over, it is quite 

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another to have freedom to, in negotiation with others, actually shape the conditions of life 
themselves. As Brown (1995, 4) puts it, true freedom requires an ability to “generate futures 
together rather than [to simply] navigate or survive them.” 
In much of this chapter, I aimed to upset some of the assumptions of libertarian thought 
in order to argue that some of their basic political commitments can be taken in a radically 
democratic rather than a neoliberal direction. The goal was then to, in Abensour’s (2011, 100) 
words, foster “an encounter between” democracy and the “libertarian spirit, each taking a step 
toward the other.” So far, as the astute reader will have noticed, I have been primarily asking the 
“libertarian spirit” to take a step toward democracy by reconceptualizing freedom such that it 
does not become a “conquering and predator autonomy” (
ibid
. 91). However, this is only one 
side of the equation and the second half of the dissertation will focus primarily on the other side 
of the equation: that of reframing democracy “to keep pace with the modern idea of liberty,” a 
move which requires that we take “full measure of the problem of the State” (
ibid
.).
By way of a conclusion, let me briefly present three key libertarian or anti-authoritarian 
insights that bear on the reframing of democracy. In other words, to be truly anti-authoritarian, 
what criteria must a democratic theory meet? What ways ought to democracy “step toward” the 
libertarian spirit? First, democracy must be disassociated from majority rule because doing so 
cannot help by result in coercion of political minorities and trample individual freedoms.
Moreover, majoritarian democracy will necessarily run roughshod over people’s inherent 
diversity and plurality and enforce an artificial conformity. A libertarian conception of 
democracy must enable people to choose differently, to pursue different and even contradictory 
ends. Second, a libertarian account of democracy must avoid concentrations of power, including 
power centralized in a democratic state. An anti-authoritarian democratic politics does not seek 

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to legitimate the centralized power of the state, but rather to disperse that power, to create many 
nodes of non-sovereign political power throughout society. As suggested above, libertarian 
democracy is characterized by relationships of non-domination. I will radicalize this perspective 
in the next chapter by arguing, contra Pettit, that non-domination is in fundamental tension with 
the state, an entity with a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence within society. Finally, a 
libertarian democracy will have to make better use of the spontaneous forces of free people to 
solve information and coordination problems. While libertarians generally focus on the role of 
economic markets, I will highlight the democratic anti-authoritarianism of political networks. 

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