The following paper was presented at the Seventh Annual Telos Conference, held on February 15–17, 2013, in New York City.
The banking crisis of 2007–8 became interpreted by many commentators as a failure of the neo-liberal economics that had been internationally ascendant for approximately three decades. Following the government bailout of the banks, even some leading evangelists for laissez-faire capitalism, such as Alan Greenspan, came to reflect on “flaws” within their ideology.[1] The younger Greenspan had been a disciple of Ayn Rand, whose fiercely individualistic philosophy had been popularized in her best-selling novels The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957).[2] Yet the political fallout from the banking crisis provoked a resurgence of interest in Rand’s work,[3] with some on the political Right arguing the crisis had actually been provoked by state involvement in the economy. It was contended that the U.S. government had believed that large financial institutions were “too big to fail,” thus emboldening actors within these organizations to take far greater risks than they would otherwise have contemplated. In this regard Ayn Rand has even been referred to as a prophet of the crisis. Rand argued that government control over the economy would tend to induce deep problems that would then be blamed on the free-market and the avarice of businessmen. Consequently, demands would then be made for greater government control and more public spending. However (and as the plot transpires in Atlas Shrugged), these interventions only serve to make economic conditions worse as the creativity of entrepreneurs is further stifled by regulation. This explanation of the crisis has been influential within the renewal of the populist Right, evident in the “Who is John Galt?” banners that have appeared at numerous Tea Party events and anti-Obama protests.
James Kalb bluntly asks us: “Why does liberalism—the tradition that makes equal freedom the political touchstone—combine such strength with such incoherence? . . . Liberalism is triumphant almost everywhere, but its victory reverses the meaning of its principles. It calls for live-and-let-live, and enforces it by supervising everything” (111). Kalb explores the inherent tension between what he regards as the two core principles of liberalism—freedom and equality. Here, freedom is interpreted as the potential or ability to carry out one’s will, while equality is understood as the principle that ensures the right of each individual to do so. But what happens when two individuals’ wills are in conflict? Logically, liberalism has few intrinsic means to resolve such a scenario, argues Kalb. It simply “resolves disputes by letting each do as he likes consistent with the equal freedom of others, and in case of conflict the more tolerant wins” (117). In this case, “more tolerant” appears to refer to that stance which is less intrusive on the will, person, or property of another. 
To presume that individual interests precede political action is not only to place the proverbial cart before the horse, it is to formulate a theory of social agency based on a belief in sequential phenomena sans justification for the particular sequence proposed. In “On the Rationality of Democratic Choice,” Alessandro Pizzorno argues that the system of political actions and interests is an annular one, which is why utilitarian and rational choice theories lack sufficient explanatory value. He proposes the goal of affirmation of socio-political identity is an alternative explanation of political action that does not speak the traditional language of costs and benefits, as that language is housed within a universalizing framework that doesn’t reflect reality. 
Amid the contested status of the State, juxtaposing the political thought of Thomas Hobbes and Alain Badiou will facilitate a renewed questioning of the State itself. Hobbes stands near the beginning of the tradition of those using “State” as a term for the impersonal form of political authority between ruler and ruled, understanding politics as culminating in the State. Badiou, on the other hand, while assuming the basic conviction of the impersonal nature of the State, theorizes a space for politics at a distance to the State. This encounter is promising not only because of their differences, but because of their similarities. Both take mathematics as the key to their philosophical method. Both envision the primary situation as a tumultuous “multitude” or “multiplicity.” And both understand politics as the creation of a “One.” Yet their overriding difference is manifest in the position of the State in relation to the production of the One, and therefore politics itself. For Hobbes, politics culminates in the formation of the One within the State, or rather, as the State. For Badiou, politics occurs as the pronouncement of a One at a distance to the State. After showing how Badiou moves through and beyond Hobbes, this essay explores the upshot of Badiou’s understanding of politics in relation to other political theories, particularly how recent proposals from within a pragmatist-Hegelian framework hold a hidden alliance with Hobbesian contract theory. 
While cosmopolitan authors are eager to forecast the demise of the nation-state, this article looks at a number of authors who believe that the emergence of supranational politics actually provides the nation-state with a new or at least an altered raison d’être. I explore two lines of argument of this kind. Some theorists fear that the development of supranational institutions will eventually bring about a “depoliticization” of collective life. We risk ending up in a “postpolitical” world where individuals no longer see themselves as political actors with responsibility for the fate of a collectivity, but are instead reduced to purely economic units. Accordingly, these authors defend the nation-state as an irreplaceable context of political agency. Other theorists fear that the concentration of powers at the supranational level risks bringing about a new kind of despotism. In response, they propose to recast nation-states in the role of “intermediary bodies” that can form a counterweight against the centralizing tendencies of supranational institutions. Assessing these two lines of argument, I conclude that the dangers these authors point to are real. I also conclude, though, that there are no reasons to assume that the nation-state is indeed the optimal “political form” to counter these alarming developments. 
