66
In this framing, there is literally no way to think of political freedom except through the lens of
the state: political freedom is conceptualized as something that
the state promotes and thus,
freedom as non-domination cannot have an anti-statist trajectory. Even more problematically,
the end of the last quote identifies the sole subject of political theory as the state, a move with
many implications, one of which further reduces possibilities for thinking about political
freedom outside of the state. Simply put, Pettit avoids the notion that non-domination entails
opposition to the state by framing the question in such a way so as to obliterate the very
possibility that freedom is to be gained by people acting in opposition
to the state rather than by
people acting through or with the state.
While I think it is noteworthy how Pettit frames this issue so as to occlude the possibility
that non-domination is an anti-statist principle, let be briefly explain what I take to be his more
principled argument for the state. He identifies “two kinds of power in any social world…First,
there is the
imperium
of the state, or public power. And second there is the
dominium
or private
power of interference” (
ibid
. 152).
7
State power, on Pettit’s account, is necessary to counter
private power, to check forms of domination whenever they appear: “the republican state will be
charged with putting…restrictions on private power” (
ibid
.). State power, albeit
in a limited
form, is useful for promoting freedom as non-domination by checking private power.
8
In short,
imperium
is necessary to prevent
dominium
. The state can be freedom-promoting to the extent
that it uses its power to prevent, check and/or undo relations of domination. Pettit maintains that
“[t]o the extent that state action is not arbitrary” – to the extent that it counters relationships of
7
This formulation, useful though it is, is not entirely accurate. As will become clear later in this chapter, not all
social worlds have these two forms of power, as many so-called primitive societies did not have state power, which
is
not
to say that their societies are not characterized by political power.
8
As I suggested in the previous chapter, it is this realization that neoliberals (masquerading as libertarians) crucially
miss.
67
domination – “it does not represent an assault…” on people’s freedom (
ibid
. 139). However, he
acknowledges that:
In making these points about the possibility of state action being non-arbitrary and
reinforcing people in their possession [of freedom], I am
in danger of seeming an
naïve idealist. Let me put the balance right, then, by immediately conceding that
in actual states there is every likelihood that political power will be arbitrary in
considerable measure…The only point I want to make is that despite this
melancholy
reality
– and despite the consequent ideal of minimizing state power –
there is still an ideal in view here and it should keep us alert to the possibility of
improving the constitution of the state rather than just despairing of it (
ibid
. 140;
emphasis added).
Now, Pettit’s effort is clearly an attempt to specify an ideal by which we can measure actual
institutions. This is no doubt a worthy project, but one that leads in a very different direction
than if he were instead to dwell a bit more on the “melancholy reality” of how actual states work.
If Pettit is right, that “in actual states there is every likelihood that
political power will be
arbitrary in considerable measure” then it is (also) worthwhile to consider whether non-
domination may be fruitfully conceived outside the parameters of the state. In contrast to Pettit,
however, I will propose not “despairing” about the sovereign state, but presenting an alternative
to it.
The intellectual contortions that are required to make non-domination compatible with
the state – which, in effect, must entail a claim that while concentrated power is the fundamental
threat to freedom the highly concentrated power of the state is acceptable – only make sense if:
a) the power of the state can be safely limited or constrained
by institutions such as rights,
divided government, and the rule of law, and/or b) there is no alternative to or way of avoiding a
state, so even if taming the state is fraught enterprise we have no choice but to do our best and
live with it. In my view, both of these claims are mistaken and my aim in this chapter is to
explain why.
68
Accordingly, I will advance two central arguments in this chapter. First, attempts to limit
or constrain the state do not change the nature of sovereignty: a non-sovereign
state is not
possible. While checks on the state, such as rights, are by no means trivial, they do not change
the underlying nature of state sovereignty. To return to the quote in the epigraph, the state’s
power is ultimately “external [to the community over which it rules] and the creator of its own
legality.” To be sovereign is to have the final word and to possess the means of violence to
enforce that word. Moreover, to be sovereign is to be able to
make exceptions to the rules, if not
to change them outright. Such an entity in society is fundamentally at odds with freedom as non-
domination. Second, I will show that there is an alternative to state sovereignty and centralized
power. While the statist organization of power seeks to concentrate or unify society’s capacities
for violence into a single entity (the state) in order to quash acts of violence by others in society,
I will argue that this is neither a necessary nor desirable move, at least from the perspective of
freedom as non-domination. To put this in Pettit’s terms, I contend that
it is possible to check
concentrated forms of private power (
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