Introduction: power and liberal society

Abstract

This article responds to the upswing in commentary on growing inequality around the globe, but especially in characteristically ‘liberal’ societies supposedly holding equality as a central ideal. To assess this situation, I argue that debates about equality and justice need to be complimented by a reformulation of the idea of the ‘balance of power’. Toward that end I propose that this idea needs to be liberated from its traditional context of international relations, and generalized to become an analytical tool for social analysis at all levels: micro, meso and macro. I provide a sketch of how power is typically balanced at the meso-level of the liberal polity, arguing that these need to be understood as complex systems that both concentrate and distribute power. I then return to the problem of inequality and justice, arguing that regardless of what is fair, broad distributions of power (less inequality) are in our pragmatic self-interest because our autonomy and self-determination is more secure under these circumstances. But more deeply, a wide balance of power is fundamentally good, because it is the necessary preconditions for relations of trust, mutual recognition, respect and interdependence.