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

Reading Ranciere with Piven: Interdependency and (In)Equality 
In this and the next subsection, I use two theorists to develop an account of disruptive 
action – one from the perspective of an American empirical social scientist and one from the 
French philosophical tradition – that is simultaneously democratic and not reducible to 
communication. On my reading, both begin from an interestingly similar presupposition: the 
presupposition of interdependency for Piven and the presupposition of equality for Ranciere. For 
Piven, the power of disruption is inherent in the webs of interdependency that undergird social 
life and, importantly, this power can be activated by those on the lower end of the vertical power 
relations. 
All societies organize social life through networks of specialized and 
interdependent activities, and the more complex the societies, the more elaborate 
these interdependent relations….Agricultural workers depend on landowners, but 
landowners also depend on agricultural workers, just as industrial capitalists 
depend on workers, the prince depends in some measure on the urban crowd, 
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Although Young (2001, 673) specifically addresses direct action, she (much like Carter) essentially collapses 
direct action into the broader category of protest: “picketing, leafleting, guerillatheater, large and loud street 
demonstrations, sit-ins, and other forms of direct action, such as boycotts.” She does not, in other words, adopt the 
more nuanced and anarchistic understanding of direct action advanced in this paper. Because she does not identify 
any differences between “protest” and “direct action” she does not appreciate the ways that direct action goes 
beyond communicative politics. 

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merchants depend on customers, husbands depend on wives, masters depend on 
slaves, [and] landlords depend on tenants… (Piven 2006, 20). 
Those who are usually thought to have power through their control over material wealth and 
military force, also depend on the contributions and cooperation of the “powerless.” Thus, 
disruption is “a power strategy that rests on withdrawing cooperation in social relations” (Piven 
2006, 23). Workers and students withdraw cooperation when they strike, tenants and consumers 
withdraw cooperation when they refuse to pay, and the marginalized withdraw cooperation when 
they reject norms of civility and riot. For Piven, it is precisely in these instances of disruption – 
from the American Revolution, to the Abolitionist movement, to 20
th
century labor and civil 
rights movements – “that produce the democratic moments in American political development” 
(
ibid
. 2). 
Ranciere pursues a similar line of argument, albeit from a rather different angle and with 
somewhat more theoretical baggage, which requires a bit of unpacking. For Ranciere, any social 
order characterized by inequality – which is to say every social order – is built on an unsteady 
foundation: the fact of equality. 
There is order in society because some people command and others obey, but in 
order to obey an order at least two things are required: you must understand the 
order and you must understand that you must obey it. And to do that, you must 
already be the equal of the person who is ordering you. It is this equality that 
gnaws away at any natural order…In the final analysis, inequality is only possible 
through equality (Ranciere 1999, 16-17). 
Thus, “the ultimate equality on which any social order rests” (
ibid.
16) can be read as 
establishing a similar perspective as Piven’s interdependency. While Piven identifies the few’s 
interdependence on the many to remain in control, Ranciere identifies the few’s reliance on the 
basic and real equality of the many, in order to enforce a social order of inequality. The twin 
facts of interdependency and equality – which are, at the same time, socially necessary and 

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necessarily destabilizing – provide the foundation for each thinker’s conception of the 
democratic potential of disruptive direct action. Allow me to briefly work through Ranciere’s 
argument by explaining why he sees disruption as the prototypical democratic act, then return to 
Piven to show why this view requires (against Ranciere’s own inclinations) a theory of 
democratic power or force.