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

I authorize and give up my right of governing myself to 
this man, or this assembly of men, on this condition, that thou give up thy right to 
him, and authorize all his actions in like manner
. This done, the multitude so 
united in one person is called a COMMONWEALTH…This is the generation of 
the great LEVIATHAN, or rather (to speak more reverently) of that 
Mortal God
to which we owe, under the 
Immortal God
, our peace and defence. For by this 
authority, given him by every particular man in the commonwealth, he hath the 
use of so much power and strength conferred on him that by terror thereof he is 
enabled to conform the wills of them all to peace at home and mutual aid against 
enemies abroad…[T]his person is called SOVERIEGN (
ibid
. XVII 13). 
For Hobbes, power must be concentrated at the center for it to be effective in overcoming the 
problems endemic to the state of nature. Indeed, perhaps the central lesson that Hobbes 
communicates is that the Leviathan’s power must not only be strong and centralized, but fully 
sovereign. In short, the logical conclusion of centripetal thinking is the absolute state. This is 
surely a high price to pay, but given the horrors of the state of nature it is a price that, on 
Hobbes’ account, is clearly worth it. Any efforts to limit or divide the state’s power or to allow 
it to be questioned by subjects, would defeat the purpose of the entire enterprise, which was to 
eliminate disputes between people that have the capacity to erupt into violence. Precisely what is 
needed is an absolute state, incapable of being questioned.
The same features of human nature which would make life in the state of nature 
so miserable also make it impossible for any government to be effective if it does 
not possess absolute power. To try to limit the powers of government by a 
constitution or by dividing authority…is to invite the anarchy and misery of the 
state of nature (Curley 1994, viii). 
In this section, I have presented a very cursory overview of Hobbes’ argument for an 
absolute state. My goal has been primarily to present him as representative of a centripetal, 
statist logic of power and to explain the thinking behind this view. While Hobbes’ defense of an 
absolute state has few adherents today, his arguments about the undesirability of the state of 
nature – primarily because of the radically decentralized nature of violence that characterizes it – 
remains influential. Thus, even if many thinkers do not concur with Hobbes that an 
absolute

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state is the only way out of the state of nature, most do agree that a) we ought to get out of the 
state of nature, and b) a state – adopting at least partially Hobbes’ centripetal logic – is 
necessary. In the second half of the essay, I will present an alternative viewpoint: that there are 
ways of avoiding (or at least minimizing) the problems of the state of nature without recourse to 
a state monopoly on violence and the serious issues that monopoly raises for freedom as non-
domination. 
However, prior to developing this alternative to Hobbesian centripetal logic, I need to 
dwell a bit longer on Hobbes’ continuing import. After all, it could well be asked: Is it not 
anachronistic to use Hobbes as a foil for an anti-sovereign politics or anti-statist logic of power?
Is anyone really a Hobbesian today in the sense that they defend an absolutist state? If not, then 
perhaps in framing the argument this way, I am setting up a caricature of the argument for state 
sovereignty. If this were true, then rather than presenting a novel critique of, and alternative to, 
state sovereignty (grounded in insights from anarchist anthropology), I would be merely adding 
to well-established liberal and republican opposition to the absolute state. However, I want to 
suggest that republican and liberal thinking is actually grounded in Hobbesian thinking, rather 
than constituting an alternative to it. Having just outlined Hobbes’s centripetal logic of power – 
an argument that culminates in a defense of an absolute state – I now need to show that one 
cannot so easily accept the first part of Hobbes’s argument (the desirability of a state) without 
also accepting the conclusion (that such a state must be absolute). If this is true, then defenders 
of freedom as non-domination must be less sanguine about the possibility of freedom within the 
state and more open to theorizing freedom outside of, or in opposition to, the state. 

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