Sovereign Redistribution and Its Constrained Imagination: An Anarchist Critique of 'Equity Planning'

Abstract

This thesis argues that the state’s sovereignty is an illegitimate expropriation of power because it prevents individuals from developing their capacity to care for themselves and others. This argument is constructed around two main theoretical assertions. First, through Mark Purcell’s deconstruction of Hobbes’ Leviathan, that the proper place of power is within everyone, not within the sovereign state. Second, through Saul Newman, that equality and liberty within the liberal democratic imagination are always in tension. Contrastingly, the indeterminate space outside of the sovereign state wherein we all take up our power, resolves that tension, making possible a collective liberty. Equality then is not a distributable good but a social and political practice we all engage in together. This political practice amounts to developing our capacities to care for ourselves and others, rather than leaving those activities to a sovereign authority like the state or market.