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

active state interventions
mentioned above – they wholly ignore concentrated power in 
the economy. This arbitrary distinction between concentrated power in government and 
concentrated power in the economy is untenable and is at the root of why American libertarians 
remain blind to the economic tyrannies that so many people must endure.
2
2
Van Parijs’ (1995) 
Real Freedom for All
, for example, starts from the premise (shared by right-libertarians) that 
freedom is the most important political value, but argues that the inequality and exploitation, which characterize the 
capitalist economy, inhibit real freedom for most people. In doing so, he develops a left-libertarian or, on his 
account, “real-libertarian,” perspective. 

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36 
Despite this corruption and co-optation of the term “libertarian” in recent U.S. politics, it 
has a far richer history. Libertarianism has its origins within anarchist politics. Politically, the 
term libertarian was first used by French anarcho-communist Joseph Dejacque (
libertaire
, in 
French) in 1857 (The Anarchist FAQ Editorial Collective 2008). In 1880, at the French regional 
anarchist congress in Le Havre the term libertarian was again used and a pamphlet released the 
following year was titled “Libertarian or Anarchist Communism” (
ibid.
). To this day, the term 
libertarian is used as a synonym for anarchists and other anti-state socialists outside the United 
States.
Because of the number of different strands of anarchism and differences between 
anarchists and other libertarian socialists that I need not discuss, I use the broader term “anti-
authoritarian” to encapsulate a more general political perspective. I mean anti-authoritarianism 
to signify: 1) a commitment to freedom or liberty as the highest political value; 2) a skepticism 
toward and desire to reduce, if not eliminate, centralized power (such as, but by no means limited 
to, the state) and an opposition to the arbitrary hierarchy and coercion that such centralized 
power often entails; 3) a belief in the capacity of voluntary self-organization to foster social 
coordination and solve common problems. To be libertarian is to be anti-authoritarian. To be 
anti-authoritarian is to be libertarian. To be either, entails a general agreement with the above 
principles. 
Within mainstream discourse, however, such a view is clearly not widespread. Indeed, in 
this country, libertarianism – a view that I contend is more appropriately defined as 
neoliberalism – remains the “go-to” freedom ideology. If one is committed, first and foremost to 
freedom, then it is often assumed that one is committed to libertarianism in this uniquely 
American sense. In short, neoliberalism has a stranglehold over much of the discourse regarding 

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37 
freedom and liberty in this country and has led to a deeply problematic politics. Given the 
contemporary appeal and popularity of libertarianism, I reinterpret two key libertarian theorists, 
F.A. Hayek and Milton Friedman, to argue that their most basic political commitments (i.e. the 
three points noted above) need not lead down the path of radical individualism and neoliberal 
capitalism, which understands freedom as a fundamentally private affair and conceptualizes 
democracy – indeed the political sphere itself – as a form of majoritarian coercion. In essence, I 
have in mind an internal critique of libertarianism: the starting premises of its founders do not sit 
easily with its conclusions. Moreover, if I am correct, its basic commitments actually point 
toward an anti-authoritarian democratic politics, one that I suspect is in tension with the 
neoliberal capitalism with which their theories are identified. Certainly, there are other 
theoretical resources from which to begin an account of anti-authoritarian democracy, but given 
the contemporary appeal of libertarian thinking, and the fact that I share (some) of their starting 
points, I think it useful to begin here. In addition, I want to introduce an alternative way of 
thinking about libertarianism from the outset because their ideas will reappear throughout the 
dissertation.
In this chapter, I focus on the libertarian belief in the primacy of human freedom and 
argue that this basic political commitment points in the direction of a conceptualization of 
freedom as non-domination, a move which opens libertarian thought to seeing freedom as a 
public and relational concept. In particular, I would like to show how a basic anti-authoritarian 
or libertarian orientation is compatible with and, in fact, oriented toward theorizing freedom in a 
radically democratic sense, as akin to non-sovereign self-determination. Such an argument is, I 
believe, precisely what Miguel Absensour (2011, 100) has in mind when he recommends “an 
encounter between the ‘political principle’ [that is, democracy] and the libertarian spirit, each 

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38 
taking a step toward the other.” In what sense, must each liberty and democracy “step toward” 
the other? One the one hand, the unshakable libertarian commitment to freedom ought to help 
reframe democracy such that democracy is not identified with rule by the majority through the 
coercive apparatus of the centralized state. If democracy is “to keep pace with the modern idea 
of liberty, it cannot do otherwise than to take full measure of the problem of the State” (
ibid.
91).
On the other hand, democracy – or as Abensour puts it the “political principle” – must help to 
reframe liberty such that liberty does not devolve into a “conquering and predator autonomy” 
(
ibid
.). That is, libertarians must see how a conception of liberty that is based on an ideal of 
individual autonomy or self-sovereignty is necessarily one that impinges on the liberty of others 
and becomes a self-defeating principle. Rather than thinking about democracy as an antidote to 
too much freedom (and as a way of promoting welfare, justice or some other social value), I 
want to suggest a way of thinking about democracy as a way of exercising freedom and a way of 
thinking about freedom that implies a democratic component. Ultimately, I contend that this 
provides a conceptual link between individual liberty, on the one hand, and collective self-
determination, on the other.
In the next section, I show that Hayek and Friedman share the anti-authoritarian political 
commitments outlined above, even though I believe they both depart significantly from these 
principles in their support for neoliberal capitalism. Then, in section III, I explain why Hayek 
and Friedman are skeptical about democratic politics. I argue that, on the one hand, their 
concerns about state-based majoritarian democracy are persuasive, but that, on the other hand, 
this identification of politics with the state wrongly leads them to view freedom as necessarily 
apolitical (if not anti-political) – freedom as an escape from politics. In section IV, I explain the 
problems with defining freedom as self-sovereignty, or the ability to have control over one’s 

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39 
private sphere. While private freedom is without question an element of any libertarian account 
of freedom, an exclusive focus on self-sovereignty is, I argue, ontologically problematic, 
internally inconsistent and politically limiting. In section V, I present an alternative account of 
freedom. If libertarians ought not be committed to self-sovereignty and the view of freedom as 
non-interference that it implies, what should take its place? Here, using work from Phillip Pettit 
and Iris Young, I articulate a view of freedom as non-domination and a relational, non-sovereign 
account of self-determination. On this account, freedom is not to be found (only) outside of 
politics, but (also) through a radically democratic politics. I conclude by suggesting some 
criteria for a libertarian or anti-authoritarian democratic theory, in order to lay out the basic 
framework advanced in the remainder of the dissertation.