Normative Political Economy: Subjective freedom, the market, and the state 9780415235297, 9780415758369, 9781003209416

Citation preview

Normative Political

Economy

Normative Political Economy explores the criteria we use for judging economic institutions and economic policy. It argues that prevailing criteria lack sufficient depth in their understanding of subjective experience. By uncovering the meaning of this experience through reference to psychoanalytic theory, the book changes the way we understand the processes and structures of

‘political economy’. The currency of David Levine’s argument universal importance. Topics covered include:

are

fundamental concepts of

basic needs,

equality and justice freedom, self-integration, and creative living the role of the state capitalism and the good

society

This book represents essential reading for any student of economics, ical science or moral philosophy.

polit-

David P. Levine is Professor of Economics in the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver. He is the author of nine books and numerous articles in the fields of economic theory, political economy, and applied psychoanalysis. His recent publications include Wealth and Freedom (1995), Self-Seeking and the Pursuit ofJustice (1997) and Subjectivity in Political Economy (1998) ,

.

Routledge Frontiers of Political Economy 1

2

Equilibrium

Versus Understanding Towards the rehumanization of economics within social theory Mark Addleson

16

17

Evolution, Order and Complexity Edited by Elias L. Khalil and Kenneth E. Boulding

3

4 5

Interactions in Political Economy Malvern after ten years Edited by Steven Pressman

7

Post

9

10

14

The Political Economy of Middle East Peace The impact of competing trade agendas Edited by J. W. Wright, Jnr

Edited by Philip Arestis, Gabriel Palma and Malcolm Sawyer

21

Markets, Unemployment and Economic Policy Essays in honour of Geoff Harcourt, volume

Social Economy The logic of capitalist Clark Everling

development

Keynesian Economics/Post Keynesian Alternatives Edited by Roy J. Rotheim The Representative Agent in New

Borderlands of Economics Essays in honour of Daniel R. Fusfeld Edited by Nahid Aslanbeigui and Young Back Choi

Value, Distribution and Capital Essays in honour of Pierangelo Garegnani

by Gary Mongiovi and Fabio

The Economics of Science Methodology and epistemology economics reallv mattered James R. Wible

as

Petri if

Competitiveness, Localised Learning and Regional Development Specialisation and prosperity in small open economies Peter Maskell, Heikki Eskelinen, Ingjaldur Hannibalsson, Anders Malmberg and Eirik Vatne

15

Political Economy wanting and choosing

20 The Active Consumer Novelty and surprise in

Edited 13

on

Economics and the History of Economics Essays in honour of Geoff Harcourt, volume

Macroeconomics

12

Subjectivity in Essays

Rowley Keynesian

James E. Hartley 11

18

19

Edited by Philip Arestis, Gabriel Palma and Malcolm Sawyer 8

Labour Market Theory A constructive reassessment Ben J. Fine

of

science Roger Backhouse

Probability in Economics Capital Controversy,

Explorations in Economic Methodology From Lakatos to empirical philosophy

David P. Levine

The End of Economics Michael Perelman Omar F. Hamouda and Robin

6

Women and European Employment Mark Smith, Colette Fagan, Damian Grimshaw

Jill Rubery,

22

choice consumer

Edited by Marina Bianchi Subjectivism and Economic Analysis Essays in memory of Ludwig Lachmann Edited by Roger Koppl and Gary Mongiovi Themes in Post-Keynesian Economics

Essays in honour of Geoff Harcourt, volumethree Edited

by Peter Kriesler and Claudio Dynamics of Technological Knowledge

Sardoni

23 The

Cristiano Antonelli 24 The Political Economy of Diet, Health and Food Policy Ben J. Fine 25 The End of Finance Capital market inflation, financial derivatives and pension fund capitalism

Jan Toporowski 26 Political Economy and the New

Capitalism by Jan Toporowski

Edited

27 Growth Theory A philosophical perspective Patricia Northover 28 The Political Economy of the Small Firm Edited by Charlie Dannreuther 29 Hahn and Economic Methodology Edited by Thomas Boylan and Paschal F. O’Gorman 30 Gender, Growth and Trade The miracle economies of postwar years David Kucera 31 Normative Political Economy Subjective freedom, the market, and thestate David P. Levine

Normative Political

Economy
Subjective freedom, and the

state

David P. Levine

the

market,

First published 2001 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2001 David P. Levine in Garamond by Florence Production Ltd, Stoodleigh, Devon

Typeset

rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. All

Notice:
Product

or

corporate names may be trademarks or registered are used only for identification and explanation

trademarks, and without intent

to

infringe.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging

in Publication Data

Levine, David P., 1948Normative

political

economy:

subjective freedom, the market,

and the state/David P. Levine. p.

cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Economics—Psychological aspects. 2. Liberalism. 3. Individualism. 4. Economics—Moral and ethical aspects. I. Title. HB74.P8 L477 2000 330—dc21 00-034482

ISBN 13: 978-0-415-23529-7

(hbk)

Contents

Prefacevii 1

1 Introduction

PART I

Foundations11 2

Ends13

3

The

4

Needs and

5

State and

quality of subjective experience36 rights51

society 73

PART II

Applications

87

6

Capitalism

7

Income from work and social insurance 107

8

Justice

9

The economy:

good society89

and economic

Notes151

References156 Index 159

and the

democracy119

national, international, global139

Preface

I explore foundational concerns of normative political economy. of the conviction that something important is missing in current discussion of the ethical standing of economic institutions. This something missing is a substantial account for the quality of subjective experience as the central element in shaping the goals of economic activity and economic institutions. I take subjectivity to be the central element in any meaningful discussion of normative issues relevant in the contemporary setting. In that In this

book,

I do

out

so

meaningful basis for normative judgment requires us of subjectivity, and the prospects for subjectively meaningful experience. One can think of subjective experience as a kind of capacity, somewhat along the lines that Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen follow in their discussions of human capabilities. The specific capacity associated with what I refer to as subjective experience is the capacity to define meaningful goals, to take initiative in seeking to realize them, to lead a creative life, and to find satisfaction in doing so. Institutions can be organized to facilitate or impede the individual’s effort to develop and express this capacity, to constisetting, to

to

provide

understand the

tute

him-

or

a

nature

herself

as, in

the words of Heinz Kohut,

a

‘centre of initiative’

in the world.

The

on subjective experience leads us inevitably to mental or life. Yet, for those concerned with the economy, few things seem less relevant than its psychic dimension. Because of this, the concepts needed to understand subjective experience have played no part in discussion of normative issues in political economy. Matters are not helped much by the prevalence of utilitarian and related choice-theoretic ideas, which explicitly deny the significance of any aspects of subjectivity that we cannot subsume into the formal depiction of choice. This makes it all the more important that we begin the exploration of subjective meaning in an arena where it

emphasis

psychic

has largely been ignored. The title of this book refers to norms, and it may be useful to explain briefly my motivation for using this term, especially given the likelihood that reference to norms will be taken to imply that the ethical standing of institutions is made contingent or relative in some essential way. I use the

Preface term

‘norm’

to

make clear that this book considers

not

economic institu-

they are, but as they might be if shaped according to ethically compelling ideals. I do not consider these ideals arbitrary, purely subjective, tions

as

customary. Nor do I consider them derivative of group decision-making, however democratic that might be. On the contrary, the ideals I consider here arise only when matters of history, tradition, or embeddedness in a group no longer command conviction. These ideals and the norms that embody them arise prior to matters of group decision-making, since they are needed to judge the normative standing of the group itself and of its decision-making processes. I take it that references to the modern world, or to modernity, suggest a situation where group-constituting norms (whether customary or not) no longer command conviction simply because they are group-constituting; so something different is required if institutions are to embody ethically meaningful ideals. This something different is the specific norm that makes ethical living possible outside the group. To live outside the group is to live as an individual. This book, then, is about a world where the only compelling norms are those that incorporate respect for the individual as the locus of subjective experience. This individual may seek membership in groups, and derive substantial satisfaction and meaning in life from them. But, in joining a group, the individual does not make him- or herself its creature. The norm that expresses the ethical significance of life prior to, and even outside of, the group is variously referred to as freedom, self-determination, autonomy, and creative living. In the current intellectual climate, a difficulty can arise for those who appeal to the norm of freedom, and of the creative living connected to it, for judging economic institutions. This difficulty has to do with the universality of freedom as a foundation for normative judgment. I argue that or

freedom is a universal standard, though not in the sense sometimes attributed to that term. I consider freedom and the possibility of creative living it affords neither inevitable nor universal to human experience. I do, however, consider freedom the realization of a human potential. The realization of this potential depends on one vital condition, which I refer to as the integration of subjective experience. The dependence of freedom on integration makes the norm of freedom also a norm of integration, an integration that many today consider illusory. I will not respond to those who question the possibility of self-integration except to note that what makes the norm of integration seem illusory is the extent to which we have failed to achieve it. This failure should not, however, be presumed to imply the inherent incapacity of human beings to integrate their lives around that core experience I will refer to as being your self. I take it that integration of subjective experience is the essential element in the idea of reason. Reason is the process that integrates subjective experience, and it is the expression in thought of the integration of that experience. This is not, of course, the reason of formal deductive logic, of

Preface consistent choice, or of conscious deliberation more generally, however vital those may be. Rather, this is the reason of mental processes set loose from presuppositions about what we must know and what we must do, so that knowing and doing can be made the expression of a subject who knows and who acts. Reason understood in this way is a cognitive, emotional, and intellectual capacity inseparable from what I refer to here as the capacity for subjective experience. This book is written, then, for those who would judge institutions by their relationship to freedom and reason and, more concretely, to the creative living freedom and reason make possible. The freedom I consider here is not normally realized through the policy of free trade, although historically it is in some ways linked to that policy. If free trade means that economic opportunity is not limited by arbitrary considerations, especially those of rank and status, but open to all, then free trade is indeed linked to the norm of freedom. But, if free trade means that the economy cannot be regulated in ways made necessary to protect and secure the capacity for subjective experience, then it is the enemy of freedom. In economics, involvement with the idea of individual freedom has most often meant a commitment to a particular ideology. This ideology has various forms, but in all of them, the individual is taken as an irreducible starting point for normative judgment. What this means is that being an individual is taken to require no special development and no special conditions aside from those that provide protection from others and from the state. Individuals are what they are, want what they want, and gain satisfaction where they find it. My earlier volume on Subjectivity in Political Economy (Routledge 1998) was in large part devoted to undermining this idea, and offering at least the rudiments of an alternative. This alternative takes individuation seriously, understanding it as an achievement that depends in vital ways on the availability of what Donald Winnicott refers to as a facilitating environment. In the present volume, I continue to explore the possibility that we can conceive economic arrangements suitable to selfdetermination without denying the substantial demands individuals place on, and the substantial dependence individuals have on, a larger order including other individuals, the groups they form, the market, and the state.

I would like to thank Pam Wolfe and Daniel Whelan for their assistance in the preparation of the manuscript of this book. Material included in Chapter 8 was first published in The Review of Political Economy, Vol. 10, No. 3 (July 1998). The section on greed in Chapter 5 originally appeared in Psychoanalytic Studies (Spring 2000).

1

The

Introduction

retreat

from the idea of the economy

Social science has lately gotten itself into a muddle over the question of the separateness of the economy. Much is made of the inseparability of economics and politics, of the political dimension of economy and the economic determinants of politics. Much rhetorical ground has been gained by facile criticism of the idea that the economy stands apart as something distinct, an entity sui generis. Yet, however valid some of the claims advanced by those who think this way, in doing so they lose sight of something vital about the place of the economy in the larger social order. The claims advanced by those who seek a merger of economics and politics often have to do with the interrelation of political and economic process in the shaping of historically specific events and institutions: the politics of the debt crisis, the political business cycle, the influence of economic interest groups on political decisions, and so on. Events and processes such as these combine economics and politics in sometimes complex ways. Social scientists have taken this fact as a basis on which to advance claims against the idea of the economy as a separable system. The attack on the separateness of the economy sometimes employs the failure of laissez-faire as a critique of economic theory. It sees in that failure an implied necessity for the merger of economics and politics. An argusuch as this motivates much work in political economy (see Gilpin 1987 ). This attitude toward the relation between politics and economics reflects the close connection between economic theory and the argument for the market (and implicitly between the critique of economic theory and the argument against the market). Economic theory concerns itself with the ideal image of a self-regulating system of private, legally voluntary, and unplanned transactions between separate and independent persons. It explores the possibility and implications of self-regulation, and thus of an economy made separate in its functioning from decisions of collective or communal units. The success of economic theory could be measured by the success of its arguments supporting the viability of the market as a system of want satisfaction, and the virtues of the kind of satisfaction it brings about.

ment

Introduction The

‘viability’ just introduced refers to the coherence of a system decisions made without an overall plan. Will these decisions lead private to successful reproduction of the system of want satisfaction and a reasonable (if not efficient) employment of means? Will means of production and means of consumption circulate to those who need them or who can best make productive use of them? These are difficult questions, which have been the subject of dispute in economics for over two hundred years. The dispute does not end, however, with the matter of viability. Even if term

of

viable, the system of want satisfaction

must exhibit tangible and compelling virtues. Economists define these virtues along two related but distinct dimensions: private want satisfaction and the growth of social wealth. Economists argue that markets are uniquely suited to satisfying the private wants of individuals, and to bringing about the growth of society’s producing capacity and overall level of wealth production, to making society wealthy. The classical economists emphasized this second virtue; the neoclassical economists have tended to put greater emphasis on the first. The issue of separability involves not only the economy’s capacity to satisfy want, but also the nature of the want to be satisfied. Separateness has implications for the nature of want, and the nature of our wants has much to do with how we go about satisfying them, and with the success we are likely to have in doing so. The underlying question raised by the claims for and against separateness is that of the end to which wanting leads the individual. Within a (separate) economy, the location and end of want differ from what they are when the economy is embedded, to use Karl term (1957), in non-economic relations. The attack on the separateness of the economy seeks to move us toward the idea of an economy embedded in non-economic, especially political, institutions. This way of thinking subsumes wants under the corporate purposes of institutions with ends of their own. In other words, embedding makes corporate ends and imperatives dominate over individual want. When it does so, two possibilities arise for the relation of the member to the group. Either the member’s wants must be identical to corporate need, or they remain different, and thus in conflict. Embedding implies either a conflict between the member’s wants and those of the institution or group, or the identification of the member’s wants with those institutional or group ends determined without regard to the individual. This will be my main thesis. In the following, I elaborate briefly. When we want something, even for our own use, the ends served by our wanting may be substantially our own, or substantially those of the group to which we belong. I may want a car to facilitate travel for private ends such as recreation; or, I may want a car because it will enable me to work for a political organization more effectively. I may want to make my business profitable because doing so will increase my income and standard of living; or, I may want to make my business more profitable because I identify myself with it, and think of its success as what I want. Thus, our wanting

Polanyi’s

Introduction may express

smaller),

or

our

subordination

the purposes of a collective (greater or genuinely individual ends. may experience the collective ends that we want as our they are not. That they are not our own does not make to

it may express

Although we general them unimportant to us. On importance than those ends own, in

the contrary, they may be of equal or greater I have characterized as genuinely ours. The distinction between ends has to do not with how important they are, but with what they mean. The degree to which we understand this distinction has to do with the degree to which we separate ourselves (and thus our wants) from the group and its collective ends. If we do not separate ourselves, then we cannot know ends of our own and instead experience group ends as what we want. When the group prevents this separation (and it has various means for doing so), it denies the individual or separate self an existence as a distinguishable element of the mental life of the member. Separation of the individual from the group, individual self from group identity, is the other side of the separation of the economy. Put somewhat differently, the member of the group does not find the identity residing at the core of his being to be something to claim and value as his own. It belongs to the group. For the member to have ends of his own, he must have a sense of self distinct from the identity shared with others. Ends that are genuinely his own emanate out of this sense of self. The absence of such ends means the absence of self, and the absence of self means the absence of ends distinct from those shared

collectively. To express this condition, I will restrict the term individual to those who have succeeded, at least to some significant degree, in separating themselves from the group, and thus articulating ends genuinely their own. While the individual may also be a member, he has other wants as well, and he has the capacity to distinguish between the two types of wants.

Traditionally, the two groups most relevant to the problem outlined above the polity and the family. Both polity and family have the capacity to define corporate ends that make demands on members, and conceivably take precedence over, or even take the place of, individual want. Both family and polity have important links to the economy. The classical school in economics used the term political economy to are

refer

type of economy, one whose scope could not be contained within unit. When the family subsumes a large part of the social division of labour, that division of labour parallels divisions within the family (of age, gender, and family position). The allocation of types of work among members confirms (and thus reinforces) the different positions of the members within the family. These differences express what it means to belong to and collectively make up a family. Confirming such differences confirms the reality of the family, and thus of its claims over the life of the member. In this sense, when the members are subsumed within the a

to a

family

familial division of labour, they work for the family and not for themselves. Their ends are to confirm and realize the meaning of family life. What they want is for the family to thrive. In a political economy, the situation of the member differs from this. Within a political economy, the division of labour does not follow the lines of family division; it cuts differently. The division of labour divides and connects persons unconnected by the ties of family life, strangers rather than relatives. This means the separation of the economy from the family within which it had been embedded. I choose the term ‘separateness’ to avoid any suggestion that our ability to consider economic relations sui generis implies that the economy is somehow an independent system. Separateness need not imply independent of, or indifferent to. Thus, when we speak of the separateness of persons, we do not imply the absence of dependence, or the indifference of one person to another. At a minimum, separateness implies meaningfully distinct from. When we separate, we place things apart along some important dimension. Thus, politics and family life may be mutually dependent, but they are not the same thing; and understanding how they are different is important. A family dinner is not equivalent to the act of voting, even if the nature of family life varies with variation in political arrangements. Nor is the family dinner a contract or (even implicitly) exchange, although its connections to forms of exchange are important. Critics of the idea that we can separate the economy have had little diffi-

culty discovering ways in which our economic lives depend on nature, politics, culture, family relations, and so on. Similarly, students of family life and politics can readily demonstrate the operation there of economic calculation, particularly when they have made the prior assumption that all human interaction is understandable as the expression of constrained choice. The clear waters through which economic theory once perceived the operation of the economy are easily muddied. The price of oil does depend on the political situation in the Middle East; the demand for houses and cars does depend on the organization and ends of family life; the location of investment does depend on political ‘climate’. Economists know all this, yet some of them persist in the effort to explore the logical properties of the (market or capitalist) economy considered in the abstract. This abstraction separates the economy from other dimensions of social life and from circumstance. Such abstraction, the very stuff of which economics has been made from its inception in the work of the classical economists and their critic, Karl Marx.

historically contingent

The liberal

image of society

I think it reasonable to seek

theory

in the

larger

explanation for the peculiarities of economic framework of the liberal image of society. 1 It is within an

this image that the separateness of the economy and the abstractness of economic theory make sense. The liberal image identifies a core at the centre of its normative judgment of institutions: the idea of the self as a centre of initiative and as the animating principle of social interaction. This idea involves notions of selfdetermination and the separateness of persons, ideas not always well articulated or understood, yet, nonetheless vital for the liberal account of social arrangements. Persons with a sense of self want and act. Normatively compelling institutions sustain the idea that wants stem from the person, and that persons take initiative in satisfying their wants. The ability to sustain this idea gives meaning to social order, and makes it whole. In this sense, the liberal image considers self-determination to be the essence of social order. The liberal image ties the separateness of the economy to a particular construction of human interaction. The key to this construction is disinterest. Each individual acting in the pursuit of his or her private ends takes an interest in others only so far as they might contribute in some way to the successful attainment of those ends. So long as others contribute in this way because doing so is also in their interest, we might be tempted to say that the system is one of voluntary transaction. To draw this conclusion, however, we must make a special assumption about interest, that it is in some sense genuinely that of the individual him- or herself. The classic example of failure of interest along these lines is an interest driven by desperation. Those who must exchange their labour to secure their survival have an interest in doing so. If they are the legal owners of their labouring capacity (they are legally free men or women), then we can also say that the resulting transaction is legally voluntary. Can we also say that the ends they achieve through contract are their own, and thus fulfil the promise of the market to emancipate the individual from the group so that he or she can pursue the self-interest appropriate to an individual? We cannot if by individual we mean more than the legal standing associated with property ownership. Legal standing only expresses and protects a quality of being, the quality of being a centre of initiative. We cannot, then, so easily draw conclusions about the voluntary nature of exchange, the existence of choice, and the triumph of freedom from the legal status of the

participants. This is the point Marx tries to make in the language of exploitation, a he adopts from his classical predecessors, especially Adam Smith. Marx’s awkward language expresses a conviction that the liberal project is fundamentally flawed because the separation of the member and his constitution as an individual frees him not from exploitation, but from his true identity as a part of a community. Here, we will not follow Marx down a road, which, in the end, leads into an idealized past of immersion into the group. We do, however, take seriously the problem of identifying a selfinterest that can make choice and freedom meaningful and not merely the

point

form in which the worker seeks to acquire his subsistence when his traditional recourse to the community is no longer available. The normative standing of the separate economy depends essentially on our ability to identify the self-interest to which I have just referred. The disinterest that I suggest above characterizes interaction in a separate economy (which is a market economy) and has a normative significance when it means that participants have identities of their own to nurture and express in life and in interaction with others. So far as such an identity exists, and has normative significance for us, we must design institutions of want satisfaction so that they enable participants to satisfy needs derivative of individual rather than group identity. This requires institutions that incorporate interest in the self, and the implied disinterest in others. It needs to be emphasized that disinterest in does not mean indifference to others. To satisfy his or her needs, the individual must contribute something to satisfying the needs of others, and thus may take a great interest in them. But, this interest is derivative of, and thus a part of, self-interest, and not the collective interest implied in adopting a group identity. If disinterest does not mean a lack of interest in others, neither does it imply a predatory interest in them. On the contrary, I have chosen the word ‘disinterest’ to express the lack of an interest in the other except as a possible source of things that might offer an opportunity for need satisfaction. A interest in others, such as the interest we associate with domination, expresses the opposite of disinterest, and thus raises a special set of problems. We need to consider how predatory interest, which is a very acute interest in others, might come to replace disinterest, and what arrangements can protect against the transition to predatory interest, or at least

predatory

its

expression in relations of oppression and exploitation. To protect the individual from the predatory interest of others is to protect individual rights. The idea of right plays a primary part in separating the economy, since the separate economy is essentially a system of property right. Property right, taken in the abstract, may not, however offer sufficient protection from oppression, and if it does not, right must do more. In the following, I consider not only the nature of want and self-interest typical of an individual rather than a member, but the regime of right that secures individual integrity and the possibility of satisfying specifically individual want. Individual

want

We can question the quality of satisfaction available to the individual taken outside the context of group life and of the connectedness felt within the group. Clearly, this is not the satisfaction of group connection. Does this mean that satisfaction of individual want offers at best a poor substitute for connection and belonging and for the feeling of worth that derives from

the moral standing of a community? If individual satisfaction offers only a poor substitute for group connection, then it offers at best a poor substitute for the substantive ends available in the context of the group. Then, a normative political economy in which individual satisfaction plays a large role has little appeal. Before we embrace this conclusion, it is worthwhile to consider more closely the satisfaction available to the individual outside the group. The distinction between the satisfaction of the individual and that of the member derives from the distinction in the ways of life available to them. This meaning will, of course, vary with the kind of group. For our purposes, we are concerned with those groups that define ways of life for their members, since it is in defining ways of life that the group establishes that connection to the group is what the member wants. The group way of life has a moral standing since to live within it and according to its dictates is to live for the community and not for the self. The moral standing of the community then becomes the moral value of the member, whose membership and participation is his or her end, the end whose achievement yields satisfaction. This moral standing is lost when the individual puts aside the prior determination of his or her way of life in favour of the kind of satisfaction available outside the group. For this reason, the latter will seem, from the standpoint of group culture, to lack moral standing or any normative significance derivative of connection to a moral order. Does individual satisfaction have any value in itself? Does the individual’s connection to things that offer satisfaction have any greater significance than that of a poor substitute for his connection with his community? What becomes available once ways of life are no longer prescribed, once conduct and relating cease to be matters of the group’s moral significance and the satisfaction to be had in connection with it? One way to answer these questions is to consider how the primary significance of the group for the member lies in its ability to solve the problems of living: why to live, how to live, and more generally what gives life its meaning. Indeed, I can put this point even more strongly. The primary significance of the group is that, in it, no such problems need ever arise, at least in normal times and for those aspects of conduct and relating that matter most. Satisfaction in living, what the member wants and what provides satisfaction, is confirmation of the solutions to the problems of living already given and provided for him. We can say, then, that, in contrast to the group member, what provides satisfaction for the individual, what he or she wants, is precisely to discover solutions to these problems of living that are not already given. The fact that they are not already given makes them problems, and creates the opportunity to lead a life devoted to discovering solutions. Further on, I will (following Donald Winnicott) refer to the way of life organized around the pursuit of this kind of satisfaction as creative living. I will suggest that

that the individual wants, and that is that defines a way of life. expressed concretely The difference between being in the group and being an individual is, then, the difference between determinacy and indeterminacy of ways of life. Where predetermination is the primary virtue of group membership, or of membership in those groups that define ways of life, indeterminacy is the primary virtue of individuation. I will not here insist that one or the other of these virtues has a primary claim, that one is in some sense true and the other false, though I will suggest a sense in which one is universal and the other is not. I will suggest how institutions can be organized to realize or instantiate the virtue of indeterminacy, which is to say of individual autonomy and creative living. I will also say more about the nature of the satisfaction available to the individual, of what individuals want, and of what meaning their wants have for them and for the larger system of interaction taken as a whole. When we place a value on individual satisfaction, we place a value on the institutions and interactions through which that satisfaction can best be achieved. This value placed on institutions makes them normatively compelling so far as creative living is the norm. it is satisfaction in creative

A

note on

When

living

a

set

of

the idea of

an

economy

in

wants

of economic arrangements and how they can or should be, ‘economic’ as if there were many possible economies, different in important respects, yet all in some sense economies. This raises the question, What do these different arrangements have in common that justifies our referring to all of them as economies? The usual answer to this question brings into play the idea of a system of want satisfaction. An economy is a set of institutions through which the means to satisfy wants are produced and distributed. Terms such as ‘provisioning’ and ‘material exchange’ attempt to speak of the process of economy in general terms, which is to say terms that do not already specify the kinds of wants to be satisfied, or how the means to satisfy them are produced and distributed. Speaking this way, however appealing it may be, nonetheless causes we

we

use

speak

the

term

problems. Most notably, these problems have to do with the idea that we can speak of need as a general matter, without specifying its nature and ends, and that the need spoken about in this way can be satisfied, if to different degrees, through various arrangements. Put another way, speaking of economy in this way assumes that the needs and the institutional arrangements for satisfying them are separable. Yet, it is a main theme of the following discussion that this is not the case. If arrangements for want satisfaction are specific to the kinds of want to be satisfied, so that the so-called ‘economic problem’ is not only about how well wants are satisfied, but also about the nature of want itself, then what does it mean to speak of ‘the economy’ or ‘economic arrangements’?

We

leave the term ‘economic’ aside in favour of the that language already invokes the specific arrangements and the specific kind of need for which they are suited. Thus, we will speak in the following about the link between individual need and the market, arguing that in satisfying the need peculiar to an individual, the market must play a significant role. Rather than speaking of economic arrangements, we might speak of the different ways the market is linked to and limited by non-market institutions. An alternative is to continue to use the term ‘economic arrangements’ as a general way of speaking about markets, which is to say a way of speaking about arrangements for satisfying individual need that does not yet identify the specific character of those arrangements. In the following, I will, by and large, restrict the use of the term ‘economic’ to this sense, so that there will be no presumption or implication that it is useful to speak of want or of the means for satisfying want more

as a

might

do better

concrete

general

matter.

to

Part I

Foundations

2

Ends

Introduction The fundamental problem for normative political economy is to establish a meaningful foundation for judging economic institutions. Of those available, the most prominent appeals to a notion of individual satisfaction usually equated, as a practical matter, with choice. Equating satisfaction with choice leads naturally into a notion of freedom, one that makes freedom synonymous with choice (we are, or should be, ‘free to choose’). The entire construct is, however, poorly grounded since it does not tell us what is meant by satisfaction. More specifically, it does not tell us what is to be satisfied or

what constitutes the self whose satisfaction has normative

significance

(Levine 1998 ). To avoid this problem, some have attempted to make satisfaction a purely personal matter. But it is one thing to suggest that what specific goods or actions yield satisfaction depends on who is to be satisfied, and another to suggest that the ideal of gaining satisfaction has no intersubjective meaning. If this were the case, the term could hardly offer any basis for normative judgment. For satisfaction to provide a basis for normative judgment, we must be able to say something about what it means to be satisfied that applies not only to this or that individual, but also to the experience of being an individual regardless of the particular context. On this matter, the prevailing ideal has little to offer. The older political economy did not make individual satisfaction the end of economic organization, opting instead to focus attention on national wealth, economic growth, and economic development. While a connection may exist between economic growth and satisfaction, it was not clearly established, except insofar as growth was seen as the path out of poverty (the ‘savage state of man’). Indeed, it is just at this point that the older political economy seems least convincing. To be sure, it offers a definite answer to the question, What is the end of economic activity? The end is wealth. But, what makes wealth an end? And, what is accomplished by the pursuit of wealth? In answer to these questions, the classical theory offers us two related ideas: freedom from

want

(Smith) and freedom from labour (Marx). While

Foundations these answers are compelling up to a point, they also seem to assume what needs to be established. That is, they take wealth and the pursuit of wealth to be the solution to, rather than the source of, the problem. Thus, they assume that without wealth man lives in want, and without wealth man must labour for his subsistence. These assumptions are convincing neither on historical nor theoretical grounds. For the former, we might refer to Marshall Sahlins’ description of what he terms the ‘primitive affluent society’ (Sahlins 1972 ). The evidence that he presents strongly contradicts the assumption that outside of wealthy society man lived in want and was required to work long hours to satisfy basic need. On the contrary, prior to wealthy society wants were limited, as was the time devoted to acquiring the things needed to satisfy them. It is the need for wealth that puts men to work and leaves them feeling deprived when all they can acquire is the subsistence available outside wealthy society. If wealth is the end of economic activity, then it cannot be for the reason offered us by the classical economists. Even if we accept the link between well-being and satisfaction, we still need to know what sort of satisfaction can be provided by wealth, which is to say what we need wealth for, and what kind of satisfaction carries normative

significance. Amartya Sen

has recently argued that the attention devoted to income and wealth as the primary or exclusive measures of well-being is not justified. Sen suggests we might do better if we consider what the use of wealth is meant to accomplish, and take this to be the normative end of economic institutions. It is not a matter of wealth as such, but of who we can be and what we can do, and of the role wealth might play in enabling us to be and to do. We can, then, judge economic arrangements by the set of ‘beings and doings’ they make possible (Sen 1992 : 39). Judging institutions this way takes us one step back from amounts of income and wealth in the direction of ends we might claim have normative significance in themselves. In this chapter, I consider these and related ends sometimes used to judge economic arrangements. Each, I think, has something to offer. At the same time, something important remains not so much missing altogether as implicit in the ideals explicitly put forward. I hope to make this clear as I briefly consider some of the ideals that have been advanced for judging economic arrangements. Basic need For Adam Smith, the growth of the nation’s wealth is a means to assure that its citizens will not live in poverty. This makes unmet need the basis for judging institutional arrangements. Our first problem, then, is to specify the sort of need which, when unmet, implies a normatively significant failure. This is no easy matter. Is normative failure always implied when a need is

Ends met? An argument along these lines might be made, but it is not the argument I have suggested comes down to us from the classical economists. For the latter, only certain needs carry the burden of obligation we associate with the judgment that institutions ought to assure satisfaction. These are the needs we judge to be in some way essential or basic. The idea is well expressed by a Director of the International Labor Organization as quoted by Sidney Dell: ‘development planning should include, as an explicit goal, the satisfaction of an absolute level of basic needs’ (Dell 1979 : 291-2). Similarly, in the words of Frances Stewart: not

The failure of the economic and social system to achieve a basic minimum condition of life for hundreds of millions of people in the third world has led to widespread recognition of the need to give primacy to securing universal access to basic social and economic goods and services.

(1989: 347) Stewart goes on to suggest that, while there may be some disagreement about how to define basic needs, ‘there is general agreement about a “core” which includes food, water, health, education, and shelter’ (348). However compelling this may seem at first glance, the terms ‘food’, ‘water’, ‘shelter’, ‘health’, and ‘education’, referring as they do to very different objects in different contexts, tell us little about the needs and how they will be satisfied. Dell comments that even if we accept the possibility that there is a universal standard for nutrition, ‘as soon as one includes such items as shelter and clothing, and even household equipment and furniture, the line to be drawn between basic and non-basic needs is bound to be arbitrary' (293). If we cannot distinguish between basic and non-basic need, then we must either give up the idea that there are specific needs whose satisfaction is the end of economic arrangements, or we must make the satisfaction of any and all want a matter of normative significance. .

It

.

.

offered a solution to the interesting that the classical economists of specifying which needs are basic and which are not. This solution is embedded in their notion of subsistence. In different ways, Smith, Ricardo, and Marx all argued that, for a given society at a given point in time, we can identity a basket of goods needed to support human life in the way human life is understood at that time and in that place. The is

problem

of this basket vary with customs and norms prevailing in particular historical settings so that subsistence is only well defined with reference to contextually specific ways of life. Subsistence need is customary need. Adhering to custom establishes the individual as a group member and implies the domination of the group over the member. Such need is compelling not because we cannot exist physically if it is unmet, but because we stand to lose our connection to the group. At stake in subsistence is not so much physical as cultural contents

survival. Basic, then, means basic to cultural or group existence. Basic need becomes arbitrary, as Dell observes, only when we move away from the group and from the cultural specifications that bind the member to it. Terms such as food and shelter disconnect need from the specific cultural context emphasized in the classical notion of subsistence. They make an abstraction not implied in the notion of subsistence, and it is this abstraction that causes the problems. Yet, at the same time that the basic needs idea is more abstract than the subsistence idea, it is also more concrete. Because it does not involve any specification of need within a cultural context, it sees need as physiological rather than social. By contrast, the classical subsistence notion does not depend on a physiological conception of need. 1 Instead, it calls upon the idea of a way of life consistent with the expectations of participating in, and gaining appropriate recognition in, a particular social practice as that is defined in a particular culturalhistorical setting. This connection to social practice and defined social position has an additional significance, which also has relevance for those concerned with ends. Subsistence need imposes an obligation. Consider the following description of access to food in primitive society: Food is life-giving, urgent, ordinarily symbolic of hearth and home, if not of mother. By comparison with other stuff, food is more readily or more necessarily, shared. Direct and equivalent returns for food are .

unseemly giver and

in most social

the

.

.

settings: they impugn

the motives of both the

recipient. (Sahlins 1972 : 215)

To refuse someone’s need for food either denies his membership in the or fails to meet an obligation to him as a group member. The same conclusion arises in the more advanced world of Europe prior to the rise of capitalism, which R.H. Tawney (1962: 23) describes in the

group,

following

way:

Each member has its own function, prayer, or defense, or merchandise, tilling the soil. Each must receive the means suited to its station, and must claim no more. Within classes there must be equality; if one takes into his hand the living of two, his neighbor will be short. Between classes there must be inequality; for otherwise a class cannot perform its function, or– a strange thought to us– enjoy its rights. Peasants must not encroach on those above them. Lords must not despoil peasants. Craftsmen and merchants must receive what will maintain them in their calling, and no more. or

In

some

rule is

a

the rule is sharing and a rough equality. In others, the formal structure of obligation binding together different

settings,

more

ranks of

society. In either case, however, we can know what people need by knowing the society in which they live and, where appropriate, the rank they occupy. We can know what humans need to be capable of living a human life, and we can see how those needs place obligations on others. Here, basic need (understood in the language of subsistence) is (1) well defined, and (2) carries the moral force of obligation. The idea of basic need has a special affinity with premodern society precisely because in such society needs (1) do not change (or do not change very rapidly), and (2) are defined for and not by the member. The element of obligation enters as a result of the same connection to the group that allows us to define subsistence need. In the premodern setting, we deal with members and not individuals. We deal with structures of want satisfaction in which the division of labour establishes personal connections and dependencies. The primary economic unit is the small local community and not the larger national or international market. Obligation makes sense in this setting of personal dependence and community membership in a way it does not in a setting of separate individuals dependent on an ever-expanding system of exchange. The qualities of basic need just considered have practical advantages for those involved with development planning and development organizations. These advantages make the notion of basic need attractive as a solution to the problem of identifying the ends of development and measuring progress toward those ends. Yet, something important is missing. Basic needs, whether defined in physical or cultural-historical terms, are independent of individual identity. They are not the needs of individuals, but of biological organisms or group members. Missing is the element of self-determination in the activity of defining and satisfying need. What makes basic need work in a premodern setting makes it fail in the modern world. Satisfying basic need binds us to the group and makes us members; it does not establish that separation from the group that makes us autonomous persons. Basic or subsistence needs are not chosen; they do not separate or distinguish individuals. By contrast, once needs come to incorporate the element of freedom, ‘basic needs’ are neither well defined (we cannot know what a basic need is) nor are they inevitably well satisfied for all members, even

in normal times.

Capabilities The idea of basic need leaves out of account the element of need arguably most important if we are to understand the connection between need satisfaction and the normative goals of a political economy. The missing element begins to emerge as part of an idea recently advanced by Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen. This is the idea that our end should be arrangements capable of assuring, so far as possible, that individuals can develop a set of capabilities that enable them to act in a characteristically human way.

Nussbaum (1995: 72) suggests we identify the normative end by answering the question, ‘What are the forms of activity, of doing and being, that constitute the human form of life?’ From knowledge of these forms of activity we might derive a set of capabilities that enable creatures to live such a life. Having these capabilities allows us to be human. If we cannot develop these capabilities, we cannot live a fully human life. Institutions should be designed, then, to assure so far as possible the development of these capabilities as well as the opportunity to exercise them, which is the activity of a distinctively human creature. Nussbaum considers these capabilities universal in the following sense. Human beings living in specific contexts with specific ways of life, values and so on, always have a conception of what it means to be human, and thus, of how a line can be drawn separating the human and non-human worlds. Universality in Nussbaum’s sense follows from the ‘idea that people in many different societies share a general outline of such a in the nature of a premise, one whose

(1995: 73). This idea is

conception’ validity we

doubt question. The line between the human and non-human can be drawn more or less sharply, depending on the way a society situates the human in its natural environment. I am less concerned here with the validity of the premise, however, than I am with the sort of universality it suggests, which is universality in the sense of common to different human settings. To see the implications of this notion of universality more clearly, let me move on to the specific capabilities Nussbaum identifies as common to humans whatever their culture, values, and ways of life. Nussbaum (1995) offers a list of capabilities that together define what it means to lead a human life. The list includes items close to the notion of basic need, such as health, nourishment, shelter, and life expectancy. It also includes items that may or may not connect to the idea of basic need. Moving well beyond the notion of basic need, Nussbaum includes capacities such as those that enable individuals to form attachments with things and persons, to experience love, grief, longing, and gratitude. She includes education that secures the ability to think, reason, and imagine (assuming of course that these are capabilities attained through education). She also considers the capacity to form a conception of the good life, and to engage in critical reflection in the planning of one’s own life. Nussbaum’s list includes items normally associated not with human life in the abstract, but with the kind of human life led by those who have, to some degree at least, emancipated themselves from the rule of custom and established themselves as centres of autonomous judgment and self-determination. In contrast to the notions of subsistence and basic need, the notion of capabilities, as summarized by Nussbaum, seeks to incorporate the element of freedom into the kind of need that carries normative significance. It might be more accurate to say, of course, that making freedom an element of need is not implied in the capabilities approach, though it is included in Nussbaum’s list. There is certainly nothing in the notion of can no

per se that requires they express the being and doing of a creature which we would attribute freedom in some meaningful sense of the term. Creatures that are not free also have capabilities. Whether they are human or not may be said to depend on whether they are capable of freedom, but if that is so, we might expect more from the capabilities approach specifically about freedom. I will proceed, nonetheless, on the assumption that implicit, and to some extent explicit, in this approach is the idea that being human means having the capacity, or the set of capacities, required to be self-determining and to make self-determination the primary force in conduct and relating.2 We need, then, to consider freedom as a normative end, and I now proceed to do so, beginning with the somewhat restrictive

capabilities to

notion of freedom

usually

associated with the economy.

Freedom freedom in economics connotes the liberty of commerce, or free term ‘free trade’ refers first to the elimination of barriers to production and trade associated with premodern social institutions and the ends appropriate to them. By extension, the term comes also to refer to the elimination of all public regulation of trade, especially international trade, other than that associated with protection of property right. Polanyi (1957) captures this notion of liberty when he speaks of the disembedding of the economy, more specifically the market, from non-economic social relations, especially those of the state, but also those of the family or kinship 3 group. Disembedding the market from more traditional forms of dependence makes it a system of impersonal relations whose end is not the reproduction of a group, but the satisfaction of individual want. Market relations do not submerge the member into the group, but reinforce individual autonomy and the separation of persons. This is because market relations involve independent property owners acting at their own initiative.

Originally, trade. The

Individual freedom, in the sense of the right to own and dispose of property, is recognized for all parties. This makes market systems potentially corrosive of social arrangements resting on status differences and

personal dependence. Disembedding the

market allows property owners to interact with one the basis of purely economic considerations oriented to the production, circulation, and accumulation of wealth. The ends of social cohesion built out of social status and group affiliation no longer limit the property system or impose themselves on it. As Marx and Engels emphasize in the Communist Manifesto, it is precisely because the free market is indifferent to the social purposes of cohesion in traditional society that it is so corrosive of those societies. It is also because the market connects persons without regard to their status in a traditional hierarchy that it undermines hierarchy, and with it the organizing structure and intrinsic significance of the traditional order. another

on

The ends of social cohesion linked to more traditional social structure limit who can engage in production and trade, the way production is organized, including the technology employed, and the price at which the product sells. ‘At every turn, therefore, there are limits, restrictions, warnings

against allowing

economic interests

to

interfere with serious affairs’

(Tawney 1962 : 32). These older limits on who can trade bring to mind other limits only recently overcome that, for example, prevented women from

property except through their husbands. Limiting the property women secured the traditional family structure and imposed the demands of that structure on the organization of markets, just as limiting

holding rights of

who could produce and sell, for example shoes or carriages, to guild members subordinated exchange to the demands of protecting the prerogatives of the guilds. The idea of the free market also plays its part, then, in undermining the traditional family structure along with the subordination of women implied in it. The disembedding of the economy implied in the policy of free trade has a broad significance for the norm of freedom we associate with modern 4

Modern society establishes freedom of the individual from prior determination according to social status or social position. The alternative to this prior determination is that the individual is, in an important sense, undetermined, or yet to be determined by a process in which he or she

society.

a significant part. The freedom associated with this condition is what Erik Erikson refers to as the ‘freedom of opportunities yet undetermined’ (Erikson 1964 : 161—2), and it will play a large part in the argument I develop here. To institute freedom understood in this way requires that

plays

social institutions allow and enable individuals to emerge from their embeddedness in a group organized around the imposition of group-constituting customs as norms of conduct. It also gives us a first suggestion of what might be meant by opportunity, for example, ‘equal opportunity’, which plays such a large role in discussion of the design of appropriate economic institutions. In the way of life that emerges with the decline of traditional society, the individual has a place in the larger world of others, an occupation, a sense of identity recognizable by others and relevant to them (Erikson 1980 : Chapter 3 ). This place and identity are not, however, given to the individual independently of his or her will and self-experience. Rather, the individual plays an active part in finding, even shaping, a place in the world. Institutions of private property and exchange take on significance in relation to the normative end of freedom so defined. Without markets, it would not be possible for individuals to pursue the end of realizing those capacities uniquely theirs in a context of interaction with other persons, and of the opportunities and constraints those persons represent. Saying this does not by itself resolve the question of the kind of market appropriate to the realization of opportunities yet undetermined, therefore of the status of

the ‘free’ market in the narrower sense in which that term is used today. The significance of freedom in the context of the market, once the traditional limitations with which the classical economists were concerned have been by and large removed, becomes an important question. Given the considerations just advanced, markets cannot be treated as simply, or even primarily, the means to acquire things whose consumption may enhance satisfaction, as those influenced by the utilitarian philosophy, and the choice-theoretic apparatus that philosophy has lately spawned, imagine they are. Freedom does not derive from increasing or maximizing satisfaction, unless we mean specifically satisfaction of the need for freedom itself. We can hardly assume that satisfaction of one person’s need to enslave others constitutes satisfaction of a need incorporating freedom. If satisfaction is connected to freedom, then we need to know something about how the need for freedom becomes a need for things, and, more specifically, for

things acquired through exchange. When does the satisfaction of need through the use or consumption of contribute to our experience of ourselves as free, and when does it express our predetermination by group-constituting customs or the domination of others? Put another way, what sorts of needs do free individuals have? Criteria for normative judgment should incorporate an answer to this

things

question. Even if freedom

be subsumed under or replaced by the idea of make satisfaction unimportant. Rather, it is a matter of what we mean by satisfaction, of what brings satisfaction, and of what about ownership and use of property has normative significance. Answering these questions in a utilitarian or choice-theoretic way is simple enough, since we need only refer to the individual taken as an irreducible premise. Concern for freedom, however, takes us further since it requires that we consider how the ownership and use of things brings (or does not bring) satisfaction because it does (or does not) incorporate the element of self-determination. In political economy, we are not used to thinking this way about satisfactions and the use of things. The alternatives available to us for thinking about the use of things (basic need or the notion of choice developed out of the utilitarian philosophy) lead us away from consideration of the relation between autonomy, property ownership, and satisfaction in consumption or use. I have elsewhere explored this problem at length (Levine 1998 see also Hegel 1952; Winfield 1988 ). Here, I will only mention that the subjective meaning and significance of the use of things is no simple matter, and may either express individual freedom in the sense suggested above, or it cannot

satisfaction, that does

not

,

may not.

What has been said so far applies to the market, and to the free market understood as the market oriented toward individual want satisfaction. But, political economy has taken the term ‘free market’ and the concept of freedom appropriate to it considerably further than this to refer to a market

limits other than those of individual want and available resources. misses an important point about the market: that it is a system of mutual dependence and not merely a means for redistributing things in relation to individuals. The market is a system of mutual dependence in two senses. First it is connected to a structure of production in which each part is dependent not only on other parts, but on the whole. Second, exchange has significance for the individual’s need to establish his or her reality as a person (owner of property recognized in the eyes of others). This holds particularly for

having Doing

no

so

property in labour, exchange of which expresses the labourer’s right and realizes the labourer’s freedom as owner of his or her labour. In other words, the market is a system of reciprocal or mutual recognition. That the market is not simply a sum or aggregate of two-sided trans-

actions, each conceivable in isolation, is important, and not always well understood in models of the price system popular in economics. The classical economists had a greater awareness of this reality. 5 If the classical economists are correct in imagining that the market is a system as a whole, then the possibility of individual transactions depends on systemic factors over which individuals have no control. Security of the market, then, depends on the presence of an agent capable of concerning itself not with the particular transaction, but with the system as a whole. This agent is the 6 government, state, or public authority. Even a free market in the sense of one disembedded from ends other than those linked to individual want cannot stand alone; that is, it cannot be free in the now popular sense of

unregulated. If the market is a structure or system in this sense, we may wonder how the needs developed by those participating in it can be thought to contain the element of freedom I emphasize here. In the classical idea, the individual's need depends on his or her position in a division of labour. The baker needs flour to bake bread, not to express an individual identity and the freedom of self-determination. The emphasis on an already given division of labour into which the individual must find his or her place fits well with the idea of subsistence as the needs felt by members rather than individuals. Clearly, if the division of labour and the individual’s place in it are both given, we can hardly consider the needs that arise for the individual as part of that division of labour the needs of an autonomous agent. So far as the classical economists construct the problem in this way, and to a significant extent they do, their construct cannot be of economic arrangements embodying freedom, whatever the emphasis placed on free trade. For the market organized in relation to a system of mutual dependence in production to establish a setting for freedom, two important conditions must be met. First, the individual’s place in the market must not be predetermined for him, but a matter of self-determined choice. Second, the structure itself cannot be altogether given to the individual. Individual decisions based on

individual identity must shape as well as be shaped by the vocations available in the market. The division of labour cannot be an overwhelming and inert objective reality for the participant. An important example of how the division of labour might be shaped to meet individual need rather than demanding adaptation of individuals to it involves occupations or occupational settings that endanger the worker’s emotional well-being. Thus, were individuals able to refuse vocations endanger their well-being, their refusal would require adaptation of the structure as a whole to a situation in which certain kinds of labour are unavailable. The givenness of the structure also breaks down when individuals can introduce new vocations, or new variations on existing vocations, that contribute to reshaping the system of work and the division of labour it expresses. The freedom to refuse to work and the freedom to work differently make the division of labour a setting for individual self-determination that it is not in the classical construction. In considering the market as something more than merely the sum of transactions aimed at rearranging things in relation to persons, we need also to consider how the relations peculiar to it play a part in constituting the participants as property owning persons. The freedoms we associate with markets (often summarized under the heading of choice) do not exist outside of the possibility that individuals can own private property, which includes the possibility of disposal through exchange, whether regulated by government or not. Furthermore, the equality peculiar to modern market-centred society is derivative of the equality of exchange, as Marx emphasizes (albeit in a disparaging way). This is the equality of property owners taken as property owners, regardless of the amount and kind of property they own (assuming, of course, that they own property of some consequence, for example a labouring capacity that has a significant market value). Thus, the market incorporates a structure of equality and inequality, where the

physical

or

that

two are

closely connected,

even

mutually dependent.

To understand better the normative significance of the market, it will help to consider further the equality and inequality just mentioned. It is, after all, the peculiar combination of equality and inequality that marks the achievements we associate with modern society, and with the economic system characteristic of it.

Equality The differences that have significance for premodern society embody both a need for wealth and a limit to its accumulation. The need for wealth stems from the necessity of inequality to social cohesion, the limit on wealth stems from the givenness of the structure of inequality and of the hierarchy of social position. In those premodern societies sufficiently differentiated to need wealth as a marker for social hierarchy, wealth sponsors difference. This makes the amassing of wealth a meaningful activity, but only up to

the

point consistent with customary social differentiation. Then, you have enough wealth when you have enough to establish your position in a welldefined, and often stable, hierarchy of rank. Before capitalism, the question: How much wealth is enough? could be answered in principle, for a particular society at a particular historical moment, even if in some cases the amassing of wealth threatened to get out of hand. Under capitalism, and therefore for modern society, this is no longer the case. Now, ‘enough wealth’ becomes a contradiction in terms. It would be easy enough to attribute this result to self-interest. If we assume that humans are ultimately motivated by self-interest, and that self-interest is served by the accumulation of privately owned wealth, then a of economic organization that centres on allowing the free pursuit system of self-interest must be one marked by a tendency toward the growth of wealth. By curbing self-interest, premodern society places a limit on the of wealth it can attain. By freeing self-interest, modern society breaks apart that limit. The basic motive exists under both conditions, the 7 only difference is in the constraints it does or does not face. An alternative line of argument focuses attention on the specific end that amassing private wealth might accomplish, that is, on the specific interest it might serve. We need not assume that all self-interest is served by wealth accumulation. We may wonder instead what end is served in that way and why that end takes on such importance with the expansion of the market and the dependence of livelihood on exchange. If we proceed in this way, amount

we need not make capitalism the only form of economic organization fully consistent with human nature, but a form of economic organization consistent with a specific human aspiration. We might then ask how that specific aspiration informs significant normative goals. In attempting to identify the specific aspiration bound up with wealth accumulation, it will help to return to the idea that wealth provides not

the means of subsistence, but the means for establishing difference. If we connect wealth to the differences between persons rather than the satisfaction of subsistence need, then the question just raised about the kind of self-interest gained in its acquisition becomes the following question: What kind of difference is established through private wealth accumulation? Since what distinguishes difference under capitalism is its connection to self-determination (you are not born to your position, but achieve it), it follows that the relative positions marked by amounts of wealth are open to persons independently of birth or other natural condition. In other words, differences under capitalism arise for persons who are in an important sense equals, at least equal in their initial access to difference. Then, the differences under capitalism must be consistent with an underlying equality of status, expressed in the idea that all persons have equal opportunity or equal access to positions, and to the income and wealth associated with them. Such equality is, of course, consistent with outcomes in which different

individuals own vastly unequal amounts of property, and in that sense are unequal. This combining of equality and inequality is the kind of difference attained by wealth holders in a modern, capitalistic, society. Sen uses considerations such as those advanced above to support the claim that equality is part of the foundation for all normative theories, which differ not in their judgment of equality’s importance, but in what equality is important, or as he puts it ‘equality of what’ (Sen 1992 ). Thus, even if equality of income and wealth is not an ideal, equality of right or of persons in some other dimension is. Yet, all are not made equally persons, except formal sense, merely by endowing them with the same rights. If being person involves a specific internal capacity, the capacity for autonomous action, and not simply the (recognized) right to act, then, those with the in

a

a

8

rights are certainly not equally persons. Making equality the common goal of normative theory also tends to make inequality and difference the same thing. Yet, to be different need not mean to be unequal. Distinguishing the two can be vital, as is clear when we consider the ends for which wealth is used. Wealth makes possible two kinds of difference between wealth owners: those that distinguish different modes of life by the different things they require, and those that distinguish rank by amount of wealth owned. same

The first difference derives from the notion of the individual. Individuation difference, including difference in patterns of consumption and possibly in the amount of wealth needed. For individuation, subsistence cannot be adequate. Here again difference depends on wealth, and the accumulation of a measure of wealth is required for the development of the differences associated with being a (separate) individual, thus for separating means

from the group. The other difference wealth makes possible is in amount. This is the difference we associate with individual wealth accumulation taken as an end, and not a means to acquire enough wealth to be an individual. Thus, if self-interest is to be an interest in wealth accumulation per se, it must be an interest in acquiring wealth not for its use, but for its amount. And, if this is an interest in establishing difference, it is an interest in establishing a difference in amount of wealth owned. As Marx points out, this difference in amount of wealth has no limit

(Marx 1977: 253) precisely because the usefulness of its elements, that

it is the counts.

quantity of wealth, and not If, then, wealth owners seek

wealth simply in order to have more of it, more than others have for example, then their wealth-seeking has no limit. This does, indeed, seem to be the case for some under capitalism. It does not, however, resolve the original question, but only shifts the ground on which we have asked it. We still need to know why having more wealth, more wealth than you have had in the past or more wealth than others have, might be the end of self-interest. Why is self-interest an interest in establishing a position in a hierarchy of wealthiness?

The answer provided by Adam Smith in the Theory of Moral Sentiments refers to the pursuit of esteem in the eyes of others. If the end of self-interest is to gain the honour or esteem of others, then rank looms large in the pursuit of wealth. If amount of wealth determines rank, self-esteem will depend on wealth accumulation. In this case, the need for wealth is a need to take on a specific existence in the eyes of others, to be a ‘somebody’. This being for others, when organized around wealth, undermines any limit of need, and any possibility that there might be enough wealth. Making honour the end of self-interest has the benefit, from the standpoint of society as a whole, of subordinating the individual to others and to the group. The more we are motivated by the esteem of others, the more we are motivated to pursue ends defined in relation to them, and to the virtues and values stressed by our society, those virtues and values whose attainment bestows honour. Seeking honour, then, means seeking an explicitly social identity. It makes us work for others and for the group. Thus the difference attained by wealth accumulation should be distinguished from the difference attained by the acquisition of the measure of wealth needed to be an individual. The former subordinates the individual to the group, and to group ends (such as the growth of the nation’s wealth), the latter marks separation of the individual from the group. The conclusion just drawn may be the opposite from that which we have come to expect. Wealth accumulation expresses the embedding of the individual in group life, and the use of wealth for purposes that do not involve accumulation as an end expresses the disembedding of the individual from the group. Then, group- or community-oriented ideals are closer in this respect to those that support the accumulation of capital and its attendant inequalities than they are to ideals associated with an individual life organized around the use of a finite amount of wealth for specific purposes. This conclusion is clear enough in the older political economy of Smith and Marx, in which goals of economic development and national wealth play such a large part. It is not surprising to find the pursuit of wealth treated as a virtue because it does indeed serve the group by enhancing the wealth of the nation. This is exactly Smith’s point, which carries weight in those societies devoted to wealth accumulation. The connection of wealth accumulation to honour also connects the motivational structure of a modern, capitalist, society to that of the

more traditional society, where honour is the end of social achievement. The difference is in the specific means for attaining honour, and the nature of the hierarchy that determines the esteem in which the member or individual is held. Under capitalism, this hierarchy is, as we have seen, quantitative and independent of birth, so the motivational structure still centring on honour incorporates a breakdown in the limits, especially on amount of wealth, typical of a precapitalist society. Under capitalism, there is no limit and, thus, never enough wealth.

The foregoing suggests how we might understand arguments for the use of markets that appeal to the incentives those markets create for participants. The idea of incentives makes economic activity adaptive to social goals defined for the individual, who is treated as a means. Treating the individual this way has special importance during the process of development to a wealthy, or, as Smith puts it, ‘civilized’ society. However important incentive arguments may be to the development process, they are not consistent with freedom as I use the term here, since they insist that the individual be subordinated to group ends, however implicit those ends might be, and however they might be achieved as the unintended consequence of self-seeking. The coming together of two principles, one traditional, one modern, pushes aside any limit to wealth in finite want. The first principle is the use of wealth to establish esteem in the eyes of others; the second is the principle of equality of persons. The convergence of these principles makes esteem a matter of amount, of place in a quantitative hierarchy where all are equal as persons (having the status of property owners and citizens) though radically unequal in amount of property, and thus in the measure of personhood through wealth. For there to be enough wealth, the end of being a person must be separated from that of ranking in the eyes of others. To gain this end, a radical change must take place in the subjective meaning

attach

we

to

connection with others, one that leaves behind the more traditional of that connection in which the self is held hostage by

significance community.

the Given the structure of thinking just summarized, the question How much wealth is enough? has no answer, since no amount can ever be enough.

Thus, for those concerned to

another

the

ground,

to achieve greater equality, the problem is shifted from that of demand to that of supply. 9 By restricting

we can restrict access to differences expressed in of wealth. Sometimes it is also assumed that eliminating the vehicle for expressing differences eliminates the impulse to establish them as well. This might follow if we consider the latter a purely social construct, so that the desire for hierarchy goes away when society disavows it. Before going further with arguments for greater equality, we need to understand why equality of income and wealth might or might not realize meaningful ideals. One answer is that inequality of wealth, or sufficient inequality of wealth, undermines the equality of persons that becomes possible once the fixed, predetermined, hierarchy of premodern society is overthrown. Does quantitative difference in amount of property threaten our status as equally property owners, or equally citizens? A second answer focuses attention on the corrosive effect of inequality on social or group cohesion. In a striking reversal, the status differences that foster cohesion in premodern settings now undermine it because they weaken convictions about fairness, or because they weaken a sense of common purpose and, thus, of belonging in the group or community.

the

supply of wealth, ownership and use

The problems alluded to above take on a more concrete significance for those who not only have less than others have, but also have an amount inadequate to sustain their sense of personhood. In other words, the issues raised above are not so much about inequality as they are about poverty. If you do not own property, or do not own enough property, then your status as a property-owning person cannot be made real in your own eyes or in those of others. You can hardly, then, imagine a common purpose with those who own property. Arguing along these lines does not, however, lead us toward a norm of income or wealth equality, but toward a design of institutions that would reduce, if not eliminate, the likelihood that individuals will have inadequate income or wealth to satisfy the needs we associate with being a person. We can define adequate income and wealth in a preliminary way by referring to the norm of freedom discussed in the previous section, and, in particular, by referring to the idea of opportunities yet undetermined. What do individuals need if these opportunities are to be available to them? Part of the answer may have to do with an amount of wealth, but clearly this is at best part of the answer. The capacity to use wealth in a particular way, consistent with the ideal of opportunities yet undetermined, is also

required.

10

The argument for equality of opportunity is not in general a strong argument for equal, or even more equal, income. The problem is that any stronger argument for equality (of income and wealth) must call into question the

norm

of freedom itself. This is, indeed, the

case

for those arguments

that

bring into play the ideal of sameness connected to group identification. Clearly an ideal of equality derived from that of group identification is connected to an attack on difference, since allowing differences between persons in life plans means allowing differences in wealth when different life plans require different amounts of wealth. Furthermore, assuring equality of outcome conflicts with the notion of freedom introduced in the previous section. That notion is linked to the absence of any prior determination, which cannot be the case where equality of outcome is the goal. The call for greater equality can invoke an appeal to the ideal of community, and to the bonds of identification that hold community together. 11 Where these bonds are not those of hierarchy or mutual dependence in a division of labour (difference), they may be the bonds of identification (sameness). Then, equality combines premodern and modern ideals, the premodern ideal of the domination of the group over the individual, and the modern ideal of equality within the group. The combination of modern and premodern elements in thinking about equality is nowhere more evident than in the idea that we should make democracy the primary virtue of an economic organization. Indeed, the appeal to democracy applies the norm of equality in a specific way. Based on the foregoing considerations, we can conclude that the impulse for equality has two roots and develops in two different directions. One

is the attack on difference associated with the wish for community in modern context where group cohesion cannot be secured through a structure of status and leadership. The other is the liberation of the individual from his or her predetermination within a status hierarchy. The former tends toward ideals that involve equality of outcome, the latter toward those that involve equality of opportunity. If we reject the attack on difference, then equality will be subsumed under freedom, and will not introduce any normative considerations distinct from those already considered under that heading. The effort to treat equality as a normative end distinct from freedom (as defined above) leads us in a troubling direction that involves group identification and the loss of autonomy. This, then, has implications for justice, to which I now turn. root a

Justice Economic justice is sometimes taken to have the same significance as equality, so that justice is served when we move toward equality of income, wealth, or opportunity. There is, however, nothing inevitable in this interpretation. Thus, in a society heavily dependent on hierarchy for social cohesion, justice would have a very different significance, one connected to inequality rather than equality. Tawnier describes the premodern social order as one in which there is equality within and inequality between groups. Members of each group have duties and rights appropriate to them. Here, justice does not assure equality, but inequality, though of a specific kind and within clear limits. Applying the term'justice' in the premodern setting tends to make justice seem relative to contingent social norms, as Marx apparently thought it was. Marx rejects the use of criteria associated with justice to judge social formations on the grounds that the end of justice is to maintain prevailing norms, not undermine them by setting them against standards they are not designed to meet, and would not accept in any case. The notion that justice re-establishes prevailing norms, whatever those might be, in the face of individual violations (of the duties and rights associated with defined social positions) removes any critical edge justice might have in judging the norms themselves. For justice to have a critical edge in judging norms, it must have a degree of independence from them. This means that it must have a degree of independence from the group. If right conduct means conduct that contributes to group cohesion and secures the member’s

of connection with and belonging to the group, then justice group norms. Only if right conduct takes on a different significance can justice be used to criticize norms. The ideal of justice can have two related but distinct connotations. It may refer to the subordination of the member to the group, in which case justice asserts the necessity of group life and group connection. Alternatively, justice may refer to individual rights, including rights against the group. cannot

sense

judge

Where justice refers to the domination of the group over the member, it can do so either by establishing equality of members, or by sponsoring hierarchy. Equality and hierarchy are alternative modes of group solidarity. Justice in the context of the group involves itself with solidarity. Where justice refers to individual rights, it institutes the separation of the individual from the group. The system of justice is meant to assure that each receives what is due him (or her), where what is due depends on the social position the individual or member occupies. In the absence of a hierarchy of social positions, what is due each is in some sense the same. Since all are persons, all must be treated equally as persons. The problem arises in knowing what it means to be treated (equally) as persons, especially with regard to the outcome of economic activity. Does it mean that all have the status of property owners? Does it mean that all have equal amounts of property, or equal opportunity to acquire and use property? Thus, in considering justice as the ideal of the economy, we are taken back to our discussion of equality. Connecting justice to rights connects it to protecting the individual from oppression. Oppression refers to the violation of the individual’s autonomy, or, in the language of the next chapter, of his or her subjectivity. Failure of autonomy makes the individual vulnerable to being made subject to the decisions and ends of others. Institutions that either promote individual vulnerability in this sense, or facilitate the exploitation of vulnerability, fail the test of a justice defined in terms of rights. Just institutions, then, are institutions that prevent oppression, so far as that is possible. To do so, they limit personal dependence, and offer institutional support for the disadvantaged in a form that does not itself violate their integrity. Limiting personal dependence and providing for the disadvantaged may be important, even vital, goals of a just economy, but we can wonder if they suffice to secure justice. Does not justice also require a kind of equality, as I suggest above? We can link equality to protection from oppression by linking it to vulnerability. At what point, if any, does inequality of wealth undermine freedom, making some vulnerable to personal dependence, and thus the possibility of exploitation? I think it will prove helpful to consider the answer to this question in the language of opportunity. If opportunity has a cost, then, at least up to a point, wealth buys opportunity. This is not only, or primarily, the opportunity to express subjectivity or freedom in a way of life, but the opportunity for personal development that translates talents and interests into capacities that have a value in themselves and as a means to secure income. Opportunity, if it means not only the absence of discrimination but access to education and associated conditions for personal development, has a cost and depends on access to wealth. Does this mean that equal opportunity implies equal access to wealth? This would be the case if more wealth always meant more opportunity. If, however, individual development is a finite process with finite conditions

secured

by a finite and definable amount of wealth, equal opportunity does equal access to wealth, but only access to the amount of wealth needed to assure the opportunity for personal development. Then, justice linked to equal opportunity, or fairness, limits the distribution of wealth but does not preclude inequality. Justice rooted in the idea of freedom does provide a criterion for judging institutions independently of group norms. We can ask, then, how justice will judge the prevailing institutions of market economy as they have evolved to the present, and how those institutions might be changed to make them better suited to instituting the freedom of opportunities yet undetermined. Doing so involves identifying that organization of markets capable of assuring the autonomy of those able to take advantage of property right, and an organization of the state that assures it will protect the vulnerable from personal dependence without becoming itself a locus of oppression. not mean

The

universality of freedom

judging economic institutions, should we attempt to identify criteria independent of culture and context, or should we accept the inevitability that our criteria will be culturally specific, and in this sense particular? Some of the criteria considered in this chapter make the judgment of institutional success or failure depend on cultural norms, while others claim independence of culture and context. Thus, the idea of subsistence explicitly appeals to cultural and historical factors. By contrast, the idea of basic need is meant to apply regardless of the cultural setting. Indeed, what makes need basic is precisely this independence. Like basic need, the idea of human capabilities also claims to advance universal criteria for judgment. By contrast, neither equality nor justice seem to fit the criteria of universality. Equalities of income and status are not typical of social arrangements. Justice, if it asserts and re-establishes norms that are particular to a given society, is itself particular to that society. It would be difficult to argue In

that the norm of freedom is universal in Nussbaum’s sense of common to all human cultural experience, though we might find elements of it were we to search hard enough. Much depends on the meaning we attribute to the term universal. The capabilities and basic needs ideas seek specific capabilities and needs (particular) that are held in common (universal). Universal, then, means common to diverse cultural settings. But, if a particular capability or need is common in this sense, it must be so for a reason. That is, it must be common to diverse settings because it is in some sense universal and not universal because it is common to diverse settings. Rather than interpreting universal to mean found in all instances, we might consider universal to mean unrestricted to a particular application. Put another way, the universal is the possibility of different particular

universal in this sense, while corn is not. 12 If, for a particular term ‘food’ is not distinguished from the terms for particular as food (corn for example), then the universal is missing, or not fully developed. Availability of the term ‘food’ allows for the development of different types of food. It opens up possibilities closed off when the universal is missing. This makes the distinction between universal and particular a distinction between potential and its realization. The focus is, then, not on moving from the particular to the universal, which tends to make the latter seem accidental, but on moving from the universal to the particular. Then, the significance of the particular can be better understood, and what is possible is not fully limited by what is or has been. How, then, do we know the universal if not by appealing to the features held in common by its particlar instantiations? I will consider the answer to this question with special reference to the ideal of freedom. Beginning with the idea of a potential, we can consider freedom the freedom from prior determination by nature or custom. In this, freedom is universal not to all human experience, but to those ways of life that have been discovered and invented rather than adapted and repeated. Freedom is the unrestricted potential to exploit ‘opportunities yet undetermined’, and it is the particular way of life that results from the exploitation of those opportunities. For humans, there is nothing historically universal about this freedom; it is not present for all those who are physically human in all settings. Nor is it the norm animating all human institutions in all settings. Food is culture, the substances used content.

a

On the contrary, it is a very limited experience of humans living in a very special institutional setting. It is with a part of that setting that we are concerned here. If the freedom of opportunities yet undetermined is not universal to human experience in the sense Nussbaum uses the term, does it follow that the norm of freedom has no special claim to our attention and cannot be said to dominate the alternatives? Moreover, if the norm of freedom is just that, a norm, how can we claim that it has a special importance to the process of development, as the end that animates and gives meaning to that process? One way to answer these questions is to consider certain implications of the present situation. Characteristic of this situation is the breakdown in the insularity of cultures and of the national and sub-national groups that embody them. This process by which cultural isolation gives way to what is sometimes referred to as cultural diversity has been underway for several centuries. It was the topic of the early sections of the Communist Manifesto, where Marx and Engels observe the impact of capitalism on traditional society and the givens of life that make traditional society what it is. In a world where diversity replaces isolation, comparisons cannot be avoided as they could in the traditional world. These comparisons establish possibilities, however theoretical, of living a different sort of life. Even if, as a

living in a particular cultural setting cannot of possibility something different can still be imagined, in that some do opt out. of the fact especially light The act of imagining something different changes the meaning of what is, which is to say the meaning of cultural experience and the dominance of culture over ways of life. To be able to imagine oneself in a different setting corrodes the claim to universality of the culture within which we live so far as that culture dictates specific, concretely determined ways of life. The presence of alternatives turns all putatively universal beliefs, customs, and virtues, into the expressions of particular experience. This transformation means the weakening, and ultimately the destruction, of the hold of culture over ways of life. The commitment of culture to control ways of life– modes of interaction and attachment; the meaning of human experience; appropriate beliefs about self, other, and the surrounding world; and so on– must be undermined when imagining other ways of life becomes a possibility. This corrosion of the claim to universality leaves us with three options. First, we can attempt to construct a normative ideal that abandons all

practical

opt out,

matter, most of those

the

claims to universality, and instead seeks in diversity of particular experience the grounding for moral judgment. Then, the only universal having moral significance is the universal of difference, the fact that each cultural experience is irreducibly particular. Each culture defines its own particular criteria for moral judgment, but can claim no universality for such judgment beyond the limits of its particular cultural experience. The difficulty with this method is that each cultural community, while allowed to claim hegemony over its members, is also required to recognize the legitimacy of alternatives. That is, each culture must at the same time proclaim hegemony and relativism. Yet, for a culture to be consistent with the relativism embedded in this version of the ideal of difference, it must give up its hegemony and thus become a culture of a very different sort, one that does not claim hegemony over ways of life. A second alternative involves the attempt to re-establish the hegemony of the particular culture over ways of life undermined by its presence within a setting of diversity. Strategies aimed at accomplishing this end include isolating the group from the outside world so that the act of imagining difference can be drained of its corrosive power, or attempting to destroy the other cultures whose existence for the group casts its universality in doubt. The universality at stake in this struggle is the universality with which Nussbaum is concerned. What is common to all human experience will depend on what is and has been allowed to count as human experience. Control over what is allowed then is control over what is universal in this sense. So far as possible, retrieving cultural hegemony means retrieving control over the idea of humanness by regaining control over the experience of being human available to group members. The third response to corrosion of the claim to universality is a change in the significance of cultural experience itself to one in which universality

different meaning. Rather than the universality of common experience, which is no longer a practical possibility, we can consider the kind of culture appropriate to making available opportunities yet undetermined. Such a culture is not universal because it includes the particular cultures it displaces. Neither is it universal in the sense that it better expresses the human essence, somehow defined. It is universal, rather, in the sense that it recognizes that the ways of life of all particular sub-cultures are not inevitable. The only universal now possible is the one that is aware of this condition. For culture to be universal in this sense, it must give up its claim to establish ways of life, and provide instead a setting in which different ways of life are possible, including those previously unimagined. Culture no longer dictates the interactions between persons, the personal meaning of life and the beliefs connected to it, the trajectory of life experience, and so on. Rather, culture provides a setting in which individuals discover and invent their ways of life. The only remaining universal, then, is the one that develops when culture as a way of life gives way to culture as the opportunity for ways of life only restricted by the recognition that such an opportunity be available to all. This is the universal of opportunities yet undetermined rather than the universal of hegemony of a particular way of life. In this sense, it is the universal of individual autonomy rather than group domination. It undermines rather than celebrating the group, since the diversity it recognizes challenges the hegemony to which the group aspires. To live within a culture of the kind just considered requires a special 13 capacity, which is the capacity for freedom. I will refer to the experience constitutive of an individual with a capacity for freedom as subjective experience. The term ‘subjective’ here refers both to the internal quality of that experience, and to the fact that the experience is in some sense that of a subject. The two aspects of subjective experience, that it is internal and that it involves subjectivity, are closely connected. All inner experience is takes

on a

the same sense the experience of a subject. Indeed, internal experience be organized to avoid subjectivity, and this avoidance of subjectivity is also an avoidance of the capacity for freedom. We can say that freedom considered as a capacity is a configuration of internal experience of a particular kind. I will refer to this configuration and the experience that goes with it as subjective freedom. Subjective freedom is to be distinguished from, though it is connected to, objective freedom, which is a configuration of institutions and interactions with others. 14 We can think of the normative problem for political economy as one part of a larger normative project, which is to institute freedom as the animating principle both for individuals and for the institutions through which they lead their lives. If we take freedom in the sense considered here, instituting freedom means completing the project of separating the individual from the group so that his or her life can be made the realization of opportunities yet undetermined. not in

can

This project proceeds on two levels, one internal to the individual, one external. Freedom is a matter of specific individual capabilities, those associated with the ability to make choices connected to an inner determination and not imperatives imposed from outside, imperatives such as those expressed in the ideas of basic need (physical) and subsistence (cultural). But, freedom is also a matter of institutions and the modes of interaction they embody. Do institutions enable the individual to live a life expressive of the capabilities just considered? And, of equal importance, Do institutions facilitate or impede the development of those capabilities? To answer these questions, we need to know something more about the capabilities linked to freedom. Only by understanding the nature of the capacity for freedom can we understand the demands it makes on institutions.

3

quality of subjective experience

The

Subjective

connection

economy concerns itself primarily with instiwith institutions, but with subjective experience. Institutions devoted to freedom support the individual in his or her effort to have and express a specific subjective experience, which is the experience of subjective freedom. We need to understand something about the nature of that experience if we are to understand what sort of institutions can play a facilitating role in relation to it. Since subjective freedom is a state or condition of mental life, concern with subjective freedom leads us naturally to a concern with the nature and conditions of mental life. We can consider mental life under two headings: cognitive and emotional capacities. The former have primarily to do with perception of objects in the world, the latter with the investment of significance in those objects.

Although tutions,

normative

I will

begin

political not

The different roles

played by cognitive and emotional capacities can be language of awareness. It is one thing to be aware of objects in the world; it is something else to find them significant and therefore to take an interest in them. 1 The significance of an object for us establishes its connection to us. Our concern here is with the perception of the object as a part of a psychic experience of that object, which is to say an experience involving an emotional connection. While both cognitive and emotional capacities have a bearing on subjectivity, the psychic experience of subjectivity primarily calls on emotional capacities and depends on the configuration of emotional experience. This follows from the special connection between emotional experience and the investment of meaning in the expressed

in the

self and its world. Concern with the emotional dimension of human experience is essentially alien to the method of political economy, notwithstanding the interest Adam Smith takes in the subject as part of his work on the moral sentiments. In that work, the passions loom large, as does concern with the nature and vicissitudes of self-feeling. This concern disappears in his later work on political economy, where self-interest is taken for granted, and not treated with the sensitivity characteristic of the earlier work. By taking self-feeling

The

quality of subjective experience

for granted in the Wealth of Nations, Smith sets a precedent commonly followed in political economy since his time. Yet, any serious attempt to take into account the complexity of those human motivations that drive activity, including economic activity, must concern itself with what Smith and his contemporaries refer to as the passions. These passions express the fundamental underlying connections between the internal, subjective, world, and the world outside. Our emotions are important because they mark this connection. In the words of Jonathan Lear, emotions provide ‘a framework through which the world is viewed’ (1990: 52). Anger, fear, or pleasure mark the significance that objects in the world have for the individual. To fear an object is to experience it as a threat. To desire an object is to see in it the possibility of pleasure or satisfaction. Interest in objects is an essentially subjective matter (Levine 1997 ). It is synonymous with a connection of the object to subjective experience. Of course, we can attribute to interest a purely objective meaning, for example by making interest synonymous with the legal connection of object to person (ownership). Economic interest is not, however, synonymous with legal interest understood in this sense, since it involves the prospect that an can afford the individual a subjective experience. We can also attempt make interest objective, as Marx does, by subsuming the individual into a group or class, and attributing to him or her the interest of that class, which we deduce from its objective position in a prevailing structure of 2 property relations. Marx’s procedure in this matter is illuminating, since it is the treatment of the individual as a member of a class that makes interest lose its subjec-

object to

tive significance, and become something wholly objective, which is to say determined outside the individual. The subjective dimension of interest is connected to individual experience, and to the separation of the individual from the group. Failure to take the individual, his or her wants, needs, and experience of the world, into account is one hallmark of the classical conception of economic life. In this respect, the theory that develops after the classical period, toward the end of the nineteenth century, takes us a step further. Yet, while the neoclassical theory does insist on the subjective dimension of economic life, it does so in a way that focuses attention elsewhere than on subjective experience. Rather, it focuses attention on the implications for markets of simple, and not very convincing, assumptions about the individual’s subjective life. These simple assumptions make it unnecessary to consider the complexity of subjective experience as a relevant part of a treatment of economic affairs. The idea that the complexity just referred to can be summarized in simple assumptions about wanting and choosing allows the focus of attention to shift from subjective experience itself to its objective implications and manifestations. This effort to shift interest from subjective connection to objective attribute is typical of the method of political economy, which seeks to treat

Foundations the economy as an essentially objective system. Thus, the idea that economics is a science is often confused with the idea that it can discover objective laws of motion (Marx), or with the idea that we can characterize economic reality in terms of empirical regularities exhibited by large numbers of actors taken in the aggregate. Proceeding in this way either eliminates the subjective dimension altogether, or gets it out of the way by submerging it into mass phenomena. The subjective dimension involves, as I suggest, the emotional connection to objects as markers of interest. Taking that connection into account requires that we interpret objects as playing, or having the potential to play, a part in a psychic drama, one involving imagination, hope, and fear. It becomes important to know what it is we hope for, what it is we fear, and how we construct potential experience in imagination. None of these aspects of experience should be taken for granted, as has been the habit in both classical and post-classical theory. Of special importance here are the ideas, feelings, and, more generally, the attitude we have about our selves, about who we wish or fear we are, in our own eyes and in the eyes of others. These self-ideas and self-feelings play a prominent part in motivating our conduct in the world. This aspect of motivation brings into play the idea of the self, whose interests have long been a central concern in political economy. That the usual treatments of political economy do not adequately taken into account the complexity of the self and its interests is primarily due to the lack of any adequate concept of the self that could offer a foundation for thinking of motivation in general, and self-interest in particular.

Self-experience The

‘self is sometimes used to refer to the personality as a whole, its bodily or physical aspect. Sometimes, however, the term is used more narrowly to refer to a particular construction of the personality, one that allows the individual to take initiative in conduct and in relating to others. This second usage connects having or being a self with subjectivity, and is therefore of special importance for normative concerns. This narrower idea has been emphasi2ed by Heinz Kohut who speaks of the self as the experience of being a ‘center of initiative’ (1977: 94). Then, the self is that aspect of the personality as a whole we associate with the capacity for agency. The broader and narrower notions of the self can be linked in the following way (Loewald 1980 : 351). To be or act as your self means to invest your personality as a whole with a special significance, that of being subject rather than object. Having or being a self does not, then, refer to the presence or absence of a part of the personality (the self), but to an attitude toward the personality. Having or being a self means affirming or valuing term

including

the

personality, seeing it as a source of what is valid and good. To have impaired selfhood means to lack a full sense of personal worth. In simple terms, we can contrast two states of being, or self-states. One is dominated by affirmation and the feeling of self-worth that values what we do and what we produce. The second is dominated by disaffirmation and the feeling that who we are and what we do has no value. Since the first affirms the self while the second negates it, we can also say that it is in the first state that what we do is an expression of our selves, since only in the first state can the self be the active element. In this sense, the second state is one in which the self is attacked, suppressed, and, in the limit,

destroyed. An individual may

experience one of these states and at times the other for various reasons some of which may remain outside of his or her awareness. We can say, then, that selfexperience is complex, multiple, or divided, and that aspects of it remain another, shifting from

at

times

one

to

hidden from awareness. When an individual’s attitude toward his or her self carries differing valences under different circumstances, that individual’s self-interest has a complex subjective meaning. The differences to which I have just alluded involve divisions in the self and thus the possibility of inner conflict. To understand self-interest, we need to be aware of the complexity of self-experience. Were self-interest a simple and unitary construct, then there could be no conflict of the kind just considered. Yet, as I have elsewhere emphasi2ed, self-interest is no simple matter (Levine 1998 : 85—91). Indeed, pursuit of self-interest, rather than an obvious and inevitable activity, can provoke significant anxiety, as it does when it conflicts with ideas about the self inconsistent with serving its interests. Thus, we may wish to satisfy ourselves, but at the same time feel that

doing so endangers our connection with others, especially our membership in a community and our aspiration to identify ourselves with a group ideal inconsistent with individual subjectivity. Then, to validate our conduct in the world, and therefore secure a sense of worth for that conduct, we must up the pursuit of our self-interest. Here, the pursuit of self-interest means the loss of positive self-feeling (self-esteem). Under these conditions, whatever self-worth we have derives from (1) the suppression of the ends of the self (repression of self-interest), and (2) the pursuit of ends given to us from outside, from others or from our community. Such divisions in the self must complicate the idea that individuals act in their interests, since division implies that they cannot do so without at the same time losing self-esteem. This division of experience, with the attendant ambivalence of feeling simultaneously drawing us toward and away from our goals affects our understanding of human motivation and has important consequences for interaction, including the interaction typical of economic affairs.

give

Identity Treating the self as an investment of meaning and significance in the personality as a whole implies that what we do in our lives may or may not be an expression of that state sometimes referred to as being your self. Having the sort of investment in our persons consistent with being our selves means that what we do and who we are develop in a particular way and under the influence of a particular motivation. In this development, our conduct in the world expresses a core sense of our worth as persons. The value we invest in ourselves is a value we invest in our capabilities and in the things we do that express our capabilities. Being a self means that the diverse things we do all express a core of who we are. In this respect, having a self

being our selves expresses an integration of experience, of being and doing. This integration of experience constitutes an important normative ideal, one closely linked to the ideal of human freedom emphasized in the last chapter. 3 We need to consider further how being a self translates into a way of life, including a set of needs expressive of selfhood. This translation can move in two different directions depending on whether the active moment or

is external

or

internal. In other words, we see in what

in ourselves to the value

relate the value

we

can

we

do and who

we

we invest become in two

different ways. In one, we value ourselves because of a value we place on what we do. In the other, we value what we do because of an original investment of value in who we are (in our selves). The first mode of being is appropriate for a way of life driven by the need to adapt to customs and norms given to us from outside. Thus, as members of a moral community we are good not in ourselves, but because we have adopted the way of life approved for us by that community. Any feeling of self-worth we achieve is derivative of adaptation to a way of life for us as having worth. The second mode of being is appropriate to a world organized around the norm of freedom. In such a world, the line of causation between the

predetermined

value of our lives and the value of our selves typical in a moral community is reversed. Now, what we do has value because it expresses who we are rather than who we are having worth because it is a reflection of what what we do is the realization in conduct and relating original quality of being. This quality of being, or self, then, is our potential to become a person of a particular kind. Speaking in this way makes the self a force capable of shaping a life. The result of the operation of this force is the realization in life of an original potential to live creatively and make what we do an expression of who we are. I will refer to this realwe

of

do. In this

case,

an

ization in individual

concrete way of life of an original potential as a personal or identity. The alternative to individual identity is group identity. Group identity relates to individual identity in the same way that a

a sense of our inner worth from what we do relates to deriving the value in what we do from the value we have invested in who we are. For the individual, having an identity means having at least the following

deriving

qualities: 1 2

3 4 5

Self-awareness Continuity of being across time The investment of meaning in a connected life Finiteness or boundedness Recognition of who we are by others

experience

To have

an identity is to be aware of oneself. Organisms can exhibit continuity through time without having identity in this sense. Thus we can identify plants, animals, even inanimate objects, but this does not mean that they have an identity in the sense considered here. Having an identity does not begin with being known by others, but with being known by oneself. This being known by oneself is the prelude and precondition for being known by others as someone who has an identity, is well defined and therefore identifiable. Because of this, identity is linked to a special internal quality sometimes referred to as self-awareness. Individuals may have the capacity to stand outside of themselves, to selfevaluate, to gain and use self-knowledge. But, they may not. Self-awareness is closely associated with the capacity to judge possibilities according to their fit with capabilities and ideals. In the absence of self-awareness we find vulnerability to external influence. Beyond this vulnerability, failure of self-awareness can also foster impulse-driven behaviour, no matter how apparently planned conduct might appear to be. To realize an identity through action in the world means we are not driven by impulse, but, rather, that our conduct has a self-reflective quality. As a direct expression of the quality of self-awareness, having an identity means that experiences and actions are connected because they have a meaning, most importantly to the self. There is, then, an emotional invest-

the sequence of experiences and actions, which is valued as a whole. an identity is an expression of a particular quality of the person also referred to as having or being one’s self. The difference between identity and self is that identity refers to the complex sequence of experiences, actions, and relationships, taken concretely, that make up a life, while self refers to that inner quality of being that establishes the meaning and connectedness of those experiences, actions, and relationships. Put another way, the term ‘self refers to the potential or capacity for investment in a life experience, ‘identity’ to the salient concrete elements of that experience. We can also say, then, that identity is a meeting point of the imagined and the possible. To have an identity is to be able to imagine what might be. Without this moment of imagining, our connection to experience would ment in

Having

wholly adaptive. If the moment of identity is the moment that makes experience our own, then it is also the possibility and expression of freedom. While identity is linked in this way to freedom, it is also linked to boundaries. To have an identity is to be something concrete, the realization of a potential in a particular life experience. Being something, of course, means not being everything else. Having an identity means knowing what

be

and what

we are

we are

not.

Awareness of limits is

an

essential element of

identity. That identity represents a meeting point of the imagined and the possible means that identity connects the inner world to the world outside. Those qualities of identity that enable us to see ourselves in what we do also allow others to see us, thus making the self real in a world of others. Its close connection to the process of identification expresses this aspect of identity. To shape an identity through identification with others means that our identity must in some way be shared, no matter how personal it may also be.

Identity refers to a self made concrete and real in a world of others. It thus refers to the necessity that subjectivity become objective or real in the world. We can think of this becoming objective and real as a progression that moves from an internal possibility (potential) toward its realization, from talents and interests at the other: Self

at one

end

to

activities and

outcomes in

the world

(potential) —> Identity (real)

Or, Talents/Interests

(potential) —>

—>

Capabilities

—>

Opportunities

Activities/Outcomes

Talents and interests, which we may take to be original for our purposes, cannot be made real for the individual or for others unless they become 4 capabilities. A talent for and interest in music is not the same thing as the capacity to play an instrument. To get from one to the other entails a substantial effort and access to appropriate resources. Without access to an instrument, and in most cases to supervision by a musician, talent and interest remain just that. A developed capability does not translate into a vocation in which we produce music, especially for others, unless we have the opportunity to exercise our capacities. If women are not allowed to be musicians, then, whatever their talents and capabilities, their progression toward full subjective experience is blocked by the lack of opportunity. In the next chapter, I will be concerned with this progression, with the nature of the opportunities required by it, and with the obstacles that get in the way.

Self-boundaries Notions such

as

self-interest, self-seeking, and satisfaction of the self, all in political economy, presuppose a unit, the self, which

centrally important

be treated as a separate entity in the world. The presumption of the unit status of the self involves a boundary between self and not-self. This is not so much a physical boundary, although that is implicated in important ways, as a psychic and interpsychic boundary, a boundary between can

separate and different subjectivities. Establishing this lishes the self as a unit that has wants and interests,

also estabself that can seek

boundary a

and gain satisfaction. The problem of self-boundaries is, therefore, central to the concerns of political economy. Self-boundaries also set limits. By defining what is self and what is not, self-boundaries delineate what pertains to the self and what does not. The juridical expression for the limit-setting implied in self-boundaries is the system of individual rights, which establishes other persons as limits on the individual, who cannot claim what is theirs for his or her self. The existence of an objective, external, world, including other persons, limits what the individual can do and be. This limit includes the physical limits of the individual person, the limit of a finite life span, and the limit of

talents, abilities, and accomplishments appropriate

to a

bounded self.

Individuals may attempt, in fantasy and in reality, to overcome these limits. They can do so by violating the rights of others, which denies their status as subjects in their own right. This violation of right has the subjective meaning of attempting to overcome the separate subjectivity of the other. More generally, the attempt to overcome self-boundaries denies the the objectivity of the external world. Denial of self-boundaries is a central feature of the subjective landscape of capitalism, as it is of the image of the good society. The notion that will overcomes all obstacles expresses this quality of contemporary experience, a quality that is embedded in the institutions and consciousness of capi-

subject—object separation and, therefore,

talism. odd to associate capitalism with the violation of selfboundaries, given that capitalism is essentially a system of (property) right whose purpose is to protect the individual from the depredations of others. The problematic relation between capitalism, individual rights, and selfboundaries is an important theme in the exploration of the subjective It may

meaning The

seem

of economic institutions.

quality of subjective experience

The ideas about subjective experience just introduced carry implications for normative judgment. These are the implications associated with the idea of a bounded self and with the idea of shaping a life expressive of the inner experience I refer to here as having and being your self. The quality of

both on whether external conditions are or conducive to freedom and on whether the configuration of our inner lives enables us to integrate our self-experience in a way that makes being our selves possible. The main obstacle that stands in the way of establishing this configuration and acting in accord with it is the alienation of

subjective experience depends

are

not

subjective experience. By alienation of subjective experience, I have in mind the devaluation of the personality associated above with the loss of self. When we invest significance and worth not in our persons, but primarily or exclusively in external objects (other persons, institutions, or groups), we alienate our subjectivity to those groups. In the language of psychic life, we externalize or project outside our capacity to be the subject in our lives. This does not mean that valuing others implies alienation of the self. We can value other selves, and the subjective experience of groups and institutions, without losing our investment in our own persons. But, we can also value others, institutions, and groups at the expense of our selves. As I have suggested, this loss of self is typical in moral communities, where the member is only good so far as he or she is connected to the community in a particular way that involves deriving his or her feeling of worth from that of the community. This makes the community rather than the individual the subject; it makes will and initiative collective rather than individual experiences. In other words, the moral community demands the alienation (or projection) of subjective experience from the individual to the group. Subjectivity is the realization through a development process of an original human potential. Whether this potential is realized as the capacity for individual subjectivity depends on the presence or absence of a facilitating environment devoted to that end. The potential to develop a capacity for individual subjective experience is not the only original human potential that bears on subjectivity. There is also the potential to develop a capacity to invest subjectivity not in the individual but in the group. These two capacities ground two very different normative constructs and normative 5 judgments. For reasons summarized at the end of the last chapter, the capacity for individual subjective experience has a unique relevance in a world where the isolation and thus hegemony of the moral community is not a possibility. In such a world, there is justification for placing primary emphasis on the individual rather than the group subject. The norm of individual subjectivity makes the investment of value outside

the individual, when it is at the expense of his or her self, the alienation of subjectivity. Alienation of subjectivity means that the vital element of selfexperience has been separated from the self and placed outside. In the language of psychic life, it has been split off and projected. Alienation expresses the division of self-experience. To speak, then, of the individual as subject is to speak of the integration of subjective or self- experience. Normative judgment pursued on this basis centres on the idea of self-integration, which

is the bringing into the self of feelings and experiences that have been alienated from it (split off or externalized). So far as it is the alienation of important dimensions of the self (especially those that invest value in the personality as a whole) that impoverishes our subjective lives, the prospect for reintegration becomes the central normative concern. Integration enriches individual subjective experience, just as division and externalization impoverish it. The notion of enrichment of subjective experience offers an alternative basis for thinking about welfare, and therefore for making welfare judgments. To see this more clearly, it will help to emphasize the connection between subjective experience and the subject of experience. Subjective experience refers not simply to the internal quality of the experience, but also to its connection with agency. Processes that impoverish subjective not only undermine the prospects for a self-experience, they diminish the presence of the self as an active force in experience. They suppress the capacity for agency, which is the capacity to be a subject of action in the world. This suppression of subjectivity bears on the individual’s welfare so far as welfare refers to a state in which the capacity for individual agency is secure. Welfare, then, connotes a subjective state of mind, or self-experience, the experience of well-being, which is the experience of having and expressing a secure sense of self in relations with others. This experience of well-being depends on the individual’s ability to establish secure self-boundaries, without which there can be little meaning to the goal of being your self. Wellbeing in this sense depends on institutional considerations such as those bound up with a system of individual rights that secure the self in relation to other selves. Traditional welfare judgment follows criteria linked to what I refer to as subjective experience. In economics, ideals of need and want satisfaction predominate. These ideals involve the satisfaction of needs (as exemplified in the use of notions of subsistence or basic need) or the satisfaction of wants (as is typical for those influenced by utilitarian thinking). In their way, these ideals capture something important about normative judgment. Indeed, they focus our attention on an aspect of what I refer to as subjective experience. The weaknesses of the prevailing criteria lie less in what they direct our attention toward, and more in what they direct our attention away from. That is, each includes something important about subjective experience, but in so doing also excludes something important, offering a one-sided ideal as if it were the whole. Thus, the ideal associated with preference and choice directs our attention to an essential element of well-being: that it depends on a sphere of action in which the individual is sovereign, and his or her ends prevail, that there is no real satisfaction that does not satisfy the need of the individual to decide among options according to internal criteria. Yet, the specific construction advanced fails to connect satisfaction to freedom since

experience

it takes the sovereignty of the individual for granted, never considering that interaction and institutions might place that sovereignty in jeopardy, or be needed to help the individual sustain the capacity for decision-making. This ideal does not focus attention directly on the meaning and implications of subjective experience as such, which is what I propose to do here.

Self-alienation The emphasis placed here on division and integration suggests a connection with the idea of the alienation of labour emphasized in Marx’s early writings. There, Marx treats labour as the externalization of the worker’s essence, and labour done for another as the alienation of that externalized essence. If we consider more closely what Marx seems to have in mind both by the ‘essence’ incorporated into labouring and its product, and by the alienation of that essence, we will see important links to the idea of the integration of subjective experience. According to Marx, the more the worker produces, which is to say the more he ‘externalizes himself in his work’, the ‘less he can call his own’ of (Marx 1977: 79). The reference is not to ownership in the legal sense property although that also enters. Rather, having nothing to call your own refers more fundamentally to the loss of an ‘inner life’. What the worker does not have to call his own, then, is a self-experience. Alienation results not only from the loss of (ownership of) the product of labour to another; it results as much from the loss of labour as an activity that, in itself, embodies the worker’s essence into an object, the product of labour. Rather, the worker’s labour is alienated when it ‘does not belong to his essence’ (81). Marx clarifies what has in mind by the worker’s ‘essence’ when he considers the impact of alienation: —

—

Therefore he does not confirm himself in his work, he denies himself, feels miserable instead of happy, deploys no free physical and intellectual energy, but mortifies his body and ruins his mind. Thus, the worker His labour is not voluntary. External only feels a stranger. . It belongs to another labour is self-sacrifice and mortification. and is the loss of himself. .

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

(Marx 1977: 80) The qualities Marx associates with alienated labour suggest the parallel qualities he associates with labour that is not alienated. In alienated labour, the worker denies, loses, and sacrifices himself; so in labour that is not alienated he must find himself. In alienated labour, the worker feels a stranger to himself; so in labour that is not alienated the labourer must know himself. Alienated labour is involuntary; so, labour that is not alienated must be free in the sense that it is subject to the worker’s will. That

the worker would be happy doing labour that is not alienated simply expresses the subjective state of mind that would result from the labourer finding himself in his activity. It would seem, then, that Marx equates essence with self, so that the alienation of the worker’s ‘essence’ is the alienation of the worker’s self, or ‘self-alienation’. Marx tells us more about what this means when he considers what makes human activity different from that of animals: ‘Man makes his vital activity itself into an object of his will and consciousness. Conscious vital activity differentiates man immediately from animal vital activity’ (Marx 1977: 82). Labour that is not alienated embodies the worker’s freedom (his will and consciousness). This freedom is what I have referred to here as subjectivity, the quality of being the subject of activity. Self-alienation, then, means the alienation of subjectivity. By alienation of labour, Marx means the loss of subjective experience.

Since, for Marx, subjective experience is what makes us human, the alienated worker is not human while he works. But this means that he loses his humanness when he engages in what is, for Marx, the main activity through which we express our human quality. Alienation of labour deprives the worker of the possibility of being human in his characteristically human function (production), so he is relegated to being human in what are for Marx his animal functions (eating, drinking, and procreating). Whether or not we follow Marx in treating human consumption and procreation as animal functions, we can see in his judgment of the connection of activity to the human essence the application of a normative ideal. Though he may apply this ideal narrowly (only to the activity of labour), it remains clearly an ideal of integration. The normative ideal is that the worker should integrate his activity with his subjective being (work with self), rather than splitting the two apart. This norm of integration reappears, albeit in a less clear and compelling way, when Marx turns later from the idea of self-estrangement to that of exploitation. Indeed, the notion of exploitation is already implied in alienation as Marx indicates when he insists that alienation of subjective 6 experience in work can only be its alienation to another (1977: 84). Legally, to sell something we own to another is to alienate it. But, doing so only implies alienation of subjective experience if the sale eventuates in the loss of that experience. If I enter into a contract that allows another to use my subjective capacities for agreed upon ends, it hardly seems reasonable to conclude that the result is self-estrangement. Indeed, the subjective element in activity requires the aspect of consent. That I do not own the result of this activity does not negate the subjective element in it. Self-estrangement only results when the alienation of capacities is linked to the suppression of the subjective element in them so that they become no longer subjective capacities, but the capacity for mere physical work. To account for the link between alienation and exploitation, we need to distinguish between the sale of subjective

for agreed upon ends for which those capacities will be used by and the loss of subjective capacities associated with the sale of our capacity for mere work. Marx does not really make this distinction. Its absence allows him to equate the alienation of labour in its sale with the self-estrangement of labour as a subjective experience. He does not consider the possibility that what is sold is not the mere capacity for physical activity, but the capacity to produce something into which has been externalized the individual’s, or at least an element of the individual’s, subjective being. If we refer to the latter as the individual’s capacity for creativity in work, then what Marx excludes is the possibility that the sale of labour might be the sale of creative capacity to be used by its purchaser for creative purposes. To be sure, Marx excludes this possibility for a reason, which is bound up with the argument, more fully developed in his later work, that the domination of capitalist commodity production impels all labour in the direction of brute physical work. If this argument holds, then the distinction drawn above, however valid in principle, has no practical significance so far as

capacities us,

labour

for capital is concerned. If, however, Marx’s argument does have good reason to question its validity on both historical and theoretical grounds, then the equation of labour with the suppression of subjectivity must also be questioned, and the idea of alienation appropriately modified to take the resulting distinction into account. We can say, however, that so far as the worker’s creative capacities have been suppressed, or deprived of any opportunity for development, alienation means exploitation. This is so because the unhappiness inevitably implied in uncreative labour means that the individual will only undertake it when subject to some significant measure of coercion. This coercion most notably involves taking advantage of the worker’s vulnerability, which results from his inability to acquire the things he needs (for Marx his subsistence) without offering the alienated form of labour for sale. To arrive at this conclusion, we need not equate exploitation, as Marx does, with the acquisition by the employer of a surplus value or profit from the consumption of labour. Such an equation disconnects exploitation from subjective experience, establishing it instead as a purely objective phenomenon. As Marx sometimes insists, exploitation understood as nothing more than the disparity between remuneration and the value of the product carries no normative implication, even if the language used seems to point strongly in a normative direction. Then, the disconnection of exploitation from selfalienation moves it outside the sphere of normative judgment. Independently of the matter of the valuation of labour and its product, however, we can consider the extent to which the labour relation negates the worker’s subjectivity and enables the use of the worker’s labouring capacities for ends having nothing to do with that subjectivity. If exploitation means using an individual or his capacities for ends not his own, alienation of labour is linked to exploitation. not

working

hold, and

we

that this conclusion follows whatever the specific juridical setting. employer is a capitalist entrepreneur, a worker-managed firm, or the state. Both alienation and exploitation follow from the suppression of subjectivity, which implies the element of coercion, whatever the specific property arrangements that unite labour and the means of production. We may

note

It does not matter whether the

Creative

living

In the last

sections, I speak of the quality of subjective experience as a of self-integration. In making concrete what this means, it will help, I think, to consider the specific aspects of self-experience most directly implicated in the matter of subjectivity. Doing so leads us to those aspects of self-experience involved with what I earlier refer to as the capacity for freedom. When we alienate (by externalizing) our capacity to make choices, to take responsibility for our actions and their consequences, to be a centre of initiative, then we alienate the core of our subjectivity. When we make others responsible for our conduct, we make ourselves objects for their subjectivity; we substitute their will for our own. Doing so means the loss of subjective freedom. The idea of subjective experience as the basis for normative judgment involves an idea of freedom as the unity of two moments, one subjective, the other objective. I have used the term ‘subjective freedom' to capture the idea of an inner state and internal capacity: the capacity to decide and choose, to determine conduct in accordance not with external rules and expectations, but inner judgment. The term ‘objective freedom’ refers to the configuration of institutions appropriate to developing, sustaining, and expressing in relationships the state of subjective freedom. I will use the term ‘subjectivity’ to refer to the unity of subjective and objective freedom, which together constitute the capacity to live a certain kind of life, one capable of exploiting opportunities yet undetermined. I have, however, said relatively little about the conduct of life appropriate to a being possessed of subjective freedom, although this conduct of life is the doing appropriate to being that plays such a large part in the human capabilities idea. Let me begin to rectify this omission by introducing a notion of Donald Winnicott’s. This is the notion of creativity or ‘creative living’. Winnicott defines creative living as the ‘doing that arises out of being’ (1986: 39). Creative living indicates that ‘he who is, is alive’ in the psychological sense. Winnicott distinguishes being (psychologically) alive from reacting to stimuli. The ability to live creatively is our ability to ‘affect our own patterns’ (1986: 40). The alternative to creative living is compliance, the adaptation to the outside world, and thus the disappearance of the self into what is already given and predetermined. Compliance means the alienation or externalization of subjective freedom (agency) so that, matter

any internal capacity to direct conduct, conduct must be directed from outside. For creative living, the world must not be wholly predetermined, and the self must not be shaped wholly by adaptation to what is. Creative living, then, includes the element of the creation of a world. While we do not, of course, create the world, we can still be creative if there is a part of the world subject to our creative influence. At the least, and perhaps this is also the most we can expect, we can create ourselves in the world and expect the world to adapt to this act of creation, and in that respect be created for us. I can express this notion of creativity in a way linked more closely to the idea of human capabilities considered especially in the last chapter. Nussbaum (1995) in her account of human capabilities, considers what humans can do and what capacities they must have if they are to do the things that are uniquely human. This entails a prior answer to the question of what it is to be human. This prior answer gets more problematic as it gets more concrete (expressing the specific ways of being in a particular culture). As the answer gets less concrete, however, it gets less problematic, but also seems to lose any content. The notion of creativity suggests that vital content remains when we ask our question in a way that

lacking

,

presumes no content whatever. The question would be something like this: What might human beings become if their upbringing does not presuppose any specific answer given ahead of time? The answer is that they might become self-aware, they might become capable of organizing a life to express subjective being, and they might live a creative life rather than one that replicates identities already determined within a group culture. We may note that the task of identifying human capabilities, while it points us in this direction in one sense, also points us away from the answer to our question because it insists we list ahead of time the functionings (the doings) that make a life uniquely human. We can, instead, replace the attempt to identify functionings and capabilities with the task of identifying how human development can be made consistent with the goal embodied in our question. How can institutions and interactions be made consistent with the task of assuring that human upbringing and human life do not presuppose an answer to the question: What does it mean to be human?

4

Needs and

Freedom and

rights

right

Subjective freedom is the vital internal basis for subjectivity. Subjectivity depends, however, not only on subjective freedom, but also on the quality of external relations, and of the institutions in which those relations are embodied. In other words, subjectivity also depends on the presence of objective (external) structures devoted to it, which is to say on objective freedom. The term ‘right’ refers to the recognition of the individual as a locus of subjective freedom. This recognition makes subjective freedom an objective reality, which is to say a reality for others. Put another way, rights secure the expression of subjectivity in conduct and relating. The term ‘right’ involves us with a specific idea about interaction, the idea that interaction should not subject one to the wilful control of others. Freedom, so far as it involves right, is freedom from wilful control, whether that be on the part of other individuals or groups. The idea of freedom from wilful control links right to power, if in a negative sense. Power here refers to the capacity to block subjectivity. Rights, then, protect against power. It might also be thought that rights bestow or secure power, and in a sense this is correct. If by power we mean the capacity to accomplish our ends, then while rights do not assure us of this power, they play an important part in assuring that we can exercise this power. Yet, speaking of power in this way causes problems. When we say that rights not only protect against power but also secure it, we equate power with capability. Doing so obscures a distinction vital to understanding the idea of rights. This distinction becomes important when we make explicit the link between power and overcoming resistance, a link not implied in the idea of capability. Then, equating power with capability insists that

ability to accomplish subjectively meaningful goals depends on our ability to overcome resistance, especially the resistance of others. If the term capability refers to the qualities we have that enable us to do something, particularly, though not inevitably, something in the world, then capability is closely linked to creativity and creative living. In developing a capability we may have to overcome (internal) resistance, but this our

Foundations does

that exercising capabilities inevitably means the ability to resistance (to have power). If it does not, then, we can distincapability from power by the necessity that power involves a struggle

not mean

overcome

guish against

an

opponent.

Here, I am not using power in the general sense of effectivity in the world, but only in the sense of overcoming resistance, and it must be that for some there is no real distinction to be drawn. For that is, all effectivity, all accomplishment, and all creativity must encounter resistance. This way of thinking equates two dimensions of human experience, power and capability, that I think we can learn something important by distinguishing. Indeed, making this distinction is arguably essential to the idea of an institutional setting appropriate to creative living. Distinguishing power from capability makes power the enemy of subjectivity. This follows from the link of power to resistance and thus of power to the struggle between subjects each seeking to achieve his or her ends. I will go further, however, and consider power not simply the force brought to bear in the struggle between individuals or groups over their ends, but as the force brought to bear against subjectivity itself. Doing so is implied in the emphasis I place on the element of wilful control. Power as wilful control has as its end the control, and in the limit the destruction, of subjectivity in others. Referring to the diagram introduced at the end of the last chapter, power is brought to bear to block one or another of the movements that, as a whole, constitute subjectivity: from talent to capability, from capability to opportunity, from opportunity to outcome. Thus, to deny individuals opportunity based on irrelevant attributes subjects them to power in this sense. The idea of freedom from wilful control also has a positive meaning. This positive meaning is captured by the notion of acting on our own will, which means we are the subjects of our actions, at least within a significant arena of human conduct. It might be assumed that subjectivity in this sense is assured by preventing wilful control of others over our lives; or it might be assumed that doing so only eliminates external barriers to subjectivity, and that assuring the capacity for subjectivity as an internal matter is also important. In either case, right specifically refers to the creation of a space within which conduct and outcome are under control of our will, which is to say a space for individual subjectivity. Rights assure that we are not subject to the power of others, that we are not dominated or oppressed

acknowledged some,

by them. Rights understood in this way are limited. They do not assure that our subjectivity (as an internal matter) is intact, and can be asserted in the world. They do not assure any specific outcomes. They only prevent oppression. Such a notion of right leads readily into specification of a set of political rights associated with democratic institutions, so far as those prevent tyranny. And, this notion works well as the basis for specification of property right appropriate for a modern economy. This notion of right does not so readily

Needs and

rights

support the currently popular usage that tends to make right the basis not only of the protection of the person from wilful control, but also of a claim for non-market provision of goods, whether wilful control is at issue or not. Thus, it is claimed that we have rights to medical care, that we have cultural and group rights, that we have welfare rights, and so on. The right to goods such as these, if it links to freedom at all, does so only indirectly. Thus, it might be argued that a right to these goods derives from the likelihood that in the absence of such a right our need for them will drive us into relations of exploitation (as Marx argues it will). Or, it might be argued that a right to these goods derives from their importance in supporting our capacity for subjectivity; without them we cannot be subjects in our worlds. In these two cases the claim for right is linked indirectly to freedom. This indirect relation is one with which we will be particularly concerned here. It clearly implies a connection between right and entitlement to goods not covered in the idea of property right. But, it does not so obviously imply that this entitlement has the same character as the one embodied in the notion of property, or that it is indeed a right in the sense of designating an arena for the individual’s wilful control. The connection of right to freedom also connects right to personhood since freedom pertains to persons. Recognition of personhood by others and by the state means respect for rights. Those who have rights are persons and those who do not are not persons. Of course, knowing what it means to be a person, and exactly what protections and entitlements are associated with personhood is no easy matter. This is particularly the case in a context where individual capacities are significantly affected by changing technology as that translates into a changing and expanding set of economic opportunities. What access to technology, to education, to communication, is necessary to being a person? But, more is involved in the use of the term right than a struggle over the recognition of personhood. There is also, especially in the proliferation of claims about right, a use of right not to establish the demands of personhood in general, but to insist on the salience of need. However powerful need might be, and however legitimate may be the insistence that the public authority should play a role in its satisfaction, need does not in any obvious way bestow or imply right; nor do rights assure that needs will be satisfied. To understand the connection between need and right, we need to consider more closely both the idea of right and the kinds of needs for which rights are relevant. I will do so by exploring some implications of the idea of subjective freedom introduced in the last chapter. The

universality of rights

Historically, have rights,

it has been the

case

and in this way

that

are

a

few, many,

recognized

as

virtually all humans locus of subjectivity.

or

the

recognized in this way have rights, so that who who is considered a subject. To say that rights are rights depends universal, then, is either tautological, since rights pertain to all who have subjectivity and are therefore universal within this class, or inaccurate, since rights are not universal if they only pertain to those recognized to possess We has

can

say that all those on

freedom. It is also inaccurate to say, as for example the United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights does, that all humans are born free. Humans are born free neither objectively nor subjectively. Objectively infants and children are not rights-bearing citizens, and are not free, though they may become so. Subjectively, infants and young children have not achieved the psychic integration and mature character implied in the notion of subjective freedom. Yet, it would be true enough to say that all (or virtually all) humans are born with the potential to become free, both objectively and subjectively. An idea sometimes built into the notion of universal human rights is that objective freedom (including the legal structure of right) bestows subjectivity. Then, by making rights universal we make subjectivity universal as well. Yet, it is still recognized that all creatures are not capable, and certainly not equally capable, of subjectivity. We are aware that we cannot make our pets free simply by an act of recognition. Whatever we might want to say about animal rights, we will always run up against the fact that animals lack subjective freedom. This restriction suggests that objective freedom only bestows freedom on those capable of being free, which is to say it involves not simply the creation of freedom, but the recognition of a freedom already present, in however latent a form. Subjective freedom depends not on who is or is not recognized, but on who does or does not have the capacity for subjectivity, a capacity that cannot be created merely by being recognized. That subjectivity cannot be created by being recognized follows from its connection to psychic structure. While we can establish the objective freedom of those who are not subjectively free by setting them free, so to speak, we cannot create subjectivity in this way, though we may put in place a vital and necessary condition for it. The distinction has to do with the difference between potential and capacity, and therefore with the matter of development. Subjective freedom is the result of a process of development, of the infant into a person, not merely a physically adult human being, but a person in the sense of a locus of subjectivity, a ‘centre of initiative’ in the world. Indeed, the vital element in this process is the recognition by the parent that the child is a potential person, and has the potential to develop into an autonomous person. In this sense, we might say recognition remains the vital element in establishing subjectivity. Clearly, however, this does not mean that by simply recognizing subjectivity, we create it. Once we take the necessity of a definite development into account, we can no longer take freedom, if that is the unity of its subjective and objective aspects, for granted, but must consider its preconditions.

subjective

Considering subjectivity the result of a development process allows us to retrieve something of the idea of universal right if we can assume that what is distinctive about the human organism is that it contains a potential for subjective freedom. This idea of a potential is necessary to any notion of development, which is the realization of an original potential through a process peculiar to it. Freedom pertains then to all those who (1) have the potential to develop as a centre of subjectivity, (2) experience a process of development by which that potential is translated into a capability, and (3) find themselves living in an institutional setting devoted to subjectivity. Normatively, we can say that all those with the innate potential and its realization in a process of development have rights, and in this sense rights are universal. Indeed, the notion of the universality of right only makes sense where we recognize the rooting of subjectivity in an innate potential. The problem with the notion of universal human rights is its refusal to recognize that the potential and the capacity for subjectivity are not the same, and thus subjectivity cannot be created by a legal act even if objective freedom can. 1 Note that right refers to the recognition of subjective freedom and therefore involves the expression of subjectivity in conduct and relating. The concept of right includes the idea that subjective freedom is not sufficient for subjectivity; there must also be the opportunity to translate the inner experience of subjectivity into something real in the world and for others. Given subjective freedom, and the capacity for subjectivity, there must also be the opportunity to shape a life around that capacity. This means that the capacity for remain merely a

subjectivity must be made real and concrete. It cannot potential and fulfil its promise. But, to go from potential to objective reality means also to go from abstract (potential) to concrete (real), to adopt a particular form. What is distinctive about a modern society is that, in it, this form is not predetermined, and therefore it is not inevitable. Because subjectivity means being a centre of initiative, it means that what we do and who we are will, in some significant way, be determined not for but by us. This determination by us is what we refer to as choice (Levine 1998 ). Without the self-determination of a way of life including a mode of consumption and a vocation, we cannot realize our being in the world (objective reality) as the expression and realization of our subjectivity. If our way of life is prescribed for us, then we are not a locus of subjectivity, but the occupant of a role, an actor in a scripted drama. If we can imagine nothing more in our social being than occupying a role, then neither subjectivity nor right can have any substantive meaning for us. So, in becoming something objective, subjectivity also becomes something contingent. The quality of subjectivity to which I have just referred reveals something important about the idea of right linked to subjective freedom. The link between right and subjective freedom is also a link between right and the emancipation of the individual from the group. Indeed, when we define

right as the opportunity to shape a life based on subjective freedom, we also define right as the freedom to lead a life not already predetermined for us by custom and tradition, that is, by our group identification. Giving up the lives in

predetermination of our lives in custom and tradition makes our important sense undetermined (not predetermined), which makes our lives our own. We can connect this indeterminacy to creativity, since the absence of external determination is what makes for creative living. The contingency to which I refer above is the necessary expression of creativity, and therefore of subjectivity. If right emancipates the individual from the group, it follows that there 2 can be no group rights. Put another way, in a regime of rights, subjecin resides the individual and not in the group. Right transfers tivity subjectivity from the latter to the former, and thus attacks the claim the group makes over its members: to determine how they should lead their an

lives. While

we can refer to right as the opportunity for the expression of subjectivity in conduct and relating, we cannot speak of a right to subjectivity. That is, we can speak of the right to express subjective freedom, but not of the right to subjective freedom. We cannot speak this way once we give up the idea that subjective freedom is the product of objective freedom, that it comes into existence with the recognition of right. Once we give up this idea, we introduce an important distinction that follows from the difference between potential and capacity. This is the distinction between those aspects of subjective experience to which we can be said to lay claim by right and those to which we can make no such claim, even though they are vitally linked to freedom. Making subjective freedom a matter of right conflicts with the idea of subjective freedom as the capability expressed in the exercise of rights. Subjective freedom depends both on an innate potential and on the development of that potential into a capacity. There are, then, both requirements of the development process and requirements of the recognition of its result: subjective freedom. Only the latter is a matter of right, though it is obviously no more urgent than the former, and because of this may place no greater obligation on social institutions.

Need What I have just said can be put in the language of need. While emphasis is often placed on needs for subsistence, which places physical survival at the forefront, for our purposes subsistence is not the primary consideration. The most vital needs of the human organism are not for subsistence, but for a subjective life. Such needs are rooted in the organism’s original potential. If we root need in the organism’s urge to realize an innate potential, then the idea of development suggests that the human organism has two related but distinct needs. The first need is for conditions conducive to the

of potential into capability. The second need is for conditions conducive to realizing capabilities in conduct and relating. The first need is for what we might refer to as a temporary external structure of subjectivity. During the maturation process, the nascent subject’s undeveloped capacity for subjective freedom makes it dependent on an external structure. The second is the need for subjective living properly considered. As we will see, these two types of need relate differently to right. The latter is satisfied by the exercise of right, while the former is not. I will return to the idea of an external structure of subjectivity later in this chapter. The connection of right to subjectivity raises questions about the idea that need, even the most pressing of need, creates a right. The insistence that ‘acknowledgment of basic human needs ipso facto establishes human rights’ (Bay 1982 : 61) subordinates right to need. In so doing, it seeks to make right nothing more than the immediate connection of satisfaction to need. By immediate connection of satisfaction to need, I have in mind the idea that having the need should provoke the provision of the means for its satisfaction. No action is, then, required of the needy beyond the expression of neediness. The expression of neediness becomes the assertion of right, so that right disappears into need. Missing in this is the element of subjectivity expressed in the act of will we associate with the assertion of right. Will is the mediating term between need and satisfaction implied in the idea of right. It expresses the freedom of the subject to satisfy need or not to do so, and to satisfy need in a way consistent with autonomy. We can say, then, that to have rights means to interpose will between need and its satisfaction so that the expression of need cannot be the expression of right that leads to the means for satisfaction. We can see this distinction operating in the distinction between property right and the right to satisfy particular (‘basic’) need. To own property is to have the right to satisfy whatever need that property is capable of satisfying either directly or through other property that can be acquired via exchange. There is, then, in the right to own property a right to satisfy need, but not any particular need. This quality of property right creates both an opportunity and a problem. The opportunity is for autonomy to enter into the expression of need and the act of gaining what will satisfy it. When autonomy enters in this way the connection between need and satisfaction cannot be immediate, need cannot create right. The problem is that the individual without property, or without adequate property, cannot satisfy needs, including those needs connected to creative living.

development

Property right The need for creative living to which I have just referred is the need to translate the capacity for subjective freedom (potential) into a concrete and particular way of life (reality). Doing so constitutes our unique individuality as something real for ourselves and in the world of others. Without

this

individual difference, we would have at most a group be member rather than individual. Individual identity refers to the investment of our subjectivity in a concrete way of life. Externally this means an involvement with things and with others. Internally, this means maintaining a sense of our selves, including the integration

uniqueness, or identity; we would

of

self-experience. Right secures the opportunity for the individual to shape a life expressive of subjective freedom. What does this mean more specifically? As I suggest above, a system of rights makes possible the translation of 3 subjectivity into an objectively existing reality in the world and for others. It is the visible expression of subjectivity, visible not in the narrow sense of accessible to sight, but visible in the broader sense of recognizable by a

others.

Making subjectivity visible in this sense means embodying it in objects existing in the world. These objects, while external, are also subjective since they act as containers for subjective meaning. I will refer to objects of this kind as property, and the opportunity to use objects in this way as property right. This way of speaking about property right clearly makes it vital to subjectivity, but it does not clearly indicate property’s scope and limits. The problem of scope and limits has three dimensions of particular importance: (1) recognition of the rights of others, (2) the limits, if any, of the accumulation of private wealth, and (3) the treatment of our capacities (labour) as property. In this chapter, I restrict myself to the first of these dimensions, taking up the other two in Chapters 6 and 7 The idea that .

right is limited by others follows from the location of right intersubjective reality. Right enables the individual to make his or her subjective freedom a reality for others. But these others must also be subjects if the visibility of our subjectivity to them is to make it real. Subjectivity exists not in the material qualities of the external world, but in its subjective meaning. To be sure, this subjective meaning is embodied in things, and in the shaping of things to make them connect to subjectivity. But the embodiment of meaning in things is a subjective act that also makes their physical production a subjective act. Again, the reality of the subjective meaning of things is both subjective and objective: subjective in that it is the reality of meaning and not physical form per se, and objective in that it is the reality of meaning for self and other. Put another way, the subjective reality of things is their intersubjective reality. The system of property right, which is a system both of property and property owners, is such an intersubjective reality. The intersubjective reality of property has both objective and subjective conditions. These correspond to the conditions we have already considered for objective and subjective freedom. They include the legal protection of property right and the subjective capacity to participate in the property system. This capacity is part of subjective freedom, the part which, so to in

speak, reaches out to others. What this means is that subjective freedom already contains the element of connection with others, a connection that is not simply imposed by the external constraints of a legal order. It follows that subjective freedom only exists for us if we also recognize it in others. Recognizing the self-in-other is the other side of the recognition of our own selfhood (the self-in-self). Having subjective freedom means both having a self and being our selves. In having a self we are the same as all those who also have selves. In being ourselves, we are different from others (we are different selves); we have an identity of our own. Having a self refers to the abstract moment of selfhood or subjectivity, being our selves to the particular moment. As I suggest above, both dimensions are necessary to subjectivity. To have both dimensions means that our subjectivity is both our own and something shared with others. This means that our recognition of and respect for ourselves as subjects implies respect for others. The property system embodies and expresses this quality of subjective experience, and is therefore essential to subjective living. This means, however, that the property system is both a necessary condition for, and a limit to, subjective experience. This limit exists in the presence of others, who also have rights and whose subjectivity also demands respect. This principle of recognition of others plays a vital part in the development of the obligation to respect the rights of others.

Development as a capacity because it is still in the process of original potential. In this state, subjectivity cannot be said to exist as such, and therefore cannot establish a locus of right. Yet, many speak of the needs of development as rights, most notably in the area of education. A right to education would seem to be a right to a certain development. It clearly establishes entitlement to the satisfaction of a real need, the need to develop and thus realize a human potential. But an important ambiguity exists in this usage regarding the subject of this particular right. We can see this ambiguity as a practical matter when we observe that the right to education for the child translates from the child’s point

Subjectivity may development out

not

of

exist

an

of view into a restriction. The child attends school not at his or her will, but at the will of the parents, the school board, and ultimately the state. If education is a right, then, whose right is it? We can get around this problem in two ways depending on the depth of our commitment to the language of right. Obviously, we can speak of the role of education not in the language of right, but of development. Development into a person is, then, an obligation for the child, a goal imposed (at least in part) externally. Speaking this way expresses something important about the distinction between potential and capacity, which we emphasized above.

There is, however, a way of retrieving the language of right when considering education. This alternative entails introducing an ideal subject, the mature adult that the child can become, whose right to develop is exercised in exercising the right to education. Then, while the child may not want to go to school, the potential adult does want to do so, and even, in a sense, wills him or herself to become educated. This is not an altogether fanciful way of speaking since no child will develop without an internal urge to do so, one strong enough to overcome whatever resistance regressive impulses may put in its path. Since, however, the adult the child has the potential to become does not yet exist, he or she cannot will anything. And to get around this, we would need to introduce a steward for the child’s potential self. The subject of the right to education would be the potential self, and the agent of the subject would be the steward to which I have just referred. As a practical matter, the child has two stewards: the parents and the state. These stewards may or may not represent different principles. Thus, the parents as stewards may will the child to be educated in a religious or ethnic community, with its unique and particular cultural goals. For example, the parents as representatives of a religious community may insist that the child be educated in creationism rather than evolution. This conflicts with the stewardship of the secular state whose goal is not the development of a capacity for devotion, but the development of the capacity for universal citizenship and individuation. Application of the notion of right here clearly introduces a somewhat cumbersome use of language. The subject of right is the child’s potential self, and it is exercised through his or her steward. It would be simpler to say that the development of the potential for subjectivity into a real capacity is an implicit goal of the child and an explicit goal of the state, to be pursued in various ways depending on particular circumstances. Yet, cumbersome as the language of right is in this area, it may be helpful in raising some interesting questions about the subject of right, questions that also apply in cases where limits of subjectivity have process of realizing a potential, but with impairment.

to

do

not

with the

Impairment The idea that subjective freedom depends on an original potential and on the presence of conditions favourable for a specific development introduces the possibility that human beings may fail, to one degree or another, to develop the capacity for freedom. The result of such failure is what I will refer to as impaired subjectivity. Impairment may result from a defect in the original potential, or from a deficit in the development process. Impairment may or may not be rectifiable, depending on how fundamental it is, on the availability of remedial measures capable of returning the

individual to the development path, and on the availability of resources needed to take advantage of those measures. Impaired subjectivity may have physical or emotional causes. Whatever its cause, it undermines the individual’s ability to find and express a core of self in action and in relations with others. Examples of impairment include learning disorders, low self-esteem, lack of impulse control, and so on. Each of these can impede the effort to shape a life expressive of subjective freedom, to recognize autonomy in others, and, as a general matter, to live creatively. Since subjectivity as I use the term here is essentially an emotional or psychic accomplishment, the impairment with which we are primarily concerned is an impairment of emotional development. Yet, subjectivity also has physical and cognitive conditions. Where physical impairment is severe enough, it can limit the opportunity to realize capabilities otherwise well developed. And where cognitive skills are limited, so too is the capacity for the conduct and relatedness we refer to as the expression of subjective freedom. As with any significant development, the full realization of subjectivity is unlikely, and the norm in practice will include a significant element of failure, or, in our language, impairment. We can say, then, that all are

impaired to one degree or another. This is especially the case since the end involves psychic integration. We can assume that integration will be attained only up to a point, and that earlier levels of functioning remain available so that regression to them is always a possibility. This complicates the problem of normative judgment, which includes establishing meaningful categories for evaluating institutions by their ability to secure subjectivity so far as that is possible. We need to know, that is, not only what the ideal looks like, but also the vidual to realize it.

extent to

which it is reasonable

to

expect the indi-

technology to enable some of those with physical impairlead lives in most ways comparable with the able-bodied. Yet, doing so is costly, and more costly the closer we attempt to bring the impaired to a level of functioning equivalent to the able-bodied. Application of the language of right seeks to cut through the problems posed by the cost of measures needed for the impaired to reach this level of functioning (Yamin 1996 : 404). Yet, doing so constitutes a denial of impairment not only by denying cost, but also by insisting that technology can make impairThus,

we can use

ments to

ment

disappear.

Some of those who deal with physical impairment address the problem 4 just raised through a distinction between disability and impairment. It may help in understanding this distinction if we use the language of human capabilities. In that language, a physical impairment that does not mean a restriction on human capabilities is not a disability. Our main concern here has been not with human capabilities in general, but with the capacity for subjective experience. If the latter is the core capacity in the sense that

without it the particular capabilities emphasized, for example by Nussbaum, lose their significance, then we can distinguish impairment from disability according to whether the impairment affects, or is allowed to affect, the capacity for subjective experience. Whether impairment means disability will depend, at least in part, on society’s investment in a facilitating environment that can offset the possible impact of impairment on capability, that is on the capacity to lead a fully human life. There is, then, an important distinction between physical impairment and impairment in human capabilities (disability), in that the latter may be susceptible to the impact of social conditions, including those

stemming from attitudes toward the impaired. This construction leads naturally to the idea that fully respecting the rights of the impaired will assure that they are not disabled, and to the idea that, while impairment may be a physical condition, disability results from discrimination (Linton 1998 ). on the distinction between impairment and disability encourthink about the latter as a social construction. Yet, however valid within certain limits, doing so can mean denying the real limitations that impairment can impose (French 1993). This denial of impairment applies not only to those with physical limitations, but also to those with impaired

Insisting

ages

us

to

subjectivity, which is our main concern here. Emotional and cognitive impairment are, as a rule, more closely linked to subjectivity than are the more commonly addressed forms of physical impairment, but the latter can also affect freedom. Exploitation of opportunities for the expression of capabilities often requires a minimum level of physical functioning. This is obvious in some cases. A loss of physical capability for a musician can have substantial ramifications for subjective experience, and therefore substantial emotional consequences. Physical and emotional capacities are closely linked, and it is reasonable to consider them together under the category of impairment. The problem of dealing with impairment is, I think, best addressed not in the abstract, but as a practical matter. That is to say, a judgment needs be made as to what level of achievement we will consider the norm, and how far we should go to assist those unable to achieve this norm on their own. The problem is not to deduce such a norm theoretically, but to try to understand how institutions can make the necessary judgments. I return to this problem in Chapter 5 If impairment is not rectifiable, then those individuals with impaired capacities for subjective freedom have needs of a special kind. Such needs differ from, though they are related to, our first two needs considered above (pp.56-7). I will refer to this third need as the need for a permanent external structure of subjectivity. Thus, to summarize the three needs. There are first the needs associated with the development of subjective freedom. These include the need for a temporary external structure of subjectivity. There are also the needs associated with expressing a developed capacity for to

.

in living and relating. In satisfying such needs, rights play a central role. And, for those with impaired subjectivity, there are needs that can be satisfied not by right, but with the assistance of a permanent external 5 structure of subjectivity. Yet, while we have different categories of need, we often find the language of right used without regard to these distinctions: children’s rights, the rights of the handicapped, welfare rights, and so on. Indeed, we find the language of right used with special force by, or on behalf of, those whose subjectivity is in some way impaired when set against prevailing norms. Why is this the case, and what does it mean? When we insist on applying the language of right to the process by which those having impaired subjectivity acquire the things they need, we attribute subjective freedom to those for whom it does not fully exist. To understand this usage, then, is to understand the insistence that subjective

subjectivity

freedom is not, or cannot be, impaired (though it may be externally confined), perhaps because it is assumed to be created by the designation of right and not by the completion of a development process. In this connection, consider the following statement concerning the impaired from one student of rights:

Many people, including people

with

special needs, require help at certain important to view the grounds against the need to seek help. (Copp 1992)

times in their lives. Because of this, it is of self-respect and self-esteem as secure

However sympathetic we may be with the idea expressed here that arrangements for satisfying the needs of the impaired should, so far as possible, respect their integrity, the statement also contains a conundrum. How do we assure the self-feeling we associate with autonomy, and therefore with independence, for those who are not independent? Does our insistence on rights, and therefore on exercise of will, falsely construe their situation and thus deny them the understanding and empathy without which need satisfaction will surely be in some ways an assault? Extension of the use of the language of right beyond its natural boundaries expresses the denial of impairment, which is linked to the denial that subjectivity is an accomplishment. Thus, those who might otherwise be considered impaired become instead ‘differently enabled’. Wilfred Bion refers to this denial as the ‘hatred of a process of development’ (1961: 89). By this he has in mind the wish that we could ‘arrive fully equipped as an adult fitted by instinct to know without training or development exactly how to live .’. If there is no development, then subjective freedom must an be original endowment rather than an accomplishment. Our original endowment is not our potential, but the capacity itself. We need to consider what makes such an assumption attractive, since it underlies much contemporary thinking about the provision of welfare. .

.

By assuming capacity take

rather than

potential

a

strong step in the direction of

as our

original endowment,

kind of equality. Since no develall is and we are endowed with subjectivity because needed, opment process we are human and need do no more to have it than be human, it follows that we are all equally centres of subjective freedom. Thus, the equation of potential with capacity appeals because of its connection to an ideal of equality. We might ask, then, What makes this particular notion of equality so attractive? To answer this question, we need only note that once we allow that some may not have subjective freedom, we cannot avoid the possibility that we we

a

will find ourselves among them. Then, to protect ourselves from the humiliation of being judged lacking, we insist that no such judgment can or should be made. Here, Freud’s comments on equality have force. He suggests that the impetus behind the demand for equality is the need to deal with envy by depriving ourselves of the opportunity to gain what others do not have so that we can protect ourselves from the danger that they might gain what we cannot (Freud 1959 ). Hatred of development combined with the need to cope with (avoid the threat of) envy leads to the insistence that present where objective freedom is the denial of impairment, or the presumption that it is the result of external factors, or the insistence that it can always be repaired. Since it is the fear of impairment in ourselves that provokes the denial of impairment in others, the phenomenon of projection plays an important role here. Through projection, we move problematic aspects of our selfexperience outside onto others, onto groups, or onto institutions. Let me consider briefly what this means. In simple terms, through projection we can deal with unacceptable aspects of our self-experience by attributing them to others. Thus, we may experience our feelings toward others as their feelings toward us, or, we may find in others those aspects of ourselves we cannot acknowledge as our own. Our impulse toward self-interested conduct becomes the self-interested conduct of others; our hatred of others, or even our hatred of ourselves, becomes their hatred of us; our fear of our own inadequacy becomes a judgment of the inadequacy of others. In each case, a feeling or self-experience is shifted from an internal or subjective reality to an external, or objective, reality. Projection makes the subject’s desires, feelings, capacities, and so on not his or her own, but those of another. The other can be a person, an institution, a group, or any entity capable of carrying or containing the relevant aspects of the subject’s self. It needs to be borne in mind that while projection shifts responsibility for feelings and attitudes away from the subject, this does not make projection a matter of conscious intent. On the contrary, the power of the strategy embodied in projection derives from the fact that the process takes place outside of awareness, so that the subject actually loses any sense that the

subjective secure.

freedom is

automatically

This, then, leads

to

feelings involved are, or ever were, his or her own. This disavowal of inner experience has important implications. In particular, it impoverishes the individual’s experience of him or her self by placing that experience outside, leaving the individual with a diminished subjective life. Indeed, it can be the individual’s subjectivity itself that he or she externalizes in this way, thus assuring that agency only exists outside, and that the experience of being a subject cannot be achieved. So far as action is driven by subjective experience, by hopes and fears, and by the interests shaped by hope and fear, the impoverishment implied in projection must be assumed to affect subjective ends in significant ways. Projection works best when the object chosen actually experiences or exhibits the feelings and self-states it is meant to contain. We can assure this result by choosing appropriate objects for projection, or by provoking objects to experience the disavowed emotions and to take on the disavowed character traits. Thus those who really are impaired offer an especially compelling container for the projection of our sense of our selves as impaired. To the extent that individuals or groups succeed in assuring that their experience with external objects (persons, groups, or institutions) confirms the expectations associated with their use as containers for projected internal states, they succeed in creating a closed circle linking internal and external. Doing so has significant implications for defining and addressing social problems, including those that involve the design of economic institutions. Projection enables us to treat the impaired as repositories of our own impaired selves so that we can better deny our own impairment. Projection enables us to deny our impairment in two ways. First, it assures that our impairments appear not as our own, but in others. Others are impaired; we are

the

not

(‘There but for the grace of God go I’). Second, our insistence that are, or can be made, whole (free) denies the state of impair-

impaired

ment in

then

them

we are

way of denying impaired.

as a

not

Projection results when

we

it in ourselves. If others

cannot

are

tolerate the idea that

not

we

impaired, too are in

subjectivity, that we are (and will be) dependent on others, that there are things we cannot (and will never) be able to do, that our lives are less than they might have been. Projection, then, protects against the narcissistic injury associated with the idea of limits implied in impairment. The blow to our self-image associated with the idea of being impaired shapes our idea of those handicapped in ways we are not, and shapes the way we then relate to them. Indeed, the need to cope with the loss of self-esteem implied by the internalized image of ourselves as somehow damaged defines the idea of impairment we then impose on others. We decide who is and who is not impaired according to the necessity of externalizing our impaired selves so that we can retain internally a sense of ourselves as unimpaired, or complete, persons. This means that our understanding of impairment, and of those who are impaired, is an understanding we have of ourselves, of our lives and our experiences, rather than their some

ways

impaired

in

our

lives and their

experiences. We then have a very close relation with those judged impaired, since they are us. For some, the prospect of impairment in others is intolerable because it brings to mind their own; to deny it in others is necessary if they are to deny it in themselves and thereby fend off awareness of their own limitations. This attitude is commonly expressed in the insistence that we can do and be whatever we want so long as we adopt a positive attitude and

will the outcome we desire. This denial involves an element of sadism toward those who fail to be all they can be since it insists that failure is not the result of forces outside their control, but of a weakness of will. Once failure gets attributed to weakness of will, a door is opened to punitive policies designed (ostensibly) to strengthen will, or to punish those who give in to their weaknesses. A less punitive, though no less problematic, attitude stemming from the same source insists that all have a right to unimpaired functioning. This then makes the welfare of those whose subjectivity is impaired a matter of right (which is to say will) notwithstanding the link between impairment and the failure of subjectivity. Thus, extension of the language of right to welfare expresses the denial of impairment. These attitudes centring on denial should be contrasted with the attitude that accepts the impairment of others as real, and deals with it on its own terms, on the basis of its implications for the impaired rather than for ourselves. We can refer to this attitude as empathy, by which I have in mind the capacity to understand the experiences of others as they have them, rather than in terms of the significance such experiences would have for us were we to have them. It is the capacity for empathy that makes possible an alternative idea of the impaired, one marked not by the denial implied in the notion of right, but by the acceptance of their separate reality. To take the path suggested by this alternative idea, we must first give up the fantasy that impairment is not real, or that it can be overcome by acts of will, perhaps enhanced by the appropriate technology. What happens when we give up the fantasy that reaching physical maturity implies that

comparable emotional development has taken place? Or, what happens we give up the related fantasy that there is no such thing as emotional development, or, if there is, it has no bearing on the problem of freedom? The answer is that we can then consider the alternative path for dealing with impairment. I will refer to this alternative as welfare. a

when

Welfare When

consider extending right in the sphere of right, we consider claims of right to goods acquire in exchange for goods we own. A right we

property nor

the economy beyond that we neither own to welfare might be consider what such a right might

construed in this way, and I would like to 6 involve, and whether it can be made plausible.

The first question that arises when we think about welfare rights is that of identifying the sorts of goods to which such a right would provide entitlement. A natural and appealing candidate has been those goods capable of satisfying basic needs. The connection of right to basic needs seems to link right to a sort of need carrying the imperative we associate with right. We can even argue that, if there are basic needs, their satisfaction must be a prerequisite for agency or autonomy (Copp 1992). Then, assuring satisfaction of basic need through welfare secures autonomy, which is also the purpose of rights. We can also argue, along the same lines, that to fail to assure

satisfaction of basic need

exploitation and oppression by right is not recognized. to

makes individuals vulnerable whom they must turn when the

by right those

to

While this last argument has a certain intuitive appeal, it runs up against the central problem with basic needs arguments considered in Chapter 2 If the right to satisfy basic need is a right to a basket of goods prescribed for the individual as a part of a species or a group, it drains need of its connection to autonomy, while, since it invokes right, insisting on that connection. If right entails the ability to exercise will, then a right to something already given (prescribed for the individual) would be a contradiction in terms. This contradiction is well expressed in the difficulties that arise .

in the effort to identify what are basic needs once we leave aside the abstractions of food, clothing, and shelter. Once we do so, we immediately discover that the type of food, clothing, shelter, and so on is contingent and not given. Then, having rights in this area would only make sense if we include

the right to decide what does or does not constitute a basic need and a good appropriate for its satisfaction. This is clearly implied when the need to be satisfied is for the development and expression of a personal identity. Identity enters into how all needs

so on are to be what sorts of food and housing). This poses a problem then for the basic needs language. We can solve this problem by redefining the right from a right to satisfy basic needs (or to an adequate standard of living) to a right to income. A right to income offers the individual not a prescribed package of goods to satisfy a prescribed set of needs, but money, which assures discretion in the satisfaction of need. This solution works so long as we imagine that individuals use the money they receive in this way to acquire goods capable of satisfying basic needs somehow defined. But, it makes little sense to assume anything of the sort. It makes more sense to assume that we only know the individual’s basic needs retrospectively, once he or she has expressed them by acquiring the things he or she needs. This, of course, severs the link between the right to income and basic need, which in turn severs the connection between the right to income and the argument for a right to satisfy basic need or the right to a basic standard of living. The problem in all of this is the notion of welfare on which it depends. are

determined, how basic nutrition, shelter, and

acquired (through

This is a notion that links autonomy to welfare as a capacity we expect to be secured by welfare, but not as a part of the determination of welfare itself. More concretely, this notion entails dividing needs into two groups, basic and non-basic, according to their different connection with autonomy. Thus, Raymond Plant suggests that basic needs must be satisfied if we are ‘to do anything at all’, while non-basic needs ‘are for those goods an individual needs to fulfill his particular plan of life in his particular life circumstances' (1986, emphasis in original). Basic need satisfaction is necessary to autonomy, but does not contain the element of autonomy. Needs that express our autonomy are non-basic, which is equivalent to saying that our autonomy is itself non-basic. We can begin to escape the problems implied in talk about a right to satisfy basic needs or maintain an adequate standard of living if we include from the outset the element of autonomy in our idea of welfare and need linked

it. Let me reconsider, then, what we might mean by welfare so better judge the relation rights bear to it. Put simply, welfare is the provision of what the individual needs to secure his or her well-being. Well-being is a quality of our subjective experience. Welfare can be secured by the individual acting on his or her own initiative, or it can be secured by a process independent, to a greater or lesser degree, of individual initiative. In the first case, welfare is secured by the exercise of right, in particular the right to own and use property including the right to enter into contracts for the use of productive and creative powers. So, we can say in this case that protecting rights also protects to

we can

welfare, and the end of right is

to secure the kind of welfare appropriate individual possessed of subjective freedom. In the second case, welfare is not secured by the exercise of right, which means that welfare and right are not so closely linked. Something more than and something different from right is needed to secure the welfare of those with impaired subjec7 tivity. The welfare system as that term is usually applied seeks to provide to an

support for those who cannot meet their needs through the exercise of their rights. 8 Let me elaborate on the notion of support just introduced. Those for whom subjectivity remains sufficiently intact can satisfy their needs by the use of their property, except in times when the property system has for some reason failed. Such individuals are, of course, dependent on an external structure, the market, for need satisfaction. We can think of this external structure as a structure of subjectivity, even though it sometimes appears as one of material provisioning, and therefore as a material-technical rather than subjective order. 9 Considering it a structure of subjectivity follows from our earlier consideration of the importance of recognition in the creation of property and property right. For some, as we have seen, subjectivity is impaired to the point where recourse to this system is limited in some significant way. In a general sense, this is because their creative capacities (labour) are too poorly

sufficient market value to sustain a way of life consiswell-being. The market is, then, not enough, and another external structure is needed. In the simplest formulation, this external structure is another individual who can act as a caretaker, though we still need to know what sort of external structure (institution) this individual represents, especially whether it is the family, the state, or a private organization. We will consider this individual or organization the external structure of subjectivity for those whose welfare is not secured by the market. Introducing the idea of an external structure of subjectivity as an alternative to rights and the market system that instantiates them raises a particularly important question. Extra-market dependence on others means dependence that is not reciprocal, and that does not entail the full recognition of subjectivity at both poles. Such dependence has long been deemed a danger since it has the potential to develop into a relation of power and

developed tent

to

have

a

with

exploitation. Power and

right

One reason for insisting on the language of right is a sense of the urgency of need and the importance of acknowledging obligation. It might seem that, in the absence of right, important needs will not get satisfied for those whose impaired subjectivity stands in the way. In this case, the language of right is used by those who recognize impairment, at least up to a point. The demand that rights be extended carries the implication that impairment is a reality, and that it imposes an obligation. Yet, using the language of right in this way causes confusion, especially the confusion about impairment considered earlier, which involves a strong element of denial. If we do not recognize the rights of the impaired, then we risk leaving them at the mercy of those better situated, which seems to make their welfare contingent. Doing so provides little comfort since it includes the prospect of a dependence that makes exploitation the price of welfare. The language of right is meant, then, to protect the needy from the wilful control of others. The problem, if we reject the use of the language of right in these cases, is how to protect the dependent from wilful control. Demanding rights expresses the (possibly legitimate) fear of discretion in the provision of welfare. This fear translates into a movement to legislate obligation, not only as a general matter, but in detail, so that discretion can be replaced by rules. Outcomes need to be fixed in advance. Yet, doing so runs up against the central problem of welfare: its link to subjectivity. If we can reduce welfare to the provisioning of a fixed subsistence, then discretion need play no role. Yet, this reduction of welfare to subsistence severs the relation of need to subjective experience. Just as this seeks to protect the subjectivity of the needy by protecting them from the power of others, it deprives them of what subjectivity they have, however impaired

might be. The path of subsistence, because it is the path away from subjectivity, leads further from rather than closer to our goal. The problem that results from these considerations can be summarized in the following way. Markets facilitate the satisfaction of needs appropriate to an individual possessing an adequate measure of subjective freedom. For those lacking an adequate measure of subjective freedom, markets cannot protect what subjectivity they do have. This has led to the idea that they have rights to subsistence, or basic need fulfilment, additional to, or substituting for, the property rights that constitute the market. This protects the process of need satisfaction of the impaired from the wilful control of others, and in this respect protects their subjectivity. It does so, however, by draining need of its subjective element, which is its link to human creativity and the potential for subjective experience. We gain subjectivity at one end by sacrificing it at another. To solve this problem, we must establish for the impaired an external structure capable of protecting and nurturing what freedom they have the capacity for, without assuming that they can be fully a locus of subjectivity, and therefore can or should satisfy all their needs by the exercise of rights. If a solution exists, it must be in the design of the larger organizations that are the external structures of subjectivity, and in the measures that can be taken to assure that those organizations are the stewards rather than the enemies of subjective freedom. it

External

structures

of

subjectivity

Earlier I mentioned three institutions that have played the role of securing welfare for those whose welfare is not secured by the market: the family, private organizations, and the state. Let me now briefly turn to these contenders to see how they might be expected to succeed or fail in the role of stewardship to which I have just referred. The family is the original external support for the individual’s emerging, yet still undeveloped, subjectivity. It is reasonable, therefore, to imagine that the family might continue in this role for those whose subjectivity is not so much undeveloped as impaired, or impaired due to a developmental failure. Indeed, emotional impairment is in some ways connected to the individual’s failure to successfully negotiate the development process. This means that failure of development expresses the family’s failure in its role of external support for the child. So far as impairment originates in family there are obvious problems in relying on the family for the external support the individual needs once physically mature. If impairment does not result from failure of this kind, it may not be unreasonable to have recourse to the family for at least part of the support needed. A normative account of the family would consider how it is or is not well organized to provide the external structure with which we are here

dysfunction,

concerned, and the

way in which alternative ends impede the family in this of course, the family has taken on substantial economic, Historically, and cultural tasks, many of which bear a deeply problematic relapolitical, tion to the task of supporting the development of subjectivity in the child from potential to capacity. An example of this would be the organization of the family as a unit of production, which carries the implication that children will be considered part of the family’s labour pool. The idea of the child as part of a labour pool conflicts with the idea of the child as a developing person whose task is not to contribute to the family’s ability to satisfy need, but to develop into an autonomous individual. Child labour is the enemy of subjective freedom, and any organization of the family that makes the child a source of labour must also be considered the enemy of freedom. Even if, however, we assume that the family is well organized around the goal of supporting this development, it can fail. The family can fail

task.

because it fails to sustain itself as a unit due to illness, death, or voluntary dissolution. It may also fail due to lack of adequate resources, emotional or material, for the caretaking involved in the support of subjectivity. We cannot, then, simply resolve the problem of stewardship by referring to the family, however important it may be in particular cases. To seek support outside the family is to have recourse to organizations, either public or private. Many today insist that a large burden can and should be borne by private, especially charitable and religious, organizations. In considering whether such recourse is appropriate, we need to consider the relation of such organizations to subjectivity. So long as we retain the goal of supporting as much subjectivity as the individual is capable of given his or her impairment, we need organizations committed to subjective experience and not to other ends. This is precisely the point at which we might expect private organizations to fail as candidates for stewardship of those not fully capable of autonomous living. As private organizations, they are inevitably committed to private, which is to say particular, ends. Whether these ends have to do with group culture, religious ideals, or even secular community, they are nonetheless ends external, and in important respects hostile, to subjective freedom. For stewardship of subjectivity we need an organization that is not private in this sense. Such an organization is public in the sense that it has no private or particular ends, and in the sense that it is publicly funded. If

organize a part of subjective freedom and

the institution of government around the ideal of the quality of subjective experience, we would organize it to have no end of its own, but only the end of supporting subjectivity. We would then have an appropriate external structure of subjectivity for the impaired. Since the relevant organization is public in the senses just considered, and since it is devoted to supporting the welfare of those who we

fully able to support their own, we can refer to it as the welfare At this point, then, the problem of well-being becomes a problem of the normative standing of the state, which is the problem I consider in the next chapter. are

not

state.

5

State and

society

Introduction In the older usage of the classical economists, a political economy is an economy whose boundaries have developed beyond those of the family to those of the state. This also meant that the responsibility for economic activity shifted from the family to the market and the state. In the last chapter, I considered two areas of responsibility for the state: the protection of property right and the stewardship of the impaired. It is unclear, however, what assures that the state will be devoted to the stewardship of subjective freedom rather than to the other ends we normally associate with

it, especially those having to do with advancing the private interests of its constituencies. This problem takes on special importance when we consider the suggestion, also advanced in the last chapter, that the organization responsible for welfare must inevitably make decisions involving large and important areas of discretion. Thus, what I refer to there as the welfare state must not only deliver services, but also make decisions concerning the norms that define impairment, the goals of functioning we apply for the impaired, and thus the resources to be devoted to their well-being. I suggest that this mandate, because it involves a significant degree of discretion, creates opportunities for abuse. The prevalence of abuse encourages the idea that the state is not the steward of freedom, but a locus of oppression. Understood in this way, the problem of the state becomes a problem of restricting its conduct in ways that will assure it serves the needy rather than exploiting them. To do so can mean attempting to subject the state to externally given rules, for example derived from rights or from democratic decision-making process. Indeed, many would argue that the system of rights constitutes a necessary restriction on the state. This makes sense in a context where the state has been made the tool of private interest. The notion of the state as an implement of force makes it the enemy of freedom. Whether it then makes sense to consider right a solution to the problem of the state depends on how we imagine rights can be realized in the absence of a state, or in the presence only of the minimal state envisioned, for example, in Locke’s theory.

Foundations

problem with many of the available ideas about the state is that they private interests, expressive of private wants and needs, as the driving force in the operation of all institutions, including those devoted to public

The

treat

ends.

The separateness of the A

state

stewardship role considered in the last chapter would in subjective living of those whose capacity to in themselves is some represent way impaired, and (2) secure the integrity of the system of subjectivity considered as a whole. As the steward of subjective freedom, the state cannot be the creature of private interests. Nor can it be the creature of a community defined over and against private interest, state

serving

the

(1) represent the interest

since such

a

state

would

act as

the repressor rather than the steward of

subjectivity. The state's

ability

to act as the steward or

subjective

freedom

depends

both on its internal structure and on the way it is experienced by the individuals and groups related to it as constituents and office holders. The more individuals and groups see the state as a vehicle for the satisfaction of their needs, the less can the state serve the purposes connected to the stewardship role considered here. Put another way, unless the state can separate itself from private interest (whether of individuals or of groups), it cannot devote itself to the support of subjective freedom. If we use the term ‘society’ to refer to the system of private persons and of the relations they develop to express and satisfy their interests, what is required of the state if it is to be the steward of subjective freedom is its separation from 1 society. We can say, then, that the welfare state, if it is to accomplish its end, must separate itself from society so that society (in part or as a whole) will

not treat

the

state as

its agent.

The separation of the state from domination

by

wants and interests, and

therefore from society, need not mean the separation of the state from citizens so far as citizens can separate themselves from their wants, and act on a basis other than want and the interest developed out of it. Thus, we can say that the ability of the state to establish its independence from society is

of the citizens’ capacities to separate themselves from their These capacities, in turn, depend on the nature of wants. Let me note before proceeding that two prominent ideals violate the principle of separation considered here. The free market ideal seeks not only to absorb the state into society imagined as a system of private contracts, thereby making the state the agent of private interest, but also, so far as an

expression

wants.

to replace the state with society. The result is to restrict radically, eliminate altogether, the possibility for the stewardship role emphasized here. Democratic community makes an even more radical attempt to absorb the state into society by making the state the agent of the community and its ends. In a democratic community, the state can do nothing

possible, if not

to

State and society but what the people, directly or through their representatives, want done. We can say, then, that while the free market ideal allows for only a minimal state, limited to administering and protecting property right, the democratic ideal dismisses the state altogether. The point is to assure that the state makes no decisions and exercises neither thought nor judgment. We can also understand the principle of separation in relation to the ideas of thinking and judgment. The principle of separation is synonymous with the idea that the state must be organized to undertake a thought process and to make judgments. The alternative is for the state to follow rules given to it, for example by an original contract, 2 or by the democratic process meant to reveal the will of the people. Violation of the principle of separation establishes a special relation between state and society, one in which the former is absorbed into the latter. Here, I will refer to this special relation as a closed system, and to the separation of the state as the movement to an open system. 3 The idea of a closed system is of considerable importance in understanding the ideal of the state linked to subjective freedom. If we understand the dynamics of closed systems better, we will also better understand the nature of and prospects for an open system, which is one capable of supporting

subjectivity. We can say that a system is closed when institutions have no existence separate from gratification, and therefore from the interest derived from prospects of gratification. Then, institutions are essentially a part of interest, and not a separate reality standing in relation to interest. When institutions develop on this basis, the system they help constitute is closed to any reality outside the wants that drive the individuals involved in it. But, closure means more than this. It also means that interests control institutions. The term closure refers specifically to this element of control. Let me explore further this aspect of the closed system since it not only expresses the specific kind of interest active in the system, but also the limits of institutional life. Control can also be an interest of a specific kind (the interest in control), so the matter of control already directs us to consider interest not in the abstract, but on the basis of its specific content.

Fear and desire I have thus far alluded only to want, and by implication desire, as the driving force in interest, and this is accurate up to a point. Reference to desire implies also an end, a something to be desired. We may imagine that the individual can desire, if not anything, then a potentially limitless variety of things, so that any attempt to be specific about desire’s goal limits it in arbitrary ways. Yet, there may still be something we can say about the end of desire as a general matter without violating the principle that what the individual desires expresses his or her individuality. In other words, autonomy need not imply the absence of any universal element in desire.

This universal element appears in the idea that desire can adopt any object as its end, in the possibility that its goal can be achieved in many different ways, and yet remain the same goal. Knowing this goal is important for our purposes, since it will allow us to understand something about the paths desire takes and the implications those have for the interests that motivate individuals. Let me begin to offer a more concrete specification of desire by emphasizing its involvement with imagination. Desire forms itself in the imagination as a fantasy of an involvement with an object. In this fantasy, the connection with the object achieves an important subjective end. Since this end is subjective, we can consider it a state of mind, and I think it will prove useful to emphasize the connection of gratification to state of mind. In other words, it is the mind that is gratified, even if the vehicle for this gratification is the body, as in some cases it must be. When we consider gratification a state of mind, we consider it a subjective

As we did in Chapter 3 we can consider subjective experiunder two headings: affirmation and negation. Affirmation and negation are the gratification and negation of subjectivity. We can speak of the affirmation and negation of subjectivity in the more familiar language of self-esteem by saying that what enhances self-esteem affirms subjectivity, or gratifies, and

experience.

,

ence

what diminishes self-esteem negates subjectivity, or frustrates. Our desire for gratification also implies a fear, the fear of frustration. To desire something means to risk losing it. Desire can be resolved by satisfaction, but it can also be resolved by renunciation. We renounce our desire when the prospect of the loss of its object provokes too much anxiety. When we renounce satisfaction, we may still have wants and interests. These wants and interests are driven, however, not by desire but by fear. They have to do with things in the world we imagine will protect us from loss (of selfesteem) rather than assuring us of gratification. Wants and interests, then, express fantasies driven by fear and desire. The desire is a desire for grat4 ification, and the fear a fear of deprivation. The fantasy is a fantasy, then,

gratification and deprivation. quality of self-interest depends on the combination of fear and desire it expresses. Put simply, the quality of self-interest depends on which is the dominant pole, whether desire is subordinate to fear or able to act independently of it. I will suggest that in a closed system fear dominates desire. This expresses itself in a particular kind of self-interest, one also driven by fear. In an open system, desire has emancipated itself to a significant degree of

The

from fear, and can act on its own terms. We have identified two types of self-interest, one in which fear dominates desire, the other in which desire dominates fear. While this is no doubt an overly simple construction, it will prove helpful in thinking about closed and open systems. We will consider the role of the state in relation to the problem of the dominance of fear over desire, so that interest expresses 5 not the creative impulse but the need for security in a dangerous world.

When we say that interest is shaped by fear, we mean that the individual’s primary concern in conduct and relating is to remove so far as possible the danger that he or she fears. Anxiety signals the presence of this danger, and it is therefore anxiety that organizes the individual’s response to, and conduct in, the world. The individual’s interest is to deal with his or her anxiety. While, as a practical matter, there are many ways for dealing with anxiety, they all involve removing a threat. The danger to which the individual responds is the danger of deprivation, which I suggest above is deprivation of the positive self-feeling we refer to as self-esteem. Interest, then, is linked to the regulation of self-esteem.

Greed matter of threats to self-esteem that drive us open system. In this connection, it will be useful to consider one of the oldest themes of political economy: the limitlessness of want, especially when set against available means. We find this theme in different forms in different versions of political economy: as the drive to accumulate wealth in classical political economy, and, more recently, as the presumed

Let

me

consider further the

away from

an

insatiability of wants. However it appears, it contains the idea of want without limit. 6 We can consider the want for all things as a pursuit of a false universal: My

power is

are

my

—

as

great

(its owner’s)

buy myself

the

for the effect of

most

the power of money. The properties of money properties and faculties. I am ugly, but I can beautiful women. Consequently I am not ugly,

as

—

its power of repulsion, is annulled by money man without conscience or intellect, but money is honoured and so also is its possessor. Money is the highest good, and so its possessor is good. .

.

.

I

am a

ugliness,

wicked, dishonest

(Marx 1977: 109) The want described here is the want to have and to be everything of value so that we can establish in our own eyes, and in the eyes of others, that we are of value. This is the ultimate expression of the dependence of selfworth on the worth of the things attached to the self. Pursuit of the false universal expressed in the accumulation of wealth is the way we seek to compensate for a basic lack of any sense that our selves have intrinsic worth. It will be useful to formulate this problem in the language of greed. 7 The limitless want of the false universal is the limitless want of greed. So far as political economy makes insatiability a condition of want, it presumes that want and interest are expressions of greed. Greed has two dimensions of particular importance for the study of self-interest. It involves exclusiveness and withholding (from others), and it involves a rupture between desire and satisfaction. This second aspect of

greed is well expressed by Harold Boris when he distinguishes between is susceptible to satisfaction. Greed is not. greed and appetite: ‘Appetite In greed, which is a state of mind and of feeling though urge might be the apter term stimulates the greed (Boris any further gratification only further .

.

.

—

—

1994 : 38, emphasis

in

original).

However familiar the notion of greed may be to us, it must also be a puzzle precisely because of its refusal to be satisfied. It is a desire and yet it is not. It is, rather, the limiting point of desire, where desire turns into something else. This transformation of desire into something else leads us to the first dimension of greed, that it withholds and excludes. The end of greed is not to gain satisfaction, but exhaustively to contain, consume, or otherwise incorporate something, to have all of it. Greed is about having something rather than gaining satisfaction from using or consuming it. A connection between self-interest and greed develops when self-interest takes on a quality of exclusion of, even aggression toward, others. This exclusionary quality of greed and of the self-interest connected to it gives us the first hint of the vital connection between greed and loss. Greed expresses the fear of loss and the effort to defend against it. The greedy person is constantly aware of the threat of loss, and because of this is driven to attempt to take from others lest they take from him first. He must keep what he has safe from the depredations of others. Thus, greed exists in a system of greed, real or imagined. I must withhold from others because I perceive them as a threat to take what is mine. What is it that is mine and that I fear I will lose? Psychically, the apparently varied things to which our greed attaches itself ‘all ultimately signify one thing. They stand as proofs to us if we get them, that we are ourselves good, and so are worthy of love, or respect and honor, in return’ (Riviere 1964: 27). What ultimately makes things of value to us is that our connection with them affirms our own worth. Desire turns into

when desire is bound up with the fear of foss. be a desire for things is not a desire at all, but a defence against loss. If the psychic meaning of greed is loss, it is the fear of loss of those things that establish the goodness and value of the self, the fear that they will become the property (or properties) of others. Loss becomes especially painful to us because unconsciously it means ‘that we are being exposed as unworthy of good things, and so our deepest fears are realized’

Then, what appears

greed to

(Riviere 1964: 27). Those driven by greed that acquiring everything

are

absorbed in their

wants

and in the false idea

capable of satisfying want will protect their vulnerable self-esteem. To want things because having them establishes, or more accurately substitutes for, self-worth makes self-worth contingent on the things owned. This means that interest in the self must be interest in the things that attach to it. It is in this sense that greed, because it means loss of self into objects, also means that those driven by it disappear into, or become, their desire for things. If greed, in one form or another, dominates

the

want

ests

of

a

that

shapes interest in society, then society is dominated by interspecial kind: the interests of those who cannot separate themselves

agents of want from their wants. When the individual is nothing more than what he or she wants, that individual can only relate to what is outside on the basis of want, or the interest derived from it. What is outside, then, satisfies want, prevents the satisfaction of want, or is irrelevant. The goal of interaction can only be to control the source of goods to assure gratification rather than frustration. If there is reciprocity, as there is in the exchange contract, this is not because individuals recognize the autonomy of others, but because the configuration of force makes reciprocity the most likely route to gratification. If we now consider the state in this world, it can only be the creature of want, the king of the children of greed. It is either a source of gratification or a source of frustration. To prevent frustration, it must be controlled. And, since others are also in the business of seeking to control the source of gratification, the state can as easily become a threat as an ally in the effort to achieve gratification. If the state becomes a threat, then it is that much more urgent that we (which is to say our fear and desire) exert control as

it. When interest is rooted in anxiety and the fantasy of removing the source of anxiety, and when the state is subsumed under that interest, the state is also subsumed into fantasy life and into the hope and fear that rule there. The closed system refers to the refusal of the state’s constituency to let it out, so to speak, of its fantasy of gratification and its fear of deprivation, and instead to insist that the state serve purposes rooted in that system. over

The state, then, becomes a system of, or it becomes an obstacle to, gratification. Indeed, this is how the welfare state is often conceived, especially by its critics. For them, the welfare state is not the steward of subjective freedom, but a source of gratification for those dependent on it. We might say that, for these critics, there is no meaningful distinction between the stewardship and gratification roles because the only connection imaginable is that of gratification or deprivation. From this vantage point, the only question is: Who gets gratified?, with the attendant implication that those who do not are to one degree or another exploited by those who do. To provide services for the impaired implies transferring the means of gratification from taxpayers to them. This construction leads in two directions. In one, the goal is to block the relation of dependence on the state in order to block gratification by the state. In the other, the goal is to assure equality of gratification so that envy will not be provoked by the prospect that some will and others will not have their needs satisfied. We have, then, the laissez-faire and egalitarian ideals for the state, both of which operate in the space of the state as an institutional centre of gratification. To establish state and society as an open system means to free the state from society’s fantasy of gratification and its fear of deprivation, which means also to free society from domination by this fantasy.

Open systems a closed system, the state is made a part of the community’s fantasy life of the fear-driven needs of private interests. The stewardship role with which we are concerned requires that the state be removed from the sphere of control of community and society. This cannot be accomplished if the state is made to disappear into the market or if the state is made to serve

In

or

the will of the

Indeed, these

people, for example through radically democratic procedures. options tell us much about the ideal of an open system, the state exists as an institution sui generis, one over which

two

in which the community cannot exert control. The state becomes part of a closed system due to the absorption of the individual in wants and interests. When individuals cannot separate self from want, they have no basis for relating to institutions except that of gratification and frustration. If the individual does not confront the state one

as a locus of want, what other dimension of the individual can shape her connection with the state? We have already considered the answer

merely his

or

this question in a different context when we considered the capacity for freedom and the individual as the potential to become a particular person with a concrete identity and the wants associated with it. To sepato

rate

need from

impulse, to have thought intervene, is to separate the self potential moment, where possibilities are open, exists

from its needs. The

for the individual who is not lost in his or her need. Put another way, this individual has the capacity to abstract his or her self from his or her needs, to be a person who has needs, rather than a person who is what he she needs. can think of the difference just suggested in the language of idenIt is identity that limits wants since those with a secure identity want tity. those only things expressive of that identity and have no need for things unconnected to their identities. This means that they have accepted the or

We

finitude of the self, that it cannot be and have all things; they have given up the false universality of greed in favour of finite identity. Finite identity is also universal, though in a different sense (the sense emphasi2ed in

Chapter 3 ). It is the universal of a potential yet to be realized. The universal possibilities not predetermined is not the universal of realizing all possibilities, but of determining for yourself which possibilities contribute to shaping and expressing a particular identity. The element of self-determination in wanting distinguishes want from impulse by establishing an agent who wants. Individual identity is the process connecting talents and interests (potential), capabilities, opportunities, and outcomes. The individual with a finite identity knows that the impulse to form and live as a particular person is not exhausted in his or her particular life plan and project. There are other ways to be an individual. This is known because the particular way in which he or she is an individual was not predetermined or given, but discovered. There was, in this sense, a universal moment of

in the process of identity formation, and therefore in the identity formed. This universal moment also expresses itself in the capacity to distinguish the idea of the self from any particular form it might take, including the particular form that is the person we have become. Then, it becomes possible to form a relationship with institutions based not on need, but on the ideal of self-determination that expresses itself in, but does not disappear into, need. The capacity to separate self from identity (its particular form) enables the individual to separate self from want, and then to consider the state as an institution existing separate from gratification and frustration. This makes it possible to separate state from society (the system of particular need), and to consider the state as something more than a source of, or obstacle to, gratification. Let me now consider what this something more might be.

The

state

and

objective freedom

Consider for a moment the notion from Locke’s Second Treatise that rights exist in a state of nature, outside the state, and that each individual can enforce his (natural) rights. The idea that rights are ‘natural’ places them outside the state. They exist, are well defined and known, to each individual outside the setting of a political or civil society. Outside of society, in the ‘state of nature’ not only does each individual have and know his rights, he also has ‘the executive power’ to enforce his right against violation. This condition defines the part to be played by the state: that it is unreasonable for men to be judges in their that self-love will make men partial to themselves and their friends. And on the other side, that ill-nature, passion, revenge will carry them too far in punishing others; and hence nothing but confusion and disorder will follow; and that therefore God hath certainly it will be

own

objected

cases,

appointed

government

to

restrain the

partiality

and violence of

men.

(Locke 1955: 11) The state enters as the remedy for the ‘inconveniences of the state of nature’. For Locke, the state is needed not to establish rights, and therefore freedom, but to facilitate the enforcement of rights because of the inevitability that the individual in enforcing his or her rights will fall short of objectivity. The state enters, that is, as the ‘umpire’ (69) who enforces the rules of the game, rules given to the state, and existing independently of it. Evidently Locke is aware that in the state of nature right is vulnerable. In other words, in the state of nature, the existence of rights is to a substantial degree a subjective matter; it depends on the ability for impartial judgment of individuals who are not impartial. The problem of the state is to invest right with a stronger reality for the individual by making right independent of individual judgment and desire.

attempt to consider the state something more than a source gratification, we think of it as the institutional setting in which rights are made real for the individual, the setting where right is made something outside of and independent of the individual’s subjective experience. If we consider for a moment not this or that empirically existing state, but the ideal of an institutional setting in which right can become an objectively existing reality for the individual, we have a notion of a state that embodies the norm of freedom. This is, to be sure, an ideal state. Here, we will use the term ‘state’ to speak of the instantiation of rights in institutions that makes rights real. Then, we can say that right existing outside the state is contingent, or purely subjective. Though it may be tautological, we can say that right cannot exist outside the state since the state is the objective existence (institutionalization) of right. 8 If rights cannot be made real for the individual without an institution specifically devoted to that end, an institution I have here referred to as the state, then why do so many insist that rights exist outside the state, an idea expressed for example in the notion of ‘human’ rights? One answer, of course, is that existing states fall short, and in some cases far short, of the ideal I have outlined above. The deficiencies of existing institutions cast doubt on the ability of institutions to secure right rather than participate When

we

of

in a struggle for gratification, with the attendant implications regarding the oppression of citizens, or of some citizens. That existing states fall short of the ideal does not fully account for the

rejection of the

state, since failure to meet an ideal can as easily, and presumnaturally, lead not to the rejection of the ideal but to the call for the reform of existing institutions. Why, then, the rejection of the state as the ideal linked to making right, and therefore freedom, real? I think we will find an answer to this question in the separation of the state from society implied in the ideal of the state as the institution through which rights become real. This separation not only frees the state from individual wants, it also frees the state from the wants of groups, including that group of the whole we imagine in the language of community. Separating the state from individual wants makes it unacceptable to liberals

ably

more

committed to the idea of the state as the servant of individual want. But, it also makes the state unacceptable to those committed to the idea of the state as the executor of the will of the community or the people (as expressed for example via democratic process). An institution that

merely served interests, as is imagined in the utiliof the state (Buchanan and Tullock 1962 ), would not be a state in our sense, since it would be devoted neither to making right real nor to the stewardship of subjective freedom. An institution that instantiated the idea of the group would not be a state in our sense since it would not be devoted to the universal dimension of opportunity as yet undetermined, but rather to the imposition of group identity. What we might have instead of a state is the market writ large, or the moral community. tarian

theory

Neither of these contenders has the capacity to translate right from abstract ideal into concretely existing reality, from subjective to objective. So long as citizenship is the essence of the commitment of the state, it is linked not to group identity or to individual want, but to the potential for selfdetermination as that strives to become real in the form of individual

identity.

Instituting right In Locke’s theory, all that is needed to make rights real is enforcement. This assumes that rights are knowable outside their institutional setting. This means that the abstract statement of right is the right, that the words property right tell us what a property right is, or that the list of rights claimed by the United Nations Covenant need only to be enforced. This leaves out of account, however, the process by which the abstract ideal expressed in the statement of a right (to property, to health care, to education, and so on) becomes something real. It is in this sense that, without a state, right cannot exist in the world, as an objective reality. To make right real, it is not enough to enforce an abstract claim, we must also know what that claim means as a practical matter. To be real, right must be made the concrete expression of an ideal in a system of laws made real in a setting subject to the rule of law. To see the implications of the idea that rights must be made real not merely by establishing an apparatus of enforcement, but also by instituting a process of interpretation, consider an example. I will take as my example the idea of a right to goods capable of satisfying need. This idea is expressed abstractly in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: ‘Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services’. It is well known that each element of the list of items included under the heading ‘standard of living’ is subject to interpretation. What are health and well-being? What are food, clothing, and shelter? The idea of a right to an adequate standard of living is not deficient because it fails to specify what these items must be any more than the right to vote is deficient because it fails to specify the mechanisms for recording and counting votes. Yet, we can say that the right is deficient if its translation into a practical reality is impossible, or if the result will inevitably be in some fundamental way inconsistent with the original ideal. Thus, for example, if we discover that we can only assure the provision of food and shelter in a way consistent with the idea of right by providing instead an adequate monetary income and not specific items referred to as housing or food, then the implementation of the right changes it into something different. This something different is a right to income rather than a right to food and clothing. Then, we need to consider in what sense a level of

income is

equivalent

to

something

in the

right

referred

to as a

standard of

living. Should we arrive at the conclusion that there is, indeed, a right to income, the question remains open as to how much income we can claim by right. That it is subject to interpretation in this sense does not make it incoherent as a right. But, again, we can only sustain the idea that such a right exists if we can find a way to determine the relevant level of income consistent with the idea it is meant to express. Only an ideal that can be consistently translated into a practical reality can be called a right, and only a concretely implemented law that expresses the ideal of freedom can be considered a right.

Professional ethics involves thinking and judgment, so that if the state is cannot be restricted to enforcing what is given to it. Before enforcement there must be interpretation and translation. And, in enforcement, there must be discretion. The statement or ideal form of the right does not include its specific meaning in context, which cannot be known ahead of time. So far as knowing the meaning of right in context cannot take place prior to the emergence of that context, making right real involves the element of discretion. The element of discretion raises the spectre of abuse, a spectre all the more real where we assume that institutions are vehicles of exploitation and oppression. I now turn to the problem of abuse. I will here consider the solution to the problem of abuse under the heading of professional ethics, which is the capacity of office holders to act not on the basis of their desire for gratification or fear of deprivation, but on the basis of more universal considerations. These are the considerations summarized under the heading of what is right. Professional ethics refers, then, to the same separation between self-interest and institutional ends already considered, except in this case the separation applies not to the institution’s constituencies, but to those who work in it. Professional ethics is the capacity for the individual to separate self from organization and to see the latter as a separate reality. This does not exclude the individual from pursuing narcissistic ends in work and through a connection with the organization, in this case the state. It means, rather, that those narcissistic ends must be consistent with the separate existence of the organization as an entity sui generis, which is to say, outside the sphere of the individual’s fantasy life and omnipotent control. We can say, then, that those conditions conducive to shaping a genuine professional ethic for the administration of the state are also the conditions that assure the state will act as the steward of subjective freedom, and not serve other ends inconsistent with that stewardship. We can readily imagine the state operating as the steward of subjective freedom in our sense if we

Making rights real to realize right, it

can

it

imagine the individuals both within and outside reality separate from their (individual or group)

as a

individuals

to

Separating

the state relating to selves. What enables

do so? self from organization, and therefore self-interest from the

organization’s ends, means bringing into play a specific emotional and cognitive capacity, which I have referred to as the capacity for ethical conduct 9 (Levine 1999 ). By capacity for ethical conduct, I have in mind the ability to treat others not as actors in our drama of gratification and deprivation, but as persons in their own right, with their own (separate and different) interests, abilities, and life trajectories. What follows from this capacity is the ability to recognize the integrity of others. This recognition of the integrity of others is simply the outward expression of the integrity of ourselves that develops out of the integration of self-experience, that integration

I have referred to earlier

The

capacity for subjective freedom

as the quality of subjective experience. ethical conduct is closely linked to the capacity for in that both express the presence of well-defined

self-boundaries for the individual. To acknowledge the existence of an organization other than as a part of subjective or fantasy life is to acknowledge the boundedness of the self. This boundedness is also the vital element in identity. Boundedness is the other side of integration, so we can treat the capacity to relate to an organization as a separate reality as an expression of self-integration, and of having a secure individual identity. Like the capacity for subjective freedom, the capacity for ethical conduct is not innate, but the result of a process of cognitive and emotional development. It is a part of the equipment of the mature individual. There is, then, a symmetry between the two sides of the relationship between individual and state. For the state to act as steward of subjectivity, individuals must relate to it as a separate reality, one outside their sphere of omnipotent control (fantasy driven by fear and desire). And, on the other side, for the individual to lead a life organized around subjectivity, there must be a state capable of acting as the steward of subjective freedom. Where the state fails to act in this role, the individual will also fail to

perspective on the state as a reality existing outside his or her sphere of subjective control. Where the capacity for ethical conduct is not well developed in the individual, the state cannot escape the effort undertaken by individuals and groups to exert control over it so that it will serve their interests rather than those of subjective freedom. maintain the

Political economy emerges with the idea of a separate economy, one to its own internal ordering principles. This separation of the economy is essentially bound up with the rise of the idea of the individual, and of the principle we have here referred to as subjective freedom. Yet, the emergence of an economy separate from the political order and from the state is no more important to subjective freedom than is the separation of the state from society. This latter separation creates an institution capable of taking on the stewardship role emphasized here.

subject

Part II

Applications

6

Capitalism and society

the

good

The basic situation A

primary obstacle standing in the way of making individual freedom meaningful is the loss of subjective experience. Our normative judgment of institutions should, then, be a judgment of their significance for the individual’s subjective life understood in this sense. When institutions participate in the loss of subjectivity, they both require and affirm psychic division and the alienation of aspects of self-experience it implies. The specific institutions with which I will be concerned in this chapter are those we associate with a capitalistic or private enterprise economy of a particular kind. This is the economy organized around an ideal of inter-

action in which contract, if not the exclusive form, must dominate all others. ideal, freedom means freedom to exchange, and freedom to exchange means that exchange must be encumbered by few if any external constraints. To begin, I will consider the subjective situation of the individual as he or she appears within the original, or classical, construction of an economy of this kind. By classical I have in mind the idea developed in the eighteenth century especially by Adam Smith, and in the nineteenth century most notably by Karl Marx. I will refer to this classical construction as the In this

basic situation. In it, the individual appears either as a capitalist or as a labourer. I begin with the capitalist, whose construction of the world I will refer to as the business mentality. The business

mentality

To understand the business mentality, it is necessary to bear in mind that the businessman imagines himself to be, and to a significant degree is, in 1 a paranoid situation. Surrounded by competitors desiring his market share, for his welfare or even survival, indeed hoping to destroy caring nothing that which he values most, the business mentality adopts characteristics we would call paranoid if they were not given the stamp of reality by the design of our economic institutions. But, how does the businessman get into this situation?

Applications According to Marx he does so because his prime goal, indeed the organizing principle of his life, is the accumulation of private wealth in the form of capital: ‘Accumulate, accumulate, that is Moses and the Prophets Competition derives from the underlying motive to accumulate. The limitless quality of this goal runs up against limits or obstacles in the form of other capitalists similarly motivated to accumulate wealth without limit through capital investment. Of course, even in the absence of competitors, there is something inherently frustrating about having a quantitatively infinite goal that can only be accomplished by finite means. To accumulate wealth in general, money or wealth measured in money, the capitalist must acquire concrete (finite) means of production that tie up his capital in a limited form (within a particular industry for example). This is a form in which the capital will yield only a finite return, in which it ages, eventually losing its productive potential for the capitalist. It is a form that may .

.

may not in the end prove to be the best for his purpose, or even suitable at all to that purpose. At first glance, Marx does not give us much help in making sense of the capitalist’s orientation toward the world. Why pursue a goal that cannot be achieved, and that, if achieved, has no obvious benefit for the individual or

who has succeeded in allude to an answer:

achieving

it? In his

early work,

Marx

does, however,

That which is for me through the medium of money that for which I can pay (i.e. which money can buy) that am I, the possessor of money. The extent of the power of money is the extent of my power. Money’s properties are my properties and essential powers the properties and powers of its possessor. Thus what I am and am capable of is That which I am by no means determined by my individuality. unable to do as a man, and which therefore all my individual essential powers are incapable, I am able to do by means of money. [M]oney is thus the general overturning of individualities —

—

—

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

(Marx 1972: 103—5, emphasis

in

original)

at least, the means freedom from self-boundaries. Or, of wealth offers the prospect of such freedom. This prospect is not, however, limited to only one, but available to all. The result is the great struggle to amass wealth in order to become not one among many, but the only one. The struggle to amass wealth without limit expresses the individual’s refusal to acknowledge the finiteness of his or her self. Establishing self-limits means recognizing and accepting difference: that the self is not only one, but also many. The narcissistic illusion that the existence of limits, particularly as embodied in other selves, can be overcome, toward which the business mentality drives the individual, constitutes others as obstacles whose own narcissistic needs must drive them to attempt to undermine and frustrate his. Thus, a paranoid experience of the world expresses the

Wealth, then,

pursuit

Capitalism

and the

good society

subject’s seeing in others his own narcissistic needs, and the implied experience of others as a danger to the satisfaction of those needs. The narcissism just referred to should be distinguished from the interest in the self that is an inevitable and necessary part of the constitution of the individual as a subject in his or her life. 2 To be a centre of initiative in the world, the individual must have an interest in his or her self, in his or her activities, and in the results of his or her creative endeavours. This creative, or healthy, narcissism differs from the narcissism driven by the illusion of freedom from self-boundaries. The difference has to do with the fact that the former incorporates the recognition of (different) others and the desire to preserve others in their relations with the self, while the latter has a predatory quality, which derives from its inconsistency with life in a world of (different) others. The self-interest of the classical economists represents an uncertain mixture of the two forms of narcissism, which, as a rule, political economy fails to distinguish. Predatory narcissism involves a specific subjective experience, the experience of projection. The need to overcome self-limits, and the implied aggression toward others, becomes the other’s need to destroy limits, and their aggression toward us. Projection enables the subject to disclaim responsibility for his or her action, especially for the harm done by it, and places that responsibility outside, in others, or in the system considered as a whole (Levine 1998 : 85—91). Projection means that, within the basic situation, the separation between subjective (internal) and objective (external) is not well established. Rather, the objective world acts as an external container for unacceptable elements of subjective experience. As we will see, this failure to separate subject and object has significant consequences. If we bear in mind the role of projection in the business mentality, we can better understand the subjective meaning it imposes on markets. This is the meaning derived from the necessity to contain the aggression projected onto others, and then experienced by the subject (capitalist) as a threat. The effort to destroy the other, and thus realize a narcissistic illusion, is limited by the system of property right, especially the market. What distinguishes the so-called free market is that, within the free market, it remains possible to destroy the other by depriving him or her of a livelihood that has been made to depend on exchange. The only limits of the free market those of the equality of status of property owners and the equality of right they each enjoy to attempt to gain their own ends. This notion of equality includes the prospect that some will gain great wealth while others will live in poverty. By contrast, in regulated markets, the deprivation of others is further limited by the recognition that their selves should not be destroyed or put in too severe a state of risk. We can conclude, then, that the free market establishes the objective (external) reality of a threat to the self that also originates at a subjective level in the projection onto others of a narcissistic fantasy. Thus, what we might otherwise consider a purely psychic phenomenon, the fear of projected are

becomes an external reality. When an objective structure of interaction validates a subjective fantasy, it both serves and reinforces a subjective need. This creates a closed circle that tends to be highly resistant to change. Whether we speak of the structure in the language of psychic experience (as a paranoid construction), or in terms of external reality (as free market capitalism), we are speaking of the same phenomenon, only at different levels of human experience. The narcissistic aspect of the business mentality leads to the interpretation that it is all about the single-minded pursuit of self-interest. The implied self-involvement should be looked at more closely, however, partly because of the claims sometimes made for social benefit arising out of it, and partly because, on closer inspection, the narcissistic pursuit of self, which leads to the paranoid construction of the world, expresses not the power of the self in the world, but rather its weakness. As it turns out, the capitalist, in the single-minded pursuit of self-interest, must disavow a central aspect of self-experience, indeed, precisely that aspect we sometimes refer to as the ‘self. Weber and Marx depict this disavowal of the self when they speak of the capitalist as the ‘steward’ (Weber) or ‘representative’ (Marx) of his capital. This is typically the view of the nineteenthcentury capitalist, who was not a person in his own right (however wealthy and powerful he may have been), but whose personhood was derivative of his wealth (capital). Thus, having given his name to his firm, his name comes back to him as the firm’s property, and its value to him is now derivative of its value for others, its success, and its magnitude. The capitalist puts in long hours in service of his capital, which is not his self but an alien being he has created and must sustain as his self-surrogate. The capitalist enterprise, then, is the capitalist’s self made an external reality larger than he is, with a life unlimited by his own, which he serves and does not serve him. This means that he is held hostage by forces that he creates, but over which he ultimately has no control. For the capitalist, then, capitalist economic organization implies the constitution of the self as an alien force with the power to subject him or

aggression,

her

its own ends, which are the ends of accumulation. These ends are, all know, onerous in the extreme, demanding long hours of hard work devoted not to self-expression, but to the management of capital in the interests of its expansion. Subjectively (or psychically) the discipline involved in this means splitting off and suppressing the parts of the self associated with pleasure and satisfaction. Satisfaction is always something for the future, as is implied in the goal of accumulation. Thus, capital is about the splitting off of the capitalist’s self, its alienation into his capital, its return as a repressive apparatus (repressive for the capitalist), and the transfer of any pleasure capital might make available from the present into the future. as

to

we

The

worker’s

fate

From the worker’s

look somewhat different. The ends of him (or her). Indeed, according to the classical economists at least, the best to which the worker can aspire is the subsistence. To acquire their subsistence, workers must sell their labouring capacity, which sale is facilitated by the simplification of that capacity until the

capitalist

are

standpoint, things

unavailable

to

it appears as so much unskilled labour. This means that, to work, the individual must separate self from activity (Levine 1978: 174—81). What gives labour its distinctive quality is the fact that the worker’s self is not engaged

but left

outside. No doubt this takes a considerable psychic effort that is greater in proportion to the degree to which the worker has indeed developed an autonomous self that must be abstracted

effort,

(psychically)

an

from when he or she works. 3 The idea of subsistence reinforces this dimension of the worker’s situation by making the worker’s life outside the workplace devoid of any individual significance. In consumption, workers are dominated by the needs of their class (the subsistence needs), and not by those of their individual or particular selves. Again the worker must seal off the needs of the self in the interests of survival. The phenomena just described involve a splitting of psychic experience so that those parts, in this case the needs of the self and its expression for

others, found inconsistent with living isolated

in the world

can

survival

be sealed off. The (they threaten the

danger parts experienced renewal of the wage contract), and, though they cannot be eliminated (and thus the danger definitively removed), they can be separated from the conscious self-experience. Once separated in this way (or split off) they are so

are

as a

to

to further psychic manoeuvres, most notably repression and projection onto others, or more generally into the external world. This projection, which follows from the splitting off of parts of the selfexperience as a mode of coping with the worker’s situation, is connected

subject

the paranoid experience of the world typical of the capitalist. To understand it, we must consider the form the projected self of the worker takes

to

in the world outside. For the capitalist, the self gets projected as his capital, which returns to him as an oppressive apparatus dominating his life. For the worker, the outcome is in some ways similar. To labour, the individual must, for the duration of the contract, split off that part of the self involving the capacity for agency, so that he makes himself an object for its purchaser rather than a person possessing a will

of his own. Agency is connected to the capacity for aggression through the link between aggression and creativity (Winnicott 1971 ). To be creative in to place your mark on it, in however personal a way, which alteration of, and in that sense an attack on, external reality. Creativity requires the attitude toward the world that sees it not as an inert or alien and hostile fact, but as something that might be affected by human

the world is involves

an

action. Thus, creativity, which is the activity of the self realizing itself in the world, calls upon the capacity for aggression; therefore will, which is the active dimension of being a self, is also linked to aggression and

creativity. But, for the worker, livelihood depends on suppression of will, and thus of aggression. To accomplish this end, will and aggression that threaten the contract must be disavowed. To succeed in this disavowal is to succeed as a worker. The repressed aggression then (1) appears outside the workplace, for example in the family, (2) appears in the workplace threatening the wage contract and the worker’s livelihood, which depends on it, or (3) is projected onto external forces (God, fate, government, enemies of the nation, etc.), and thus lost to the worker. The attribution of a degree of hostility to the now externalized force of the self expresses the fact that it contains the selfs projected (thus alienated) aggressive aspect. Splitting expresses this alienation at a psychic level. The worker’s experience of hostile and capricious forces controlling his or her destiny constitutes a paranoid construction of the world, however accurately it may mirror reality, that is the other side of the necessity of self-alienation. In the basic situation, what Michael Diamond refers to as a ‘persecutory organizational identity’ is the norm for the worker, and not an extreme variant. In Diamond’s words: The persecutory organizational identity represents the deeper human experience of many workers in the oppressive workplace. These workers feel powerless and disrespected. They experience their conflict with the organization and its leadership in a manner that is passive. In other words, things (decisions and actions) are done to them.

(1997: 240)

only, then, does the oppression of the workplace support a subjective experience of persecution, but it also promotes the attitude toward the world captured by the term ‘fate’, which expresses passivity rather than agency. The alienation of aggression to which I have just referred constitutes an impoverishment of the worker that is as or more important than the physical impoverishment emphasized by Marx. Impoverishment of subjective experience is not the only important implication of the wage contract for the worker. The alienation of aggression, which impoverishes the worker’s subjective life, returns to him or her as an alien and aggressive external force. Because this force is both alien and aggressive, it constitutes a threat. Thus, the attribution of a degree of hostility to the now externalized force of the self expresses the fact that it contains the self's projected (thus alienated) aggressive impulses. Splitting expresses this alienation at a psychic level. The worker’s experience of hostile forces controlling his or her destiny constitutes a paranoid construction of the world that is the other side of the necessity of self-estrangement. Not

and dependence of exchange the vicissitudes of the market make livelihood to a significant degree a matter of caprice, often the caprice of the capitalist or firm, sometimes the caprice of the economic cycle (lately of the ‘global economy’), clearly out of the worker’s control or even comprehension. Thus, linked to splitting of the labourer’s self is the dominance over his life by forces outside his control and even understanding, forces in this respect much like the fates that are taken to control the lives of men and women in traditional society. The notion of fate expresses the alienation of will, which involves its projection outside, and its transformation into an external dominating force. Marx apparently experienced the splitting and projection characteristic of the psychic dimension of capitalist institutions, as can be seen in his division of the world into classes, and his attribution of all that is (potentially) good to one, and all that is bad to the other. This opposition of good and bad also carries the psychic meaning associated with splitting and projection. It lends itself to simplistic and extreme solutions to social prob-

Dependence

of livelihood

on

(demand for his (or her) labour)

exchange

on

lems, solutions that, for example,

remove political power from the capitalist class and put it in the hands of the workers, or remove political power altogether, or simply remove the capitalists along with the legal-economic system that nurtures them. Marx’s solution expresses the psychic situation just summarized. The dependence of the worker’s livelihood on capricious forces outside his or her control can be overcome by eliminating the market, which, of course, eliminates the external container for the worker’s aggression. Yet, elimi-

nating the market does not resolve the problem of integration, in this case the integration of aggression. 4 The so-called discipline of the market serves to contain this aggression, whose intensity is exaggerated by the self-denial associated with labouring. Labouring still demands self-repression, and thus fosters the aggression that must somehow (and somewhere) be contained if work is to be done. If the alienation of the worker’s will from his or her self is to be continued after capitalism, then a new container is needed. So, capital is replaced by the political party, by the will of the ‘people’ as expressed through political activity, or by the state apparatus. Then workers (ostensibly) control their own livelihood through collective action (for example, economic planning). This solution, of course, embodies a contradiction since the workers cannot control their destinies individually, but only collectively, which means that, as individuals, they transfer control (and thus their will) to the group. In a well-known development, the group trans-fers its agency to its leader, repeating the original situation, except that the alienation of self is no longer to imponderable forces of the market, but to the group as instantiated in its leader or leaders. Alienation here is no less real, and, as we have learned from experience, no less oppressive. Marx circumvents this outcome by assuming that after capitalism, labour

will be unnecessary. By looking to the end of labour, Marx clearly identifies the twofold problem posed for us by capitalism: (1) labour is needed to produce the wealth that can alone liberate us from labour and afford us the means to an individual life, while (2) the labour that produces wealth means alienation and self-denial.

The end of accumulation We may ask what is the significance of the basic situation just summarized. Even if it were reasonably descriptive of the capitalism of the nineteenth century, surely it is not descriptive of the capitalism of today. Indeed, the erosion of its significance is not accidental, but built into a tension in the construction itself. The tension is the following. For the capitalist to succeed in his goal of limitless accumulation, he must have a market appropriate to that end, that is, an endlessly expanding market. Yet, so long as the system assures that workers have no needs connected to being a self, but only the need for subsistence, the market can at best expand with the growth of the working population (as the classical economists tended to assume it did). Yet, it is the multiplication of need that not only, as Hegel points out (1952: 127—8), characterizes a modern world, but also makes possible the expansion of the capital needed to produce the wealth capable of satisfying genuinely individual need. The denial of the self demanded of the worker if he is to do the kind of work typical of capitalism makes him a poor target for marketing the goods produced by capitalism. Therefore, absent an alternative market for the products of capitalist enterprise, the workers must undergo a specific development to become suitable for the task of being a self with individual needs relevant to the products of capitalist enterprise. This development makes them, of course, less and less well suited to being workers. The tension implied in these conflicting requirements gets resolved, as Marx predicted it would, by the transformation of production away from a technology dependent on

unskilled labour. 5 We might add to this the moderation of the persecutory organization of work alluded to above, which is the norm in the basic situation, but cannot be considered the norm in more developed economies. Workers’ protections and workers’ rights, together with fundamental changes in the idea that the worker can be considered a non-person, have made many workplaces more conducive to an experience of personhood on the part of employees, thus reducing the need to rechannel aggression derivative of

depersonalization. Central to the developments just summarized is the expansion of the creative element in work, an element notably missing in the classical notion of labour. 6 Today, the sale of labouring capacity increasingly means the sale of creative capacities, and labour increasingly means the exercise of those capacities. Put another way, the contract through which individuals gain

their livelihood is one through which money is exchanged not for labour, but for creative ability. Such a contract supports creative living (and thus subjectivity) both by providing needed income for an individual way of life, and by providing an outlet for creative expression in work. To be sure, this situation is nowhere near universal, and we are a considerable distance from a world in which creativity and work have been successfully merged. Indeed, new forms of unskilled labour (most notably in the service sector) have expanded partly in response to the growth of the highly skilled component of the workforce. Nonetheless, it is in the transformation of work into a creative act that we will find the primary solution to the alienation of self that is the primary subjective implication of the basic situation. To escape from the basic situation means to replace the norm that it embodies with one of subjectivity and creative living. On the capitalist’s side, the tension inherent in the basic situation depicted above is no less severe. As the market economy reshapes economic activity around individual needs, the capitalist’s alienation of self to his capital becomes less and less consistent with the culture he must nurture to make expansion of capital possible. Furthermore, his own orientation toward selfseeking remains, no matter how we (and he) might see in it a virtue only in its subordination to social ends (the growth of the wealth of the nation). It gets frustrated since its goal is split in two: on one side the attempt to gain esteem through the admiration of others for the magnitude of the wealth he or she has amassed, on the other side the attempt to gain satisfaction of the self not for others, but in and for itself. That repression operates through a system of self-seeking marks the specific difference, at least on a subjective level, between capitalist economic organization and forms that precede it. Dominance of paranoid elements is not peculiar to capitalism, but inherited from the mental life already well developed in the precapitalist setting. The difference is that now the projected will is that of the individual, while prior to capitalism what was projected was not the will of the individual, but that of the group. This difference is important since it makes repression explicitly inconsistent with the ends it is meant to serve (those of self-interest), which we might imagine would also make possible the lifting of repression, at least to a degree. The growth of wealth creates a world in which it is possible for the individual to be him or her self by adopting a personalized mode of life. The emergence of a personalized way of life also makes possible creativity in the sense alluded to above, since it constitutes a world that can be affected by the individual’s willing and acting, where the larger world of public affairs and historical forces cannot. All of this makes the classical theory obsolete, at least so far as its image of the worker is concerned. Yet, an important residue remains. This residue is the predominance of psychic organization centred on splitting and projection, alienation of self and the domination by fate, in a world where their historical purpose has been more or less fulfilled.

We should not underestimate the power of this residue. The business mentality described above is hardly less powerful today than it was during the classical period, and the worker’s dependence on capricious forces is no less real. Work for most people still retains a significant, even dominant, element of self-repression; and the work situation still reflects the need for the worker (even the educated professional worker) to leave his or her self outside to do the job on which livelihood depends. Thus, the dependence of livelihood on exchange, the dominance of capricious forces in economic life, and the business mentality, all remain a powerful part of the reality of contemporary capitalism. In this respect, the basic situation is not irrelevant.

Economic determinism

spoken as if the subjective experience of worker and capitalist are not so much a psychic reality as they are an aspect of an objective economic structure, which indeed is the case. Given this, it would be natural to assume that the appropriate character structure, one organized around self-alienation and projection, develops in response to the situation in which the individual finds him- or herself. This, then, makes psychic experience derivative of an objective structure developed independently, and for its own reasons. It also makes economic reality the source of the cultural forms that develop in parallel with it, and seem so well adapted to it. If economic survival depends on our adopting a self-denying psychic organization, it is not surprising that family structure, attitudes toward children, cultural I have thus far

forms, and

so on, contribute to creating in us and expressing the structures adapted to life in a capitalistically shaped world. We might, then, explain the prevalence of paranoid phenomena (as expressed in hatred, violence, and distrust) in public life by referring to 7 capitalist economic organization. However tempting such an economic determinism, it suffers from the deficiency of all reductionist hypotheses; it takes for granted what must be explained: the organization of social institutions around repression of the self, and thus the subjective inevitability of self-alienation and the projective phenomena we associate with the paranoid orientation. We get no further by setting out from the organization of the family and associated child-rearing habits in an attempt to explain economic structure by rooting it in accidents of family culture or psychology. Something more is needed. We can get an insight into this something more if we consider the ends this structure is well adapted to achieve. I do not by this refer exclusively, or even primarily, to the consciously held values and goals we attribute to our economy and society, but to the latent, generally unconscious, ends that give it a characteristic shape. These unconscious ends centre on self-denial. 8 Self-

denial lies, of course, standing the presumed

at

the heart of the classical construction, notwithof the capitalists with self-seeking and

preoccupation

It will seem odd, in light of this result, that the classbeen criticized for its alleged overvaluation of the self and of self-interest, as well as for its presumptions about the primacy of the individual (and thus of the self). 9 Having said that the end of social and economic organization is repres-

self-aggrandizement. ical theory has often

sion of the self, it remains to consider whether this repression is an end in itself, or a means to another end. The most notable contender, of course, is economic development. If we understand splitting, repression, and projection as the means to economic development, then our problem is that the means to achieve development conflict with its end so far as that end involves

self-integration and satisfaction of the wants of an integrated self. The end of development conflicts with any effort to bring the process to a conclusion, and will be opposed by the objective and subjective structures created to make its achievement possible. Self-alienation, then, constitutes a larger structure, which acts as a closed circle. This quality of the structure of the modern world is the central practical problem we face in attempting to solve social problems and achieve normative ends inconsistent with paranoid experience. Political economy and the

good society

to the problems just summarized that involves primitive forms of connectedness, specifically those bound up with notions of community and of merger into the group as a surrogate for self-integration. It is this regression that is sometimes called for in the name of the ideal of a ‘good society’ that might replace capitalism, or alter it in ways judged more humane. It is also this ideal that gets brought into play in many visions of a more egalitarian society, one based on identification with others rather than on the differences so sharply developed in the world we now live in. Because notions of a good society tend to move us away from self-interest as the basis for normative judgment, and connect more to group life and the demands of community assumed to take precedence over individual satisfaction, political economy has had little use for such notions. As a branch of moral philosophy involved with the economy, and more specifically with the market, political economy has been connected to the movement against any ideal of a good society irreducible to what each individual, taken separately, considers good for his or her self. In modernity’s attack on notions of the common good, political economy has been among its sharpest weapons. Indeed, so sharp has this weapon been that the effort to expand the scope of the public sector has repeatedly fallen before it, most recently in the series of policies adopted under such banners as privatization, welfare reform, and balanced budgets. Normative ideals that leave aside the main concerns of political economy have significant appeal for those who see in the celebration of self-interest

I turn

now

regression

to a

solution

to more

to well-being. These are ideals in which the market plays a limited is in significant ways circumscribed by presumed communal or collective ends. Then, the good society, whether it includes the market or a

danger

role,

or

not, pursues ends unconnected to what markets

can do (foster individuasubordinates the market to ends (such as group solidarity) external to, and perhaps even inconsistent with, it. In Polanyi’s (1957) language, ideals of the good society seek to re-embed the economy in the non-economic social spheres (as represented by the notion of community). Like the structure of capitalism considered above, the ideal of the good society has substantial subjective meaning. If we are to evaluate that ideal, it will help to understand better what that meaning is. Specifically, we

tion),

need

or

consider in what respect the good society is good, and how being constitutes a normative goal we might apply to institutions. To make a society good means to endow it with moral standing, since the good (and the bad) exist in a moral universe. Subjectively, to be good means to be connected (Fairbairn 1952 ), originally to the parent who approves of the child’s conduct and whose approval is conveyed by the term ‘good’. To be bad is to be disconnected. But, of course, the questions remain What sort of connection establishes a set of relations that constitutes a society as ‘good? and What are the consequences of goodness? While, for the child, good means connected to the parent by approved conduct, for the adult in society, the good means connected to the community by approved conduct. The transition from a psychological to a normative category takes place in the transition from the immediate relation within to

good

the family to the relations within the larger group. Approved conduct within the group is conduct consistent with group norms, and thus with establishing and confirming the normative value of the group. This marks the difference between the good society and capitalism, since in the latter the group withers, and with it so does the moral universe the group alone can maintain. 10 Under capitalism, the relations that constitute the group are replaced by those of the market, which also carry normative significance though differently than does the group replaced by them. The market establishes a specific relation between individuals, one in which their putative autonomy is preserved, and possibly made real, within a system of mutual dependence. The relations of community often associated with the good society have a different significance, and different ends. This difference can be understood as an aspect of the distinction between identification and recognition. 11 In a system of independent persons, recognition is the primary social bond. In a community, identification governs social connectedness, and recognition plays a more limited role, if it is allowed to play a role at all. The opposition between capitalism and the good society expresses a split between difference and sameness in which difference means absence of identification and identification means absence of difference. This split excludes

any intermediate ground (recognition), on which difference includes identification and identification allows for difference. Then, community is the solidarity based on identification as sameness, often associated with a norm of equality. This is what makes the good society good. Similarly, the contractual relations of a capitalist market society reduce all connection to the mere means to the private and particular ends of the participants, and are not the mode of establishing each participant as a person. This is what makes capitalism bad. Recognition is a (higher) form of identification, which retains the element of identification in a context of difference. Splitting eliminates (or attempts to eliminate) either identification or difference, leaving the pure utilitarian (or contractualist) model on one side, and the communal ideal on the other. The distinction between identification and recognition can clarify the claim advanced above that normative ideals associated with notions of the good society involve regression. The specific regression I there had in mind was from recognition to identification, from difference to equality as sameness. This regression is meant to eliminate the split in the self demanded by life in market-centred, growth-centred societies. Does it do so? And, if it does, At what price? I suggest above that the ideal of the good society is connected to the

embedding of equality. Then,

the individual in the group, and to solidarity based on what is good about the good society is that it fosters equality, and, thus, rather than dividing members, binds them together. This ideal of the good society has specific implications for institutional design, implications captured by the language of democracy and participation. Participation establishes the connection of the member to the group; and, therefore, the quality of participation measures the goodness of the group. The good society is democratic, but not in the sense we attribute to existing mass democracy under capitalism. Rather, the good society is one in which democracy is substantive rather than formal, grounded in true participation rather than the passive forms currently dominant. The difference rests on the presumed instantiation of a norm of equality much more stringent under substantive or participatory democracy than that which informs prevailing democratic institutions. The psychic meaning and implications of this more stringent equality are substantial. To see what they involve, I will consider briefly the ideal of participation. It is, of course, easy enough to argue that participation in mass democracy is no participation at all. What is harder to argue is that the call for greater participation expresses citizens’ real aspirations, and not projection on the part of the theorist, who attributes to the ‘people’ his or her own need to govern, notwithstanding the possibility (even likelihood) that what the people actually want is not to govern, but a government that does its job well. The ideal of governing carries powerful psychic meaning, since it involves rule and authority. Thus the wish to govern can include the wish to rule, and express an impulse to dominate linked to the narcissistic

illusion already considered. Discomfort with this wish, and fear of it, can lead to attempts to disavow it, to control and repress it, and to project it onto others. The projection considered here is in some ways comparable to that of the capitalist, whose projected narcissism fuels the competition of capitals, and is contained within a market system organized for that purpose. In the good society, the projection of narcissism also poses a problem since the grandiose aspirations of the individual (to govern or to rule) once projected onto others (including the people as a whole) become a threat, which it then becomes necessary to control or repress. In the effort to do so, democracy can play a prominent role. The democratic or participatory ideal copes with the threat to the individual posed by his or her urge to govern others by limiting its expression in accordance with a norm of equality. There is, of course, also a norm of equality operating in the market. The difference is not in

the underlying psychic meaning of the democratic and market solutions, both of which invoke a norm of equality to contain a threat, but in the specific shape in which that norm appears. Under capitalism, the norm of equality protects the individual against predatory narcissism by securing one or another version of equal opportunity associated with protection of

private property. In the good society, equality protects the individual against predatory narcissism, projected and real, by preventing exclusion and domination. The danger defended against by the fantasy of participation is exclusion (that others will rule and we will be excluded) and the feelings of envy provoked by it (Freud 1959 : 52). The idea of participation reprethe wished for escape from the world of exclusion and envy. 12 This aspect of participatory ideals is seldom given the attention it deserves. Indeed, we may surmise that much of the energy behind the demand for greater democracy originates in the projected narcissism to which I have just referred. In my discussion of markets as a means for coping with and containing sents

narcissism, I distinguish two possibilities. In one (the free market), predatory narcissism is contained only within the broadest limits, limits that allow the destruction of others so long as doing so is consistent with respect for property right. In the other (the regulated market) narcissism is contained within more severe limits, which secure livelihood and organize contract not simply around the end of enabling a predatory form of competition, but around other ends, such as securing autonomy. A similar distinction can be drawn for the norms of democracy and participation. We can distinguish, that is, between democratic norms whose subjective meaning is to contain the narcissistic aspiration to rule, including the threat that aspiration poses when projected onto others, and norms whose subjective meaning is not to contain or channel narcissism, but to assure an institutional setting within which autonomy and respect for the individual (including his or her self-interest) are secure. Thus, participation can be a meaningful goal for

the individual, so far as its subjective purpose is not coping with projected and real dangers to the self, but assuring respect for autonomy and selfexpression. This might be the case for participation in decisions associated with work and professional expertise, where participation is linked not to rule, but to accomplishing ends meaningful to the individual. Clarifying the subjective meaning of participation can allow us to judge institutions by norms rooted in individual integrity rather than predatory narcissism. Doing so poses a problem, however, which I consider in the next section.

Closed circles In her

of social systems as defences against anxiety, Isabel Menzies how those social systems and organizations in which paranoid structures (involving splitting and projection) dominate are particularly resistant to change (Lyth 1988 : 79). The reason for this has to do with the way those structures shape the relation between subjective and objective, and therefore between the ideal (yet to be realized) and the real. In paranoid constructions, the external (real) is made a container for the internal, so that subject and object are not really separated. This dynamic is well exemplified by the relation between capitalism (real) and the good society (ideal), since the former carries the rejected (bad) and the latter the wished for (good). The failure to separate subjective and objective is typical of actors caught up in what I refer to above as the basic situation. The failure to separate subject and object, and the related denial of the externality of the world, impairs the reality testing and learning from experience that are the essence of human development so far as that is a conscious (intentional) process. Reality testing cannot mean much when reality for the actor is constituted by projections of what originates inside. Learning from experience cannot mean much when experience refers to an interpretation of the past shaped by the dictates of a paranoid construction. What takes the place of reality testing and development is what I will refer to as a closed circle. The closed circle expresses the operation of the same forces we encountered when we considered the idea of a closed system linking fear and desire on one side with the state on the other. Thus, for example, the approach to welfare reform that imagines remov-

Lyth

study

notes

ing welfare will remove the problem welfare is meant to solve depends on an interpretation of the reality of poverty that makes being poor a decision based on an economic calculation. This interpretation is based not on evidence, but on the projection of unacceptable aspects of the self (rebelliousness against the discipline and self-repression demanded in the basic situation) onto others (those dependent on welfare). This interpretation of poverty has nothing to do with those who are poor, and everything to do with those who are not. The same can be said for the interpretation that sees poverty as the result of injustice. Those who attribute poverty to injustice also project themselves

the poor, who represent their victimized selves. Because these interpretations are grounded in projection, they cannot be altered by reality testing or experience, since the template for testing experience is essentially subjective, nor can success or failure of the resulting policy be judged by reality testing in the future. Because the external world is taken (consciously or not) to be purely subjective, it can be made over in whatever image satisfies subjective need. What is taken to be possible is what serves that need. As we have seen, this is part of the capitalist spirit, which assumes all that is outside can be bent to the will and need of the individual. 13 This attitude toward change is also part of the ideal of the good society, which is shaped by the will of the group, and not limited by any reality given to the group from outside its subjective need, including any reality of the members considered as individuals separate from the group. Development, then, is understood not as a lengthy and immanent process, which remains largely outside our control and intent, but as an act of will. We can make the idea of a closed circle more concrete by considering the worker’s fate. Having his livelihood depend on exchange places him in a paranoid situation. It would seem, therefore, that a reasonable approach onto

problem of self-alienation would be to assure livelihood indepenof exchange, and thus of the caprice of the market. Yet, dependence of livelihood on exchange is also a way in which social institutions cope with the paranoid character structure they foster in the individual. Specifically, linking livelihood to exchange acts as a means by which limits are set and excess aggression contained. This need for containment is the underlying meaning of the idea of an incentive system required to assure that society’s work gets done. To be set loose from the limiting situation of the market also means to be set loose from constraints on the expression of destructive impulses in destructive acts, at least so far as economic to

the

dently

affairs are concerned. In this way, liberating paranoid tendencies from the constraints of a paranoid situation simply makes matters worse. This dilemma is a main source of the practical problems posed for us by the structure of a capitalist market economy. The need to contain aggression fits well with management’s need to act out its own aggression against the worker in the form of control. The closed circle thus includes punitive and sadistic forces channelled through the work situation, as well as through the larger society. These forces play a large role in maintaining the repression which is at the centre of the basic situation. There is little point in imagining non-repressive work organization if we do not first consider the origins and nature of the aggression with which the organization of work must cope. The punitive attitude spawned by the redirection and intensification of aggression occurring in the basic situation in its turn shapes policy-making in ways that reinforce rather than ameliorate the repression central to that

situation. Punitive sadistic forces impede the effort to alleviate suffering, and it is with these forces that we must cope if life is to be made more tolerable, especially for the least advantaged. Measures that might reduce the pressures on the individual are measures that work against the punitive attitude and sadistic tendencies that dominate policy-making under

capitalism. Prospects in the organization of economic affairs that might help the self-alienation typical of the basic situation? It is tempting, I think, to imagine alternative institutions, and to believe that such acts of imagination have a potential to affect the course of events, as, no doubt, sometimes they do. Yet, a difficulty arises because the enterprise of institutional design can easily participate in the problems it is meant to resolve. We can see this danger with special clarity if we recall that one of the problems of the basic situation is the way it encourages the individual to disdain limits, to imagine that the only impediment to attaining our goals is a failure of will. Imagining alternative institutions and then imagining that they can be made real by acts of will, whether individual or collective, participates in the disdain of limits to which I have just referred. Because in doing so it affirms the narcissism underlying the basic situation, the enterprise of institutional design can reinforce the problems it is (consciously) meant to alleviate. The idea of containing narcissism through markets or by submerging the individual into a community has dominated discussion of institutional design since the beginning of the modern period. This preoccupation has been made more or less inevitable by (1) the distrust of self-seeking that

Are there

changes

us overcome

modernity inherits from premodern ways of life and thought, and (2) the predatory narcissism that makes containment, channelling, and control a primary institutional objective, and, of course, confirms our discomfort with self-seeking. Channelling, containing, and controlling predatory narcissism has also meant channelling, controlling, and containing narcissism in its more creative form. So, while doing so has fostered progress, as many students contend, it has also assured that the very problem, predatory narcissism, that necessitates restrictive and punitive social policy is reproduced by that policy. We can say, then, that predatory narcissism has been a tremendous force for innovation and for social, economic, and technical development, but it leaves us with a problem that it cannot solve, which is its own presence as the moving force in institutional design. So far as the historical problem is the shaping of a world conducive to the freedom of individual subjects, appeal to self-interest as its moving force carries weight. But when the problem becomes one of reshaping the individual subject to make his or her pursuit of self-interest consistent

with recognition of self-boundaries and the existence of other selves, the end comes into conflict with the means. Then, it may be that the force of narcissism can resolve all problems except its own, which is the problem of the self.

Income from work and

7

social insurance

Introduction 4

problem of external support for those who impaired or undeveloped subjectivity, fully able to provide for their own well-being. At that point, I considered only the simple distinction between those for whom the property system was adequate to satisfy the needs of subjectivity and those for whom it was not. The assumption implicit in this distinction is that the market offers an adequate external structure for well-being where internal structure is well enough developed. The market can, however, fail to do so, and when it does, individuals dependent on it may need recourse to a support structure. In this chapter, I consider some of the implications of this possibility. That individual capacities are intact does not guarantee that they can be sold or that their sale will yield an income adequate to support subjectivity. The question of market failure in this sense is tied to the idea of an adequate income or appropriate standard of living. We need to consider, then, the meaning of a level of income supportive of a way of life consistent with subjectivity, and the appropriate institutional setting for assuring In

Chapter

were

,

I considered the

not, due to

such support where the market fails

Adequate Once

to

do

so.

income

we judge the traditional notion of subsistence inappropriate to the requirements of subjectivity, it becomes difficult to know what an ‘adequate’ level of income might be. Because of the importance of individual difference embedded in the notion of subjective freedom, what is adequate will vary from person to person. Where, in traditional society, adequate means appropriate to the way of life of a particular class or status, in modern society adequate means appropriate to the way of life of an individual. Such a way of life is the external expression of subjective freedom. It is also the concrete expression of the capacity for subjectivity. This means that what we determine to be adequate is closely connected to individual identity, which is the particular expression in a way of life of the abstract potential

Applications for subjective freedom. Adequate standard of living is then defined as a level appropriate to preserving individual identity. This standard is the individual’s goal in work so far as we consider work’s remunerative dimension, and it is the goal of external support where sufficiently remunerative employment is not available. Whether work, when available, provides adequate support for an iden-

tity appropriate to subjective living depends, in a market setting, on the value of labour and associated creative capacities. Where these are poorly developed, or impaired, the needs of identity are not so easily determined as they are for those who have been gainfully employed. If we assume, as may or may not be the case, that when employed the individual acquires an income (wage or salary) adequate to maintain the living standard to which I have just referred, this sets a standard also for compensation under circumstances of unemployment. Non-wage and salary support for income is aimed at securing a previously established way of life. This follows from the notion of identity, which includes continuity of being as an essential element. The idea of continuity of being, and of the internal connectedness it expresses, does not imply that needs are fixed. But the idea of identity does impose a structure, meaning, and thus continuity on need. If continuity of need follows from continuity of being, which expresses the experience of having an identity, then we can use identity to establish adequate income. Adequate income means enough to maintain continuity of being over time, and ultimately across the lifespan so far as possible. 1 The

problem posed by disruption in income resulting from disruption employment is that it endangers the continuity to which I have just referred. Any threat to identity is also a threat to subjectivity. It follows that subjectivity requires institutional supports appropriate to maintain continuity of being (adequate income) during those times when the labour in

market fails to do so. We can express our point about identity and standard of living another way by saying that maintaining our individual identity so far as possible is what

need. Under normal circumstances, and for those with suffithe property system structure other than the market is needed. But circumstances may not be normal in the sense that there may not be adequate demand for the labour of those able and willing to work. What is threatened by unemployment and the income loss associated with it is not subsistence but identity. 2 The normative significance of income loss due to market failure lies in the threat to identity that it poses. This threat has several dimensions. It involves a threat to the material requirements of a way of life to which the individual has become committed because it has become a part of his or her self-conception. It also involves a threat to the expression of identity through a vocation, where we understand vocation as the individual’s primary outlet for creative capacities in work. we

ciently intact capacities, this need can be satisfied by and by interchanges entered into at will. No external

Income from Work and Social Insurance Insurance standard of living to identity means that what is lost due to market failure is no different from what was acquired when the market functioned well. Because the market cannot be relied on to function well at all times,

Linking

must be made to sustain income when the market fails. It seems reasonable to consider this need under the heading of insurance. The idea is somehow to insure a situation against uncertainty, and specifically against

provision

adverse circumstances of various kinds. This means insuring income adequate to maintain continuity of being, and thus identity across time and in the face of the uncertain provision of income by recourse to the labour market. I will consider the need resulting from the possibility of market failure under the heading of insurance, and the object that satisfies this need an insurance contract. This contract may be with a private firm or with a

public authority, and we need to say something about this distinction. The terms of the policy may be fixed for all workers, or subject to a degree of discretion depending, for example, on the individual’s attitude toward risk. On the surface at least, it would seem preferable to allow discretion in income insurance, as doing so seems more in line with subjective freedom. The more important discretion in choosing a contract with terms suited to individual need, the more appropriate the idea of a private contract and use of markets to satisfy the need for security against market failure. A large question raised by this idea is that of the appropriateness of making the individual dependent on private firms, and I will consider this matter further on. Before doing so, we need to consider cases more concretely. Cases can be distinguished by whether market failure is temporary or permanent. Since we are considering income insurance, we can also consider a somewhat different, if related, problem, which is income maintenance after retirement from the workforce. I will begin with the two types of market failure, then consider the

Temporary

matter

of insurance for retirement.

market failure

market failure means temporary income loss. In a market because our income depends on decisions of others who have no economy, ethical or legal obligation to provide us with income, we must consider the possibility that, for a period of greater or lesser duration, we will not have income from the sale of our creative capacities. Whether likely or not, this eventuality is probable enough to demand that we take measures to protect ourselves against it so far as that is possible.

Temporary

Saving is the most obvious form notably unemployment insurance. need

to

secure

failures. We

can

of protection, but there are others, most Insurance for income responds to the our ways of life so far as possible against short-term make an argument that insurance of this kind can, up to

point, be left to the initiative of the individual, who may provide it for him- or herself in different ways. These different ways can involve contracts with insurance providers. Insurance of this kind is not in itself a matter of right, except as an application of the principle of property right. That is, we have the right to purchase insurance contracts when such contracts are available, which is to say so far as insurance providers choose to offer them a

to us.

So

the property system offers suitable contractual arrangeproblem of insuring against short-term failure falls wholly within the system of private contract, and thus has nothing to do with government. The property system may not, however, make suitable contracts available, and it certainly may not make them available to all those needing to secure their well-being in this way. If private insurers are profit driven, they need not consider anything like offering universal coverage, but may elect to cover only those deemed of low enough risk. If

long

as

ments, the

we consider the availability of suitable insurance policies essential to protecting subjectivity, we may consider this an argument for regulation of the insurance industry, and possibly replacing or supplementing it with public insurance.

Permanent market failure I:

competition

Market failure may not be temporary, and, if it is not, the resulting situation poses a set of problems related to those just considered but also distinct from them. We are familiar with several forms of permanent market failure,

notably: loss of jobs due to competitive failure and loss of jobs due technical change. In a general sense, failures of this kind are linked to the investment of modern economies in the process of change. The change to which I have just referred is beyond the individual’s control and poses a particularly serious threat to his or her well-being. We can divide the possible responses to this threat into two categories depending on the adaptability of identity to changing external circumstances. Robert J. Litton has recently argued that, in the modern world, it is necessary that identity be malleable so that the individual can adapt most to

to

change: Over decades of observation, I have come to see that the older version of personal identity, at least insofar as it suggests inner stability and sameness, was derived from a vision of a traditional culture in which relationships to symbols and institutions are relatively intact hardly the case in the last years of the twentieth century. If the self is a symbol of one’s organism, the protean self-process is the continuous psychic recreation of that symbol. —

(1993: 4-5)

The protean self, as Lifton terms it, is malleable in certain respects, though it also exhibits continuity in others. If the protean self is malleable so also is the identity that gives concrete shape to it. This malleability facilitates

adaptation

to

change.

that the individual faced with loss of vocation due social and economic change can shift over to a new vocation, with the new elements of identity the new vocation implies. That is to say, the individual can make this shift as a psychological matter. While the shift demands a specific psychic capability, it also requires new knowledge and abilities, which in the modern world also means certification for a new vocation or profession. Acquiring new capabilities requires resources, and the problem of adaptability becomes one of access to sometimes costly educational opportunities. We need to bear in mind that the adaptability to which Lifton refers is not universal, and cannot be assumed. For those who cannot or do not adapt, change imposes a long-term loss of vocation and with it a long-term loss of income adequate to maintain identity. The two categories of response to threat (adaptation of identity and failure of adaptation), then, imply different burdens for individual and society. For the first, there is the burden of the cost of adaptation. For the second, there is the burden of living a life without a central activity that once gave life meaning and provided necessary income to sustain identity. The need for retraining as part of the process of adaptation can be financed in different ways. Typical in the United States is a combination of whatever income from work continues to be available with access to credit (sometimes guaranteed or otherwise subsidized by the government). In this setting, those with the psychic and other personal resources needed for adaptation can be largely self-driven during the process of retraining. The process can, of course, also be subsidUed more actively by government, for example where higher education is publicly rather than privately financed. For those who are not adaptable in this way, the problem of insuring against the risk of loss of income takes on a new dimension. The prospect of long-term loss that may not be made good poses difficulties for the solutions suggested above for short-term income loss. I consider these problems in the next section under the heading of uninsurable risk. The difference between the two categories of response to loss of vocation can, in part, be thought of in relation to the life cycle. The further along the individual is in his or her life cycle, the more of life he or she has spent in a particular vocation, the lower the likelihood of adaptation as a response both for practical and psychological reasons. The likelihood that external support will be needed increases, then, the further along we are in the life cycle. to

Adaptability means the larger forces of

Permanent market failure II:

inadequate

levels

of market

development All of the considerations advanced so far regarding the use of markets to satisfy the needs of subjectivity apply where economic arrangements have developed under the impetus of forces associated with individual autonomy. Under these conditions, markets are, at least to a substantial degree, organized to offer opportunities capacities (though this may

income from the sale of creative be their only goal). This situation cannot be assumed. On the contrary, under many circumstances markets are poorly developed for this end; indeed, they are poorly developed overall. Then, individuals, however well developed and intact their capacities for subjective freedom might be, may not find an institutional setting capable of

supporting

for

adequate

not

the realization of those capacities. problem of assuring autonomy in the face of market failure be fully separated from the problem of economic development.

In such cases, the cannot

The

of welfare becomes particularly acute and particularly intractable where non-market structures for support (community and family) have eroded while those associated with the market and the welfare state have not

problem

developed adequately to take their place. As contact with the modern world erodes local community it does not inevitably replace the obligations of community with the more modern structures of support we have considered here. The result is a special kind of poverty unique to the modern world. This is the poverty resulting from the failure of large numbers of individuals to acquire their subsistence (as that is defined in the premodern communal or traditional setting) even in the absence of the types of threat to subsistence typical in traditional society. This new type of poverty poses special problems for the state, and it does so at a time and in a setting where states are often not strong enough to respond adequately. When poor market development is matched by a low level of development of a welfare state, institutional settings will fail to support individuals in need.

Retirement income Retirement from the workforce severs the link between income and employthough not due to market failure. We might consider the needs for

ment,

retirement income under the heading of impairment of subjectivity, which is a likely result of the aging process. Yet, the timing of impairment (deterioration of health) and the timing of retirement need not be connected. Because impairment may not be the factor prompting the need for income outside what can be gained from employment, I will consider retirement under the heading not of impairment, but of insurance. The problem of retirement is in many ways similar to that of long-term unemployment. Even if in some ways more predictable, its actual impact

in time and duration is no more certain than is that of market failure. All of the problems we associate with long-term unemployment due to market failure apply to retirement except for the possibility of an eventual return to the workforce. In the United States, response to the prospect of life without income after retirement has involved a combination of voluntary and forced saving (social security), the latter being the controversial element. This controversy has two important dimensions: the justification for forced savings, and the justification for a system that takes management of savings out of the hands of the individual. The forced element in saving applies both to the individual and to his or her employer, and the justification for this element differs accordingly. The justification for constraining the labour contract so that it includes the element of contribution to a national saving plan follows from the judgment that the remuneration derived from the wage contract will be inadequate to enable the worker to provide sufficient saving for retirement. We can say, then, that the problem is not one of saving for retirement, but of inadequate levels of income. Insistence that forced saving be managed by the state and not by the individual seems to follow from a judgment that individuals are incompetent to manage their own savings, which is to say that they are impaired in some important way. Impairment does, as we have seen, offer justification for an external structure, or stewardship. Yet, it is difficult to imagine how we can arrive at the judgment of universal impairment needed to support centralized management of individual savings. The two dimensions of the problem of saving can be brought together in the following way. Levels of income inadequate to make possible adequate saving for retirement result from vulnerability. Individuals are vulnerable when their labouring capacities are not well developed, which is to say they do not have the sorts of skills that make their labour valuable enough to secure adequate pay. We can place the problem of inadequate skill under the heading of impairment, knowing that in doing so we also place the majority of workers into that classification. It is interesting and revealing to do so, since it suggests that problems of underdevelopment are not restricted to the so-called developing countries, but exist wherever large numbers of workers must make a living by selling unskilled labour. Treating the problem of vulnerability as one of impairment immediately justifies intervention. It also, however, seems to place the onus on the worker for the low level of his or her income. To some extent this is correct. But, we should bear in mind that vulnerability only translates into exploitation (acquiring work at a pay inadequate to support subjective freedom) in a setting where strong incentives exist to take advantage of the vulnerable. The market is such a setting. Put another way, we can say that vulnerability is an invitation to the exercise of power. Use of the language of power can, however, be misleading

in this context. The difficulty with the use of the language of power in this setting is twofold. First, notwithstanding efforts to reinterpret power so that it does not entail a subject who exerts power, the absence of a well-

defined

subject for exploitation renders the language of power at best ambiguous, as Marx was well aware. Second, the use of the language of power hides the problem of impairment, and therefore participates in the denial of impairment we have seen operating so strongly in the use of the language of right. Removing power does not bestow subjectivity any more than granting a right does. When we confuse the removal of constraint with the capacity for subjective action, we dismiss the requirement for internal capacities without which the opportunity cannot translate into a reality of subjective living. Uninsurable risk Does the threat of short- and long-term market failure constitute the basis for a normative argument for provision of income outside what can be gained in the sale of labour and creative capacities? One way to consider the answer to this question is to tie it to the question of insurable risk. If the risk against which we need to insure our income is such that offering a contract can only be made profitable on terms so onerous that they undermine current income in a way that threatens identity, then the cure creates the problem it is intended to ameliorate. We might consider this likely in the case of unemployment insurance for the following reason. Market failure by its nature affects not the individual worker alone, but large groups of workers simultaneously. In this, it is like a major natural disaster that affects a region of the country, not a single home. Long-term market failure compares to a long-term natural disaster, a hurricane that lasts for several years, perhaps longer. A disaster of this magnitude and duration would be hard to insure against through private contract offered on the basis of a profit calculation. What makes insurance feasible is the possibility of risk spreading. The larger the risk, and the larger the likely pay-out, the broader the group of individuals over which the risk must be spread to make insurance viable. The largest such group is the nation as a whole. The more considerations of risk spreading push us in this direction, the more we move in the direction of a national insurance carrier capable of spreading the risk to the whole of society. Whether such a carrier is a part of government or not, it remains an essentially public enterprise. The more universal participation is required to make the enterprise viable, the more we move in the direction of a public claim over current income to provide relief for the victims of market failure.

Income from work So far, I have considered only the case where income failure results from the loss of employment. I have assumed, in other words, that adequate income is not a problem for those who work. Yet, we can also treat loss of employment as the devaluation of the labour and creative capacities of the unemployed. Jobs remain available, and at a remuneration commensurate with the now-diminished value of labour where no demand exists for labour

its original value. This way of thinking would apply more specifically the forms of long-term unemployment considered earlier. We have assumed thus far that individual identity can be sustained by the income available from employment, and that it therefore depends only at

to

availability of employment and not on the level of income employyields. Yet, this is equivalent to assuming that individual identity in our sense, which is an identity that incorporates autonomy, is consistent with any level of income, and thus any standard of living. This would seem a questionable assumption on general grounds, and more specifically when we take into account the importance of choice in expressing autonomy. Monetary remuneration for work assures that the individual can make choices about his or her mode of life, choices expressive of identity. Yet, the lower the income the fewer the choices available, until a point is reached at which choices do not exist at all, or lose any meaningful connection to autonomy. Clearly, then, the market valuation of labour, which does not take this concern into account, poses a problem. The problem with which we are concerned here can fruitfully be linked to that of the investment of creativity in work. That is to say, the market value of labour is connected, albeit in no simple and consistent way, with the creativity involved in work. The less creative the work, the less its value. Or more accurately, the less creative the work the more likely its value will fall to a point inconsistent with subjectivity. If we connect subjectivity to creative living, we can say that the less creativity is involved in labouring capacities, the less creative living is available to the worker. The advantage of including this element of creativity is that we can redefine the problem of remuneration as a problem of the presence or absence of creativity as an element in the capacity to work. In the more usual language, the less skilful the labour, the lower the remuneration for it. Then, unskilled labour is likely to receive a reward at best marginally consistent with creative living because the labourer is not considered him- or herself a locus of creativity and thus in need of creative living. We can consider this problem on both the demand and supply sides. On the supply side, we can wonder how individuals fail to develop themselves to the point that their labour contains the element of creativity that assures it will have a value commensurate with creative living. On the demand side, we can wonder how the work of society can be done if no unskilled on

the

ment

labour is available.

Unskilled labour and

impairment

I suggest above that

we consider the problem of the supply of unskilled labour under the heading of impairment. The impairment with which I am concerned expresses a failure of development of the capacity for creativity

in work. It matters whether this failure is the result of

an original deficit whether it is the result of a deficiency of opportunity to develop an innate potential. I also suggest above that this failure is a widespread, even typical, phenomenon of the workforce under capitalism, especially in the early years of its development. This means that we should consider impairment as a deficit in developmental opportunity rather than

in the individual

or

deficit in original potential. In any case, it is clear that the majority of workers did not have the opportunity to develop their creative capacities, so that the issue of an original deficit in potential for creativity is moot. If the opportunity to develop is absent, we should begin with the assumption that this absence accounts for the failure to develop. We can, as a

a substantial part of the problem of low-wage labour under the of heading impairment associated with deficits in the opportunity to develop, thus placing the solution on the side of education and quality of family environment. All of this ignores the possibility that low wage labour is necessary to support the production of wealth adequate to sustain creative living, if

then, place

only for a part of the population. Then, the freedom of some must always be paid for by the unfreedom of others. If this is true, it raises some serious problems for the norm of subjectivity with which we have been concerned here, since that norm would inevitably incorporate the element of domination. To see how we might or might not arrive at this conclusion, let me begin with an argument from the classical economists, one that tends to support the conclusion that freedom and unfreedom are bound together. The classical economists tended to consider the economy taken as a whole under the heading of the division of labour. For them, the social division of labour defined a set of closely linked tasks that must be done if the subsistence is to be provided and a surplus produced for the purposes of investment and economic growth. This division of labour included unskilled labour as a major, indeed dominant, element. Further, the impetus to economic growth assured that the domination of unskilled labour in the workforce would tend to increase as a result of labour displacing technical change. Thus, the problem with which we are concerned here was seen to be built into the material-technical requirements of social production, and to be exacerbated by the commitment to economic growth. If we take the division of labour to be given, a fact of economic life, then it is only a matter of how we fit individuals into it. As Marx comments, all societies must labour, and they must therefore allocate their pool of labour

to

needed tasks. It is

only

a

question

of the

specific

institutions

through which this allocation takes place. So far as we accept the idea that the division of labour is a fact of life to which we must adapt, there is little we can do to solve the problem of unskilled work, and of the impaired creativity it implies. Then, we cannot break the interdependence of freedom and unfreedom also implied by the necessity that we take the division of labour for granted. While Marx contributes to this idea, he also denies its validity when he insists that the trend of capitalist development is to make unskilled labour superfluous. From our point of view this trend is a promising one, although it has little to offer those dependent on unskilled labour for their income. It does mean, however, that the division of labour is not a fact of life, to be taken for granted, but the result of ongoing social and economic processes that need not go on altogether behind the backs of those most directly affected by them. We can see this by considering a more contemporary example. While technical change may have eliminated many unskilled jobs associated with industrial production, other trends in the economy have produced new ones associated not with mass production but with the service sector. The need for the service sector cannot be well explained in the classical way by referto a material-technical division of labour. Rather, the explanation has much more to do with modes of life adopted by those with rising incomes whose labour has a value adequate for them to pay others to do tasks they might otherwise have to do themselves. When the demand for unskilled labour derives from ways of life made possible by the availability of such labour, demand can be said to derive from supply. If we eliminate the supply, we exclude ways of life dependent on it. So far as this is correct, we can throw the problem back on the

ring

supply side, and consider the matter of impairment as the central concern of low wage labour on both sides of the equation. 3 Still, when doing so, it is important to bear in mind that the problem becomes one of supply rather than demand only when social reproduction does not depend on the availability of a low-skill waged labour force. This happens as a result of a long process of economic development, one we cannot assume is complete, or has proceeded far enough to assure that those capable of creative living are not at the same time taking advantage of those who are not.

Obligation considering the matter of securing income under conditions where the individual cannot do so on his or her own, I have not used the language of obligation. Let me briefly consider the reason for this. One way we sometimes speak about what I have called the stewardship role of the welfare state treats the state as an intermediary between citizens, in this case between the employed and the unemployed, between those who are impaired and those who are not. In this way of thinking, the In

government operates as a kind of involuntary charitable organization, which is a sort of community. Then, the obligations of the members of that community toward the disadvantaged are executed through the agency of government. They are nonetheless the obligations of the members, and obligation is no less the appropriate language for speaking of the relationship between advantaged and disadvantaged. When we consider the income needs of the unemployed, we may imagine ourselves asking if those who are employed have an obligation, through the institutional mediation of government, to provide income and employment 4 to those who are not. To interpret the problem in this direction, of course, is to assume that government should be understood as the creature of the individual citizens acting as a group. Since we have in Chapter 5 rejected this way of thinking about the state, we cannot here invoke it. When we treat the state as an institution organized around a commitment to the ideal of subjectivity, we need not consider matters of obligation. The state appropriate to support the needs of citizens where necessary is a state driven not by the obligations of its citizens, but by the ideal of subjectivity as that becomes embedded in its institutions.

8

Justice and democracy

economic

A democratic ideal Students of normative political economy sometimes treat the pursuit of economic justice as if it were a matter of democratizing the economy, and responsiveness to democratic decision-making as the primary normative end of economic arrangements. Doing so mirrors popular usage, which, for example, speaks of the transition in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union as ‘democratization’, thereby making a change in political institutions stand for the whole. One implication of this use of language is to define a free or just society according to whether it is or is not democratic, while making democratic society inherently just. Of course, even given this equation, much remains to be resolved, particularly regarding the relation among markets, justice, and democracy. Thus, many observers, including those who equate justice with democracy, would reject out of hand the easy equation of democracy with unregulated markets, also favoured in popular accounts of the aforementioned transition. 1 Substituting the narrower term ‘democracy’ for the broader ideal of justice can also mean investing democracy with the significance usually reserved for justice. Thus, at a conference on democracy, a colleague of mine once defined democracy as an arrangement that benefits the worst off, thereby using a definition of justice popular in academic circles to define democracy. Whether justice includes the principle that we arrange our economic affairs to benefit the worst off or not, defining democracy in this way equates democracy with justice. Yet, the intent is not so different from that which subsumes justice under democracy. Specifically, the equation of the two is a way of assuring that a call for either justice or democracy will be understood as a call for greater equality, an important theme for those who equate justice with democracy. Thinking about justice in this way severs the link between justice and the design of institutions appropriate to secure the rights and integrity of the individual. Since justice is here understood as a procedure (democracy), it is in principle consistent with any outcome, and with any political agenda not in conflict with the political rights associated with democratic a

Applications deliberation, however that outcome and agenda might conflict with individual integrity and the rights needed to protect it. Thus, even the outcome of greater equality, its presumed goal, is not assured by the equation of justice with democracy. We might assume that the equation of justice with democracy is not to be taken literally, but as a kind of shorthand. Yet, the shorthand that uses the

democracy for the broader, and sometimes different, concerns of own significance and implications, which differ, for example, from those that make democracy only one aspect of a just society. The inclination to abbreviate justice as democracy interprets justice in a particular direction, endowing it with a specific meaning. When we then consider justice more broadly, the justice we consider has been shaped by the original idea that made its equation with democracy seem a reasonable first approximation. Equating justice with democracy is consistent with another habit of mind in normative political economy: assuming that in a well-ordered society government and democracy would be coterminous. Oddly enough, we can find this idea not only in the thinking of those who favour participatory and communitarian ideals, but also in the thinking of those who favour free market outcomes. Thus, public choice theory also seeks to subsume government under democracy when it attempts to make the government a contract rather than an institution sui generis. Public choice theory limits government action to what all those having a stake in the outcome will the government to do. Many assume that limiting government to what is willed by stakeholders restricts the activities in which government can rightfully engage. Those who favour a more substantial public agenda, by contrast, tend to believe that equating government with democracy provides government with a licence to engage in a wide range of market-limiting activities. Their presumption is that the majority is not likely to favour an economic system that benefits the minority at their expense, which they tend to assume private enterprise does. We have, then, a kind of democratic ideal for society, one that sees a well-ordered society as a democratic community through this equation of both government and justice with democracy. term

justice, has its

As I suggest above, this ideal may leave considerable room for the market, it may not. On a practical level, the distinction seems to matter a great deal. Yet, the common ground just alluded to also matters. It is this common ground I wish to explore here. or

Economic Before

justice

proceeding with the question of the relation between justice and democracy, something needs to be said about justice, since, independently of confusions arising in relating it to democracy, the term ‘justice' poses some difficulties of its own, especially in economics. These difficulties may be exemplified by the comments of one author, who, in a discussion of

Justice

and economic

democracy

International Monetary Fund stabilization policies, defines justice as follows: ‘By “economic justice” in this context I do not mean anything very complex or Rawlsian; rather, my premise is that the real incomes of workers, artisans, and peasants should not fall . .' (Fitzgerald 1985). For this author, .

is often the case for those advocating greater economic justice, justice does not refer to ‘anything very complex’. Rather, it refers to the idea that our economic policies ought to help those most in need, or, at least, ought not to harm them in order to help others. Taking this as the starting point, the author goes on to connect justice with measures that assure the satisfaction of basic needs, a term that, it seems, also refers to nothing particularly complex or problematic. The appeal of the basic needs idea of justice mirrors that of the democracy equals justice line of thinking so far as both are taken to imply greater equality, or economic policy more favourable to the least as

advantaged. we may be with the idea that justice supports about need satisfaction, and that justice is not served when certain needs go unmet, clearly the foregoing definition of justice leaves much to be desired. First, why would justice demand that incomes of ‘workers, artisans, and peasants’ not fall, unless we assume that anyone in these groups will automatically be below some minimum, or because any fall in their income is in some sense unfair? If this is the gist of our argument, it would seem to approximate Rawls’s difference principle, though without invoking the supporting apparatus of reasoning and argument Rawls introduces. According to this principle, economic inequality is just only if it results ‘in compensating benefits for everyone, and in particular for the

However

sympathetic

expectations

least advantaged members of society’ (Rawls 1971 : 14—15). Rawls supports the difference principle by asserting that it would be favoured by individuals asked to choose the principles of justice in a situation where they could not know how those principles would affect them personally. One way of understanding this idea considers how it involves a connection between all citizens engaged in setting the foundations for society (defining a system of justice) and the least advantaged. Following Rawls’s line of argument suggests that, through a somewhat complex thought experiment, we place ourselves into the situation of the worst off. Of course, placing yourself into the situation of another can mean different things, and lead in different directions so far as the matter of justice is concerned. The difference involves the type of connection, in this case with the least advantaged, out of which justice evolves. Alternatives important for justice are: connection based on self-interest, connection based on identification, and connection based on recognition (of the self-in-other, or other self). Before proceeding with the matter of justice and economic democracy, let me briefly consider these alternatives. Rawls asks us to imagine that we might find ourselves in the situation of the worst off, so that choosing the principle of benefiting the least advantaged becomes a matter of the pursuit of our self-interest, albeit under

unusual circumstances. This connection with the worst off based on selfinterest is the least substantial of the three types of connection referred to here. Indeed, it does not really connect us with the worst off, since it imagines them not as persons, but as positions or situations. Then, just distribution does not so much benefit the least advantaged directly, as it assures that the worst situation in society is no worse than it must be. Advocates of greater economic justice do not generally adopt Rawls’s line of argument. They do not imagine that, in demanding justice, they are protecting their own (self) interest, but, rather, that they are advocating the interests of others, in this case the most needy. Their object is not positions in society, but individuals and groups. This establishes a different connection with those in need of justice. Two possible alternatives to selfinterest as the basis for connection are identification and recognition. The difference between the two has to do with the way the self is involved in the connection with the other. A connection with the poor based on recognition does not presume that the experience of being poor is in some sense shared, while connection based on identification does. Those who identify with the poor find that being poor mirrors something in their own experience. Identification does not require that we are or have been poor, or that we fear we might be. Rather, it requires that in our own experience that parallels being poor in that meaning, though that meaning is manifest in a different way. The likely basis for such identification with the poor is deprivation. Poverty is only one form of deprivation. We are deprived when any of the requisites for our development as persons are missing, whether those be food and clothing, a secure environment, or, more generally, an adequate relationship with parents or other adults capable of facilitating growth. Since material deprivation is not the only form of deprivation, those who are not and have not been poor can still identify with those who are by connecting the deprivation associated with poverty with their own depriwe

find

something

it carries the

same

vation associated with other than material needs. Seeing the experience of the poor as a mirror for our own deprivation, even if ours has a different nature and source, constitutes an identification that can powerfully influence thinking about justice. Those who have experienced their own deprivation, whether economic or not, can identify with the poor. In demanding justice for the poor, they demand justice for themselves, or use the poor as stand-ins for themselves. The disadvantaged offer us the opportunity, through identification, to deal with our own depriva2 tion, though at a distance from ourselves. Many advocates of greater economic justice use the evocative language of justice to express the feelings of the disadvantaged (or feelings attributed to the disadvantaged), feelings rooted in a link between disadvantage and oppression. Demanding justice, then, means (1) linking disadvantage to oppression, (2) identifying with the disadvantaged, and (3) demanding rectification in their name. The resulting idea of justice ties distributive

as rectification. The link is implied in the way the least made the central concern of justice, which directs attention advantaged from universal away rights, and from how institutions can be designed to advance regard for the personhood of all, including, but not exclusively, the least advantaged. While identification with the least advantaged leads to demanding justice as rectification, connection based on recognition leads in a somewhat different direction. It does not call on the fear that we will be poor ourselves; nor does it use the poor as receptacles for our own disavowed experience of deprivation. Instead, it allows us to understand what it means to be poor by calling upon our access to what is universal about being a person. Those who have not been deprived themselves can nonetheless understand what deprivation means, and can concern themselves with those who are its victims. The basis for such a connection is a capacity to recognize self-inother, thus to recognize that the other is also a self, while holding in mind the other’s real difference from ourselves. By contrast, when we identify with others, we lose our sense of their difference from us. Thus, those who connect with the poor by identification tend to see themselves in the poor rather than seeing the poor as what they are. Identification constitutes a distorting lens that connects us to others by putting their difference from us aside. To be sure, recognition is, in its way, a form of identification. The difference alluded to above is in the aspect of the self with which we identify others, whether it is the universal dimension, along which all persons are

justice

to

justice are

considered selves (at least potentially), or the particular dimension, along which being like us concretely (for example, having a shared experience) is what it means to be a self. We can formulate the distinction as follows: Is the self we see in the other our self (particular), or is it the self (universal)? We can make recognition of the other the basis for economic justice, but, if we do, economic justice has a broader net to cast than the one that captures the plight of the worst off, or those below a poverty line however specified. Those who are not poor also expect and demand justice, and with as much reason as do those who are poor (or claim to represent the interests of the poor). This last point is implied if we set meaningful limits on measures that can be taken to alleviate poverty. If alleviating poverty does not justify violating basic rights, including economic rights, of those who are not poor, then we need some principle for judging which measures for alleviating poverty are consistent with justice. This makes even the matter of avoiding harm to the least advantaged contingent on a principle of justice. Support for the poor is not, then, the basic principle of justice, but one among a number of policies derived from the underlying principle or principles of justice. Whether we link justice to identification or recognition is important in part because it determines whether justice is or is not a group phenomenon. If we connect justice to recognition, then we take the principle

of justice to be regard for the personhood of others, where personhood includes certain basic attainments, especially those bound up with a quality we refer to as autonomy, integrity, or self-determination (see Levine 1997 ). Understood in this way, justice does defend economic rights for the poor, including the right to life, so far as social policy and social institutions can secure such a right. Thus, for example, famine is intolerable because it destroys persons, as does, more slowly but perhaps no less definitively, chronic poverty and deprivation. Justice, then, refers to the ideals embedded in institutions designed to secure autonomy of persons. Defining justice in this way clearly distinguishes it from democracy, though the possibility remains open that the two will lead us in the same direction, and thus join forces. Emphasizing the part played by identification in certain interpretations of economic justice will help us better understand the equation of justice with democracy, in which identification plays a large role. Those who tend to equate justice with democracy also tend to invest democracy with primary significance, to define its sphere of operation very broadly, and to see democratic procedure not merely as a way for associations to make decisions, but also as the life process of community. Linking democracy to community makes identification with others an important part of democracy, and thus tightens the equation of democracy with justice. Democratic

community

The significance we attribute to democracy will depend on how we understand the unit whose governance we think ought to be democratic, and on the range of issues to which we believe democratic procedure ought to be applied. Particularly important will be two related considerations. The first is whether we take the unit of democracy to be a group sui generis, or, in other words, a democratic community. The second is whether and how we delimit the domain of democratic decision-making: what issues we subject to democracy, and what issues we insist will be resolved in other ways. The ideal of democratic community sometimes imagines the unit of democracy as a group, the life of the group as encompassing an especially wide range of interests and activities, and the range of democracy as limited only by group decisions themselves. Thinking this way is not inevitable. Much depends on whether the end of democratic process is simply the specific decisions arrived at, or the life of a community. To make this distinction meaningful, we will need to distinguish between explicitly group processes, and processes that encompass many individuals in a structure of mutual dependence. We do not have a group simply because we have more than one individual, or more than some minimum number of individuals, even if those individuals are interdependent. We only have a group where ‘groupness’ exists, which is the kind of solidarity or connectedness that makes the whole more than a mere set

of individuals linked by contract or division of labour. In a group, the whole is not so much more than the sum of the parts as it is different from the sum of the parts. Indeed, in certain dimensions it might be less, for example if it tended to eclipse the individuality of the composing members. For present purposes, I will assume that the key element in establishing the existence of a group is identification. Group members do not simply depend on, or possibly use, one another; they identify with their fellows. Thus, being in the group shapes identity in ways consistent with the group reality; it establishes and enforces a solidarity among members that results from sameness. When our core identity is contingent on our acceptance in, and belonging to, a community, it is also contingent on shared values, ideals, and character traits that establish membership. The framework of

justice

The existence of a system of mutual dependence (division of labour) or the presence of contractual connection does not establish a community, nor does it demand democratic decision-making. It does, however, establish a structure of interdependence greater than the individual, and greater than the individual contracts taken together. This structure assures that contracts are enforced, and that those relying on others for things they need can normally expect the needed transactions to be available to them. Individual welfare depends on systemic conditions such as: the level of output and employment, a properly functioning price system, an effective set of financial institutions supporting a system of money and credit, and so on. For these conditions to be met, we must have appropriately designed institutions that enable individuals and corporations to get their jobs done. Of course, what is meant by getting the job done can vary. Competing interpretations judge success differently, for example according to whether price stability or full employment is taken to be the key. The larger structure within which individuals pursue their ends has its own significance. Thus, to make individual decision-making meaningful, there must be an underlying framework. This framework embodies an ideal of justice, and we can refer to it as the framework of justice. The individual can use this ideal to judge if the overall structure is well designed. The ideal may be a group ideal. If it is, we have more than a system of mutual dependence; we have a group or community. Alternatively, the ideal might not be of a group, but only of a structure well suited to facilitating the pursuit of individual ends, in which case instituting the ideal does not create a community. Justice, then, may or may not frame a community. The framework of justice can be set in place by decisions that have doing so as their explicit goal. Alternatively, the framework can emerge out of decisions intended to advance certain partial ends of individuals and groups. In the latter case, the ideal of justice is implicit in the partial ends, rather than the explicit basis for justifying specific law and policy. The process

for establishing this framework involves politics as that term is normally used. Politics, then, institutes a collective ideal for an association of persons, though it need not do so in a conscious or thoughtful manner, and the association may or may not be a community. So far as decisions need to be made about the overall structure, procedures need to be instituted for decision-making, and democracy becomes a relevant issue. Democracy can, however, lead us in different directions. It can be understood as the appropriate method of governance for a community; or, it can be considered a way for individuals to live together without forming a community. In the latter case, we have an association, but not a community. We need to distinguish, then, two democratic ideals, one of which is communitarian in spirit, and one of which is not. The virtues and limits of democracy vary according to which ideal is invoked. I have suggested that democracy is a procedure that sets a structure of interaction in place, embedding an ideal of justice in a set of concrete institutions for accomplishing specific ends. Some argue, however, that the ideals of justice underlying the structure of interaction cannot be the subject of democratic deliberation because, for democracy to be meaningful, it must already assume that those ideals are agreed upon: a sense, what we ordinarily describe as democratic ‘politics’ is merely the chaff. It is the surface manifestation, representing superficial conflicts. Prior to politics, beneath it, enveloping it, restricting it, conditioning it, is the underlying consensus on policy that usually exists in the society among a predominant proportion of the politically active members. (Dahl 1956 : 132)

In

This interpretation is made especially plausible when we consider that democracy presumes agreement on what Dahl refers to as the democratic norms. Since democracy embodies one ideal, insisting on it as a decisionmaking method already resolves problems in a specific direction. To resolve the abortion debate by a democratic procedure will have different consequences from resolving it by appeal to the constitution, which, in turn, takes us in a direction different from the one mapped out for us if we resolve the matter by appealing to religious authority. Where ideals clash, accepting democratic procedure for resolving conflict has significant implications. Perhaps most significant among these is the implication that the winners must tolerate the continued existence, sometimes the very vocal existence, of the losers, just as the losers must continue to live in a world shaped by ideals they in some important ways consider alien to them, or wrong, even immoral. This only makes sense, of course, if the participants see in the wrong of a particular outcome a lesser evil than would result from overthrowing democratic process itself. Democracy, then, requires that we value the procedure above any particular outcome it

might yield. Doing so places living in a particular kind of association above particular interests, values, and ends. We can now begin to understand better the equation of justice and democracy. It follows from the idea that the procedures through which the association maintains its existence are ends in themselves, indeed, are, or at least embody, the primary values that animate the interactions among persons.

Justice and democracy with democracy makes group self-governance the criterion of justice. An outcome is just not in itself, or because of its implications for individual rights, but because of the process by which the group agreed to it. This makes justice a process rather than an outcome, which is why, in principle, it is consistent with very different political agendas. It also makes justice pertain to the group rather than the individual. Justice as

Equating justice

does

directly imply equality, except in political rights, or decision-making process. Traditional liberal fears notwithstanding, justice as democracy does not necessarily undermine markets, or free markets, or capitalism, though it might. Clearly, however, under certain types of democracy, property rights are not secure, since they exist at the discretion of, and are defined by, the group. The equation of justice with democracy not only makes justice a process rather than outcome, it also makes justice a political process. Equating justice with democracy presages the judgment that the economy is political. This judgment is sometimes advanced as a positive one, a generalization from the observed operation of the market, or a conclusion from a theory of how markets work. It can, however, be a normative judgment, as it is when normative argument favours a more democratic economy, by which is meant one in which economic activity is ruled by democratic procedures. Thus, the call for more democracy involves a call for greater influence of politics on economic institutions and what they accomplish. Then, whether the economy is or is not political, it ought to be; but the politics that ought to rule the economy is not the same as the politics that currently democracy

fairness, except

does If

not

in the

The former is democratic, while the latter is not. insist that the economy ought to be more democratic (see, for example, Bowles and Gintis: 1986), this tends to blur the (normative) distinction between economic and political activity. 3 Blurring this distinction has a specific significance. It seeks to expand the domination of the group over the individual. We cannot overstate the importance of the group in the associated conception of justice. If justice equals democracy, self-determination associated with justice becomes the self-determination not primarily of the individual, but of the group, and of the individual only acting as a member of the group. To be sure, that individual has political rights, and, in this respect, so.

we

is separate and autonomous. When acting as a citizen engaged in collective decision-making, individuals cannot be coerced by others, although they can be coerced by the government executing the decisions made by the group. It is this prospect of coercion that some liberal thinkers find particularly distasteful. The point to emphasize is the transfer of agency and self-determination from the individual to the group. Here, democracy introduces a well-known ambivalence. On one side, democracy insists that the group member be conceived and treated as a citizen, therefore as an autonomous individual, whose political rights extend his or her self-governance into participation in governance of the whole. This treatment of the member differs significantly from what he or she might expect in a more traditional group, where rights and duties differ across members, who occupy positions in a status hierarchy. On the other side, however, democracy, if equated with justice and made a group phenomenon, continues to place the group above the member, so, even if the group is self-governing, it can override the autonomy of the citizen so far as that autonomy requires more than political rights. Making democracy the foundation of justice assures that this ambivalence, and the tension it fosters, cannot be resolved (except perhaps by a rule of unanimity, which clearly extracts a high price). Central to this tension are the matters of groupness, of the status of a democratic association as a group, and of universal citizenship as a form of group identity. While justice as democracy is not necessarily egalitarian in outcome, there is an important egalitarianism embedded in it, since it makes all citizens equally governors. This is a strong condition, and one meriting consideration, especially for normative issues in political economy. The tendency to equate justice with democracy follows from making equality the basis for normative judgment. Justice as democracy makes all citizens political subjects for all possible group outcomes. No one can claim special rights in determining the outcome either because of a special stake in it, or because of a special competence for judging the issues. The absence of special stakes follows from the idea that what is always at stake is the life of the group, that the members are inseparably tied together, that what affects one affects all, that through identification differences can be dispelled. The absence of special competence must be assumed to secure the solidarity of the group, which is made to depend, as I suggest above, not on a division of labour among members, but on their identification one with another, and all with the group ideal. Pluralist theory contrasts with the way of thinking just summarized in assuming that society divides into groups differently invested in the outcomes of different government policies. In this understanding, democracy works well when, for example, those on the winning side of an issue feel strongly about the outcome, while the losers do not. Losing is an acceptable outcome when the losers may expect to be among the winners on other issues, about which they feel more strongly. Individuals have membership

number of interest groups, but the polity does not divide so that the individuals find themselves in the same set of groups. This, then, assures that the collection of stakeholders in any given issue is specific to that issue, and not derivative of a larger social cleavage, between classes, races, or genders, for example. Pluralism breaks down when, through identification, the investment of our fellows in an issue becomes our own, or when we do not recognize the limits of our own interest, or when society is, or is imagined to be, so bound together as to assure that all issues equally affect all individuals. If the group identity that emerges under these conditions embraces the polity in

a

same

whole, pluralism gives way in the face of a strong community of the whole. If the group identity that emerges is partial, pluralism breaks down in the face of divisions within the polity not offset by cross-cutting allegiances. Then, strong partial communities (based on ethnicity or race for example) undermine any affiliation based on universal considerations, such as those I have above associated with recognition of self-in-other. The conditions just introduced imply the existence of a group identity, or community, whether that be the community of the whole envisioned by some advocates, or the partial communities created by social cleavage along the lines of race, ethnicity, class, or gender. as a

Democracy, community, and For

governance

group identity refers not to a part of the individual’s life and example a professional identity or other particular interest, but to the personality’s integrating force. Then we have not the pluralist ideal of partial and cross-cutting alliances, but the communitarian ideal of the group of the whole. When the identity of each, and with it his or her feeling of personal integration or wholeness, is at stake with the identity of all, then, each is a stakeholder in all issues that affect the community. some,

being,

for

a stakeholder in all issues that affect any member, since members are identified with each other and the lines separating them into individuals are blurred. As a result, interdependence moves beyond contract and division of labour to establish a unit with the quality of groupness we associate with identification among its members. The ideal is that the separate group identifications will, to a significant degree, be replaced by the more universal identification of equal citizenship. What has been less clear is whether this new identity constitutes a group in its own right. Whether universal citizenship can be construed as a group identity bears on whether the democratic institutions through which citizenship is expressed are constitutive of democratic community. The new identification (citizenship) may or may not, then, constitute a new group

Indeed, each is

(democratic community).

Linking group identification with citizenship has important consequences democracy. These consequences arise because the basis for group

for

identification sameness of group members is now made universal. The result is the modern notion of equality that forms a pillar for many of the arguments about democracy. The strong appeal of democracy stems from its connection to equality of universal citizenship. So long, however, as the quality of groupness is retained, democracy’s appeal will also stem from the hope that it will retrieve older forms of group or communal identification in the context of equality. The result of mixing communal identity with the equality of universal citizenship is to make democracy, and the politics associated with it, a group or communal phenomenon. Then, the primary virtue of government is its responsiveness to the will of the community. Yet, making responsiveness to the group of the whole (the community) the primary or only virtue of government raises some important questions having to do with what it is the group is competent to do. One influential answer imagines that participation in group processes fosters an attitude of regard for others necessary for collective life. Participation develops public spirit, possibly even competence to govern, within the polity. As one student puts it, ‘To participate is to create a community that governs itself, and to create a self-governing community is to participate’. Thus: —

—

the individual members are common seeing and common work into citizens. Citizens are autonomous persons whom participation endows with a capacity for common vision. A community of citizens owes the character of its existence to what its constituent members have in common and therefore cannot be treated as a mere aggregation of individuals. (Barber 1984 : 155 and 232) In

a

strong democratic

community

.

.

transformed, through their participation

.

in

Remove participation and you create apathy, ignorance, and the preoccuwith self-interest that destroys public spirit. Following this line of argument, the competence of the group to achieve meaningful public ends, including those we associate with justice, follows from the way groups shape an ethical consciousness in their members. So far as ethical standing is taken to be derivative of group process, justice as a virtue of governance depends on the group. The thinking underlying this line of argument insists that the experience of participation will create a regard for others not otherwise present. The conviction that this will happen appeals to the equation of morality and group idlentification:

pation

For it is as citizen that the individual confronts the Other and adjusts his own life plans to the dictates of a shared world. I am a creature of need and want; we are a moral body whose existence depends on the

common ordering of individual needs and wants into a single vision of the future in which we all share. (Barber 1984 : 224, emphasis oirngi al)

The individual, then, qua individual, is an amoral (if not immoral) creature. The other only exists for this individual in the context of democratic participation. This only holds, however, if recognition of the other means recognition of sameness (identification) in the context of the group. This restriction of recognition to group identification has significant consequences, both for the ideal of the group and for the way we think about

non-political non-group interaction. Thus, in the relation of exchange, the individual also confronts the other, here as the owner of property; and, in exchange, the individual, by recognizing the personhood of the other, enters into an ethically meaningful relation, even though it is not one of shared identity in a group. Even if we reject the idea favoured by some that contract is substantively the same relation as citizenship, so that citizens are understood as parties to a contract, this does not justify treating contract outside the context of ethical experience. If it does not, then the argument for participation based on the assertion that it alone establishes moral character does not hold. The argument for participation as the crucible in which regard for others takes shape insists that higher levels of thought and conduct are fostered by community. This idea runs up against the problem that, so far as we treat community as a group phenomenon, it must share with other group phenomena the tendency to demand regression in the mental life of the member. 4 The group’s existence depends on its ability to establish and maintain primitive emotional bonds between members, including the bond of identification. These bonds are essentially concrete, depending as they do on commonly held character traits and modes of life. By contrast, recognition of others, if that means regard for the self-in-other and thus for the self in general, constitutes an abstract connection, since it demands that we abstract from the concrete attributes of my self or our self (the group self). While identification with others and with the group requires only those more concrete modes of thought and relatedness already available at early stages in emotional and cognitive development, recognition of others calls upon the more advanced mental functioning generally discouraged by 5 groups. Thus, rather than being the crucible for the mental processes 6 we associate with regard for others, community may be their enemy. Their dependence on regression is surely part of the reason that ideological thinking dominates in groups, especially larger groups. The problem of ideological thinking does not get solved by institutional design, least of all by a design that makes larger groups, who are presumably even more susceptible to the simplistic thinking we associate with ideology, responsible for deliberation. Insofar as ideology is group- (or class-) based,

increasing the size of the group, ultimately to the group of the whole, only exacerbates the problem. This is less of a problem for us if we are convinced that reason has no privileged access to truth, or that there is no truth, at least none for which the political process is relevant, or that the truth is either relative to class position or ultimately inaccessible. If we proceed on this basis, we set the foundation for an argument in favour of displacing expertise with politics. Without guidance from reason, we can more easily choose to be guided by interests, or see in the political decision a relevant judgment to replace that of reason. The real distinction between policies is not about which is better grounded in reason and knowledge, but about the different interests they serve. Selecting the best policy, then, means selecting the policy that serves the ‘appropriate’ interest, which makes policy a matter of politics. Vexing of course, not the least of which is how we know whose served by which policies. In any case, treating economic policy as a political matter in the sense just considered does not lead to democratization, unless we equate democracy with the interests of one or another

problems remain, interests

partial

are

group.

Politics and economics I suggest above that the democratic economy is

a political economy in the 7 economy that is political. A political economy in this sense is clearly one in which the market is likely to play a more limited role than it might where the economy is fully disembedded. Yet, we should not be too quick to assume that the depoliticized economy is the free market economy, and only a political economy (in this narrow sense) is one in which the market is constrained within significant bounds. It is, after all, not only politics that can limit the market. Economic rights instantiated within a system of justice can also limit market outcomes. This alternative sense

of

an

when we equate justice with democracy. If we do not equate justice with democracy, we can also distinguish justice from politics, and conceive a just economy that is not a political economy (in the sense of political economy considered here). Clearly, however, the equation of justice with democracy tends to make the normatively compelling arrangement of economic affairs a non-market arrangement, at least to a significant degree. Making the ideal of the economy one in which markets are eclipsed by political process is consistent with government control of the economy, especially once we make democracy and government coterminous. Thus, a central implication of equating government, justice, and democracy is the politicization of the economy. The negative side of this politici2ation is now clear to us from the experience of so-called ‘real world socialism’, where making the economy political tended to erode civil society and the system of rights and individual autonomy associated with it. Some might argue that the problem was not

disappears, however,

economic outcomes depend on political deliberation, but in the of the political deliberation, specifically that it was not, or not sufficiently, democratic. The failure of real world socialism is attributed, then, not to its attack on civil society, but to its contempt for democracy. Is it, then, the wrong politics that causes the problem, or the politicization of the economy, whatever the politics involved? To answer this question, I would like briefly to consider the problem of politics and economics, and of the relation between the two. Let me begin by drawing a distinction between the processes that determine outcomes for self-governing associations, or associations that are in in

making

nature

respects self-governing, and the processes by which individual and collective wants and needs are satisfied, including the production and circulation of required goods and services. If we think of the first as politics and the second as economics, the two might cover the same ground. We might, that is, have a ‘political’ economy, but only if wants or needs pertain, in some sense, to the association, and their provisioning is determined through a process of deliberation or negotiation. In proceeding this way, I have given the term ‘political’ a narrower interpretation than has been the habit for some writing on the subject of political economy. For them, political simply refers to the presence of relations of domination, or to the presence of class or other partial interest as an influence on outcomes. This broad definition of politics parallels the broad definition of economics favoured by those who apply economic reasoning, as they term it, to all arenas of decision-making, whether private or public, familial, governmental, or market. The broad definition of politics, in a similar way, allows us to imagine that the family or market might be political. Yet, speaking in this way obscures the differentia specifica of family life, public affairs, and the pursuit of private interests through the use of private property. Differentiating between these spheres is vital if there is to be any clear thinking about the nature and limits of a modern economy. For this reason, the term ‘political’ will be used here in the narrower sense alluded to above. We can now ask what it would mean to have a non-political, or depoliticized, economy. The answer would be that such an economy exists insofar as wants or needs are not of the association, and are not satisfied by specifically political processes. In other words, there is a non-political economy insofar as there are individual wants, and insofar as explicitly collective processes do not primarily determine their satisfaction. A non-political economy might be a market economy, even a free market economy, as has been conceived by political economy since its classical period. Depoliticizing the economy need not, however, mean organizing economic affairs through unregulated markets. Rather, it could mean that collective or group decision-making processes do not determine outcomes bearing on want satisfaction. Thus, if interest rates were set by a self-perpetuating Board of the Federal Reserve, monetary policy would be non-political, though it would

significant

still be

policy and not the free market outcome we might expect from, for example, a gold standard or some other rule aimed at assuring that markets rather than policy determine outcomes. To be sure, a depoliticized Board makes decisions that affect individuals and groups in society, and in different ways. Depoliticized decisions can, and presumably would, favour some over others. Yet, the outcomes would not result from politics, and in this sense would not be political. The economy is political if the association, through a process of collective self-governance, determines want satisfaction. The economy is non-political if wants are otherwise determined, whether through free markets

administrative process. Thus, wants may be individual or collecmay be group wants or they may not be. Procedures for want satisfaction may call on the group or association as a whole, on decision-making by a designated administrative authority, or by markets. The association whose self-governing process is political may or may not be a group, depending on whether the members are bound together by identification, or simply by a coincidence or interdependence of need. Accordingly, there are two senses of political economy, both involving the associational aspect of economic life, but distinguished by whether the association is also a group. If the association is a group, a political economy (in its more recent sense) is one in which group needs eclipse or displace individual wants, and where group identity displaces individual identity. A non-political economy is one in which, to some significant degree, wants are of the individual, and identity is not given over to the collective, but established by and for the individual member. As I suggest above, all of this leaves aside any notion that a political or

tive, and, if collective, they

economy is political not because it involves association, but because it includes relations of power or domination, somehow defined. Clearly, a nonpolitical economy, as the term is used here, allows some to take advantage of others, to influence, perhaps unduly, their conduct, possibly to coerce them, if not legally, nonetheless in other ways not less significant. That a non-political economy can facilitate coercion, and more generally restrictions on freedom, including the freedom associated with choice, tells us that depoliticizing the economy does not assure that it will realize the ideal of justice, anymore than politicizing it does. The issue is not so much whether we make the economy political, as whether we shape its institutions to secure autonomy. Shaping institutions to realize autonomy, as I insist here, is in no way assured by making those institutions democratic. On the contrary, democratizing can only assure justice if we assume the equation of the two with which I began this chapter, an equation that leads us into some severe difficulties if our goal is to implement a just economy.

Economic

democracy

The

suggestions just advanced can help formulate the question of the meaning of economic democracy. To do so, let me begin with some distinctions. Economic democracy may refer either to the organization of specific economic institutions, especially units of production; or, it may refer to control over the economy as a whole. More specifically, economic democracy might mean workplace democracy, or it might mean popular control over economic policy. It might, of course, mean both. It is helpful, however, to distinguish the two. Workplacecy democr for workplace democracy can be advanced on different grounds. Greater worker control might be deemed more efficient because it makes

Arguments

more productive (Bowles et al. 1983 : 31-4; Dymski and Elliott 1989 ; Shapiro 1994). It might be more consistent with respect for the worker as a person, and the movement away from the once-favoured notion that the worker can legitimately be considered, at least on the job, as so

workers

much labour.

be favoured because work is to be governed democorganized Dahl These alternatives 1985 (see ). ratically express three values, taken to be fundamental: efficiency, autonomy, and democracy (which may or may not be implied by autonomy). Of these three values, only the last two link as a

Workplace democracy might

group endeavour, and groups ought

to considerations of justice, the second because it is in work for the individual worker, self-determination greater the third because it appeals to the ideal of self-governance. Consider the matter from the standpoint of the individual worker, and of what he or she wants from, or needs to get out of, work. From this

workplace democracy a means

to

there are two salient issues, or sets of issues: those having to do with remuneration, and those having to do with the content and meaning of work. The former involve both the level and security of income, assuming income is derived from work. The latter have to do with the significance the activity of working has for the worker as a person, therefore with the satisfaction gained from work. A just economy would organize work in a

standpoint

way most conducive to worker

self-determination, and to workers gaining the satisfaction that can only come from activities that engage the self in a positive way. If these are the salient issues in work, however, workplace is not so much just in itself, as it is a possible means to achieving justice. To go beyond this, and make workplace democracy necessary to justice, we would need to equate democracy with justice or show either that only workplace democracy can make work satisfying to the individual,

democracy

or

that

workplace democracy

alternative arrangements.

is

more

likely

to

do

so, or to

do it better than

Our judgment of the work itself will significantly affect how we view the matter. For those, such as Smith and Marx, who consider most work done for a wage dehumanizing, satisfaction in work is excluded by its nature, and not by the specific institutional arrangements in which it takes place. This is not to say that those arrangements are unimportant, or have no bearing on the worker’s welfare, including his or her self-esteem. It is only to say that, even if greater democracy makes the experience less distasteful to the worker by removing the element of domination by others, it does not make work consistent with self-determination. Then, if justice demands self-determination, a predominance of unskilled manual labour in the economy assures that economic justice cannot be fully realized, whether the workplace is organized democratically or not. Yet, democratization of the workplace is important, even where the labour itself remains dehumanizing to some degree. If our economic arrangements not only make labour dehumanizing, but also make the context of labour demeaning, this makes the organization of work all the more inconsistent with a concept of justice rooted in self-determination. Greater democracy might, in this case, mean greater justice. Whether it does or not depends on whether we use the term ‘workplace democracy’ to refer only to worker involvement in decision-making about the conditions and ends of work, or use it as a shorthand for workers’ rights, more broadly conceived. This, again, will depend on how broadly we use the term democracy, especially whether we equate it with justice. Thus, respect for workers’ rights in the workplace implements justice, within the limits of the nature of the work, but it does not implement democracy, unless we establish a right for the workers as a group to make collective decisions about the organization and ends of work. A right of this kind does not obviously follow from the right to be treated with the respect due a person, rather than as a commodity bought to be consumed. What makes democracy follow from an argument about workers’ rights is the constitution of the workplace as a potentially self-governing association. Democracy becomes a relevant consideration of justice when an association exists, and its organizing principles must be determined. If our concern is with association, and possibly groupness, organizing work through assembly lines does not meet our criterion, is not a work group, although many workers work together there. By contrast, some work organizations (for example teams) that might replace assembly lines by establishing a more group-like process may very well establish the basis for an argument for democracy. Yet, the argument for democracy established in this way is also limited by the limits of the group. That is, self-governance applies to those decisions necessary to enable the group to do its job, which are only those decisions associated with the tasks to which the group is devoted. Here, perhaps for the first time, we have a clear case of economic justice being tied to group phenomena. Of course, some work does not go on in groups, and, to this extent, arguments about workplace democracy

are

irrelevant to it. Nonetheless, work groups remain a significant phenomof work, which makes democracy a relevant consideration in their

enon

organization. need to remember that introducing the element of workplace democracy where appropriate does not secure the rights of the worker as an individual: the right to work that enhances rather than diminishes self-esteem, the right to an adequate level of remuneration, the right to be treated by others with respect for autonomy and personhood, and the various subsidiary rights derivative of these rights. If democracy is not the criterion of justice, then democracy cannot, in itself, secure justice, whether in the workplace or in society as a whole. For justice, something more is needed. Even

so, we

Democratization

of economic policy

Like workplace democracy, popular control over economic policy can have different meanings. It might refer to making economic policy the result of referenda, or other expressions of the popular will. Expression of the popular will, when equated with the empirical preferences of the electorate, is, of course, a matter of degree. One might advocate democratization of monetary policy without thereby meaning that the discount rate should be determined by popular vote. Still, the idea is that policy should be more responsive to the will of the people somehow expressed. Alternatively, popular control over economic policy might mean shifting control from one group (for example, banking and financial interests) to another deemed somehow to represent greater democracy (consumers or workers). The favoured group may be judged more democratic because it is larger, or because it is more open, or because it includes the disadvantaged. In the limit, these options merge if the groups that replace those who currently exert the greatest influence over policy are substantially larger, or more

representative

in

some

meaningful

sense.

If democratization of policy-making is taken literally to mean subjecting policy to the will of the people, or at least moving significantly in that direction, then it is subject to all the problems considered earlier in our general exploration of the idea of democracy. Using the criterion of who influences policy, having the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve appointed by Congress is more democratic (Bowles et al. 1983 : 338). Yet, there is nothing inherent in this change of arrangements by which monetary policy is set that would assure a monetary policy more in line with ‘popular interests’. It does not, in itself, imply lower interest rates, tolerance of a rate of inflation more in line with higher levels of employment, or a policy less favourable to Wall Street, even assuming that these goals are part of the public interest (which, of course, would need to be established). Setting monetary policy according to the real needs of the people, then, means something different from making the process that determines policy

democratic. If democratization means to make economic policy yield in line with the real needs and interests of the people somehow defined, then, it is not so much a matter of processes responsive to popular sentiment, with all its vicissitudes, irrationalities, and confusions, as it is a matter of putting policy-making in the hands of those most likely to understand the people’s interests and translate them into policy. Obviously, this idea has some potentially treacherous implications, since we need somehow to judge the validity of claims advanced by those who might represent the people’s real interests, and question how they can presume to know what those interests are, and what policies best serve them. Some, more ‘radical’, forms of democracy take the real interests of the people to be their expressed preferences, which, of course, may or may not be for arrangements anyone would deem ‘democratic’, least of all those who demand democratization of the economy. The notion of ‘popular economics’, then, might either mean economic arrangements that would be popular, given a referendum on the matter, or economic arrangements that some economists judge most consistent with the interests of the people, or a relevant subset of the people. The latter interpretation makes the economist the better judge of the people’s real interest in circumstances where the people themselves are confused or misled. Taken literally, knowing the real interests of the people, even assuming such a thing exists, when not a matter of referendum, refers us to a special expertise. This is the expertise of the economist, who either has the popular interest in mind (knows what it is and follows it), or has a theory or method more likely than that currently dominant in economics to yield policies that will serve the popular interest. more

outcomes more

By one standard, the policy advocated by such an economist is not really democratic, since it does not reflect the will of the people, nor follow from application of a democratic procedure. By another standard, it is democratic, since it serves a ‘popular’, rather than particular, interest, assuming, of course, that we can distinguish the two. In distinguishing the two, the ideal of justice might play a role. If we do not equate justice with democracy, we can have recourse to justice as a basis for judging policy, one that arguably serves the real interest of citizens, whatever their preferences might be. Thus, economic policies that benefit the least advantaged arguably serve the general interest so far as (1) that interest is in justice, (2) justice means measures that benefit the worst off, and (3) we can establish which policies benefit the worst off. We need not, of course, assume that economic justice includes the requirement that policy benefit the worst off. Whether we do or not, we have, in raising the issue, shifted the debate from the terrain of politics and democracy to that of justice. Here, democracy may or may not be relevant, depending in part on considerations raised in the preceding pages. Then, whether appeal to democracy will play a large role in shaping policy appropriate to serve the general interest is a matter for justice to decide.

9

The economy:

national,

international, global

National, international, global Stoneage Economics, Marshall Sahlins points out that through of human history, economic activity was marked by local selfsufficiency. If economy referred to household management, the premodern system of production and distribution was deserving of the name, since it was essentially a household affair. The term ‘political economy’ captures something of the transformation occurring in the early modern period, when In his book most

the division of labour begins to extend itself in a serious way beyond the limits of the household. As a result of this extension of the scope of economic activity, the question arises: now that the governance of the household is no longer the governance of the economy, how is the economy governed? The first answer, which we find expressed for example in the work of Sir James Steuart, is that the economy is now governed by the statesman. This means that we no longer have an economy, we have a political economy, since its borders are not those of the family, but those of the state. The governance of economic affairs is no longer in the hands of the head of the household, but in the hands of the statesman. The second answer to the question of governance of the economy is that once the economy develops beyond the limits of the household, it need no longer be governed, but can operate as a self-regulating system. We associate this second answer with Adam Smith who, because he rejects the idea that a modern economy needs regulation from the state, also rejects the term ‘political economy’, thus anticipating a later development that would replace political economy with economics. The economics that replaces political economy is, of course, different from the economics that political economy replaces, since an economy in the modern sense cannot be subsumed into a household. Since the domain of the original political economy is the state, the problem of political economy is also that of the state. This problem is the problem of national integration. The premodern local economies are also local principalities, with local systems of governance, and localized group connections. These must be replaced by a national economy, national government, and

Applications national identity. The term ‘state’ refers to the political unit responsible for overcoming self-sufficiency and local identity (Gellner 1983 ). But, creating the state is also the goal of the integration of political, economic, and cultural life into a unit. National integration of economic affairs is primarily a matter of three interconnected processes. First, it involves geographic integration that puts in place a network of transportation and communication capable of connecting local units. Second, it requires creation of a national currency and monetary system capable of integrating transactions throughout the political boundaries of the state. Third, it means creating a national market on a scale adequate to overthrow local self-sufficient production. Overthrowing local self-sufficiency is made possible by large-scale production whose greater efficiency allows it to displace local producers. Once these processes have proceeded to a point where we can speak of the state as an economic unit, we have a national economy. Historically, and perhaps inevitably, the national economy is a capitalist economy in the sense that it operates through a system of private transactions and private ownership involving markets for labour and capital. The development of a national economy implies the emergence of an international economy, if by international economy we have in mind the market transactions that move goods, labour, or capital across national borders. The term ‘international economy’ can, however, take on an added meaning when economic activity within a nation comes to depend in essential ways on economic activities going on outside. Then, international economy refers to a further integration of economic activity, one that goes the borders of the state. The term sometimes used for this situation is ‘interdependence’. The interdependence just referred to makes both consumption and production within the boundaries of the state depend on what goes on outside. This means, to use a popular language, that there develops an international division of labour, although use of the term ‘division of labour’ here is just a metaphor for a system of mutual dependence in production. Within such a system, production is, in a sense, international, since needed inputs are acquired from other countries. Any given product incorporates labour and resources acquired from various regions and countries, and thus is the product of the international system of production taken as a whole. Just as interdependence is implied in national integration, and results in part from the policies of the state, it also creates problems for the state. These problems have been a major concern of contemporary observers of economic affairs. In various ways, openness of the economy weakens the state’s ability to regulate economic affairs. For those who believe that regulating economic affairs is a vital part of what the state does, this development undermines not only the state, but the economy as well. Interdependence is in some ways an implication of openness. But, limiting or regulating transactions that cross state borders need not imply a closed

beyond

The economy: national, international,

global

economy; interdependence can still develop in a context of state regulation. On the other hand, the policy referred to as ‘free trade’ obviously challenges the capacity of the state to regulate the economy, since it is the aim of that policy to remove the state from the business of economic regulation. There is justification for some degree of uncertainty about the precise meaning of the term ‘free trade’. For present purposes, let us consider two

possibilities: Free trade ically and

the elimination of any government policy aimed specifdirectly at regulating the prices or quantities of imports or

means

exports. Free trade means the elimination of any government trade across national borders.

policy

that affects

The difference between the two has to do with what are sometimes referred to as non-tariff barriers to trade. Virtually any national differences in government policy or regulation of industry can affect trade, so the second definition of free trade is by a wide margin the greater threat to the state. Were policy implemented along the lines of the second definition, the state would be reduced to the minimalist role of protecting private property and national security, assuming of course that securing, and therefore defining the limits of, property would not affect trade in some way. Of course, even policy that follows the first definition can undermine the state, at least in its capacity as regulator of economic affairs; and, clearly, this is exactly what the policy is meant to do. In both cases of free trade, the underlying motivation or ideal is the same, to remove the state from any intrusion on the system of private transactions. The second simply takes this removal to its logical conclusion, applying to domestic affairs what the first version of free trade applies to international affairs. If we attempt to introduce the second version of free trade, notwithstanding its impact on the state, we will eliminate the aspect of economic affairs that connects them in any way to the state. Products may still have a national identity in the sense that their qualities may exhibit regionally or culturally specific attributes. Still, for all intents and purposes, the point of the policy is to eliminate the national economy in favour of a unit unconnected to any nation. This unit is sometimes referred to as the ‘global economy’. The term ‘global economy’, then, refers to an economy without any states, which is, of course, also an attribute of the local economy with which we began. The difference between the global economy, the putative endpoint of development, and the local economy, which is its starting point, is in the scale and goal of production. But, of course, neither the local nor the global economy is a political economy, at least in the classical sense. Whether, of course, the elimination of state regulation creates a global economy or destroys the needed institutional structure to secure economic activity and results in chaos is an important question. The answer depends

how we understand the accomplishments of economic, political, and cultural integration. There is, however, a way of implementing the second policy without destroying the effectiveness of the state, and that would be to move toward a single universal, or global, state. But, of course, if there is only one state, there is no international trade to regulate. Also, if there is only one state, we can speak of a global economy, but this global economy would, of course, be a national economy (if for a moment we equate nation with state), the consideration of which was our starting point. It should be clear, then, that the matter of global economy is really about the state, and whether we need one or not, and whether, if we do need one, we also need more than one. There is a substantial element of speculation involved in reference to the global economy since, even if we are moving in the direction of no state, or one state, we are clearly a significant distance from arriving at either destination. The ultimate time line is still more likely to be measured in centuries than decades. And, in spite of the current enthusiasm in many circles for openness and deregulation, the pendulum could easily swing toward a more actively regulated economy, and with it the prospect of globalization, and the global economy, could recede. For the present, we do not have a global economy in either sense introduced above, although we do have an international economy. It will be interesting to consider what all the talk of the global economy signifies under these circumstances, which is what I propose to do in the following sections. That is, rather than on

treating the global economy as a reality to be observed and studied, which it clearly is not, I will consider it a fantasy rooted in hope and fear. How, then, does the global economy enter into our hopes and our fears? The

fantasy of the

stateless economy

The fantasy of the global economy is little more than a particular expression of the fantasy of an economy without the state. It therefore expresses distrust in, if not animosity toward, the state. This distrust is normally justified by the judgment that the state poses a threat, the threat of domination, and that the magnitude of this threat is proportional to the size and scale of state activity and responsibility. The idea of the state as a threat to freedom, and therefore of the need to limit, if not eliminate, the state is well expressed by Milton Friedman: The fundamental threat to freedom is power to coerce, be it in the hands of a monarch, a dictator, an oligarchy, or a momentary majority. The preservation of freedom requires the elimination of such concentration of power to the fullest possible extent and the dispersal and a system of distribution of whatever power cannot be eliminated checks and balances. By removing the organization of economic activity —

from the control of political of coercive power.

authority,

the market eliminates this

source

(1982: 15)

Setting out from the premise that government is a locus or instrument of power, Friedman draws the conclusion that less government means less coercion, and therefore more freedom. For Friedman, this leads naturally to a well-known connection between freedom and markets. The connection between freedom and markets, argued to follow from the coercive potential of the state, sets a foundation for a powerful movement to restrict the state’s involvement in economic affairs. This movement pushes in the direction of a global rather than national or international economy. While we normally associate the argument against government with the argument for unregulated markets, we can find the same concern about the coercive power of government expressed by those less favourably disposed to the market. Distrust of government is also a common starting point for advocates of a stronger regime of human rights to protect individuals from to oppression. Thus, one theorist notes how ‘human rights emerged protect modern individuals against certain standard threats to their dignity posed by modern markets and modern states’. Furthermore, in the twentieth century, this ‘threat to human dignity from the state has grown, not receded’ (Donnelly 1993: 135). Those who see human rights as a solution to the dangers posed by the state do not share Friedman’s sanguine expectations regarding the ability of markets to protect individuals from oppression. On the contrary, they consider markets equal, if not greater, threats to the individual. Advocates of human rights sometimes express this distrust for the market by insisting that the market is not constituted by right, and can therefore make ‘In the market, one has exchange no normative claim rooted in right. entitlements but not rights’ (Wood 1997: 83). Once we deprive the market of its claim to embody right, protecting individual right no longer implies protection of property including the right to alienate property via exchange. On the contrary, rights become claims for protection against the market. we may wonder, of course, what distinction makes property not a right but an entitlement. One possibility is that entitlement refers to a claim contingent on law, whereas right refers to a claim with the normative force to shape the law. Clearly, the more we use the language of right for the constitutive relation of the market, the more we establish property and exchange as the foundation of law rather than a contingent expression of the law-making process. When law embodies right, it is more than a mere entitlement, which might be a legal claim that exists for reasons having nothing to do with, or even in conflict with, right. Thus, considering property not a right but an entitlement makes it a claim contingent on law rather than part of the normative basis for shaping laws. .

.

.

from the normative force of the ideal of so is bound up with the effort to replace the ideal of individual autonomy with that of group self-governance, as that is expressed in the ideal of participation. The norm of participation, when made primary, seeks to subject institutions, including both state and market, to the rule only of those rights embodied in the appropriate decision-making process. This points toward an ideal of economic democracy rather than individual freedom. Such an ideal would constrain, if not eliminate, both the state and the market. The attempt to separate the market from right makes clear the distance between the human rights oriented critic of the market and those who, like Friedman, see themselves defending the market against the state. While this difference is important, it should not be allowed to obscure the common ground shared by advocates of human rights and of unregulated markets,

Why, then, separate property right? One answer is that doing

which is the ground of distrust of government, and insistence on shaping institutions in ways that limit government’s power. The idea then is that the more elaborate our system of human rights, the greater the limits on both state and market. This idea runs up against a difficulty, however. So far as the state is responsible for defining and 1 protecting rights, it becomes difficult to see in rights a limit to the state. The problem originates in the idea that the state is a locus or apparatus of power and not the institution through which rights are established and secured. The more we insist that the state is a vehicle for exploitation and oppression, the more we need to protect individuals from it. But, the more we insist that the state offers the opportunity to translate private power into publicly sanctioned and intensified power, the less we can call on it to secure autonomy and thus protect individuals from oppression and

exploitation. A comparable problem arises for the idea that extending human rights means restricting the market. Even if we reject the easy equation of freedom with markets typical in certain circles, it does not follow that freedom can be meaningful in the absence of strong protections for private property and therefore markets. While markets may not be free in the sense of unreguare free in the sense of bearing an important association with the demands of individual autonomy. For those who see the state as a threat, distrust of public institutions stems from the presumption that they will be used to achieve private ends, an assumption easily supported by historical evidence. Thus we have the Marxist idea of the state as the instrument of class rule, or the pluralist idea of state power exercised according to the amount of pressure brought to bear by private interest groups. If the state is an apparatus of power, then its use is the exercise of power by those individuals and groups who gain control over it. While it may be no more accurate to say that the state oppresses anyone than it is to say that guns kill people, it is still accurate, given this understanding of institutions, to say that the existence of the

lated, they

implies oppression. Similarly, if the market is essentially a means for exploitation of labour, it may be inaccurate to say that the market exploits anyone, but it would be correct to say that the use of markets to provide livelihood implies exploitation. state

the

We can accept the claim that the state and market have been used as vehicles for oppression and exploitation, and the claim that a system of rights expresses a commitment to protect the individual from the wilful control of others, including wilful control exercised through political and economic institutions. Doing so need not inevitably lead toward an ideal of rights as external limits on state and market. The alternative is to consider how those institutions can be shaped to instantiate rights, so that the growing capacities of the state and the growing scope of the market do not threaten the individual, but better secure his or her autonomy. The movement against the state pushes in the first direction. While this may work well enough for those committed to free market solutions, it does not work so well for those committed to a system of rights. This is not only because the state must administer and protect rights, including those putatively held against the state, but also because the state must translate the abstract statement of right into a practical and concrete reality. Our concern with rights, then, presses us to reconceive the state in a way that makes it something other than an apparatus of power and means to private ends. The

problem of integration

Consider now the circumstances that impede the development of the state in the direction just suggested. These circumstances have to do with the ideal of integration pursued through public institutions, and thus to which those institutions become committed. This danger is clearly expressed in Milton Friedman’s critique of the state. For Friedman, a connection exists between the coercive power of government and the pressure to establish a level of social integration that undermines, or even obliterates, individual difference. This makes the movement against the state a part of a larger movement against integration. The widespread use of the market reduces the strain on the social fabric by rendering conformity unnecessary with respect to any activities it encompasses. The wider the range of activities covered by the market, the fewer are the issues on which explicitly political decisions are required and hence on which it is necessary to achieve agreement. (Friedman 1982 : 24) Because of the connection between integration and oppression, and because the state is a prime locus for imposing integration on society, expanding state capacities increases the threat of domination. Control of the state is a

for imposing hegemony of part over the whole, which is to say other parts, and thus a means for overcoming differences. Overcoming differences works to the end of securing group hegemony, which can (it is hoped by those in the dominant groups) re-establish the universality of (particular) ways of life in a context of diversity. However we judge Friedman’s fear of integration and his celebration of the free market, we should not ignore the problem with which he is here concerned. Thus, consider how Clifford Geertz, in his essay on the struggle to establish the nation-state and national identity in developing countries, draws attention to the same problem of unity and difference. For developing countries, the problem appears as one of subordinating ‘specific and familiar identifications in favor of a generalized commitment to an overarching and somewhat alien order’. Geertz suggests that the new national identity poses a danger to the individual that he or she will suffer a means over

loss of

identity as an autonomous person, either through absorption into culturally undifferentiated mass or, what is even worse, through domination by some rival ethnic, racial, or linguistic community that is able to imbue that order with the temper of its own personality. a

(1963: 109) The emphasis here is on the possibility that sub-national groups will use the state to impose their ends on those not part of their group. This observation clarifies the danger posed by the state. The danger is twofold. First it is the danger that groups will use the state to impose their ends on society. Here, integration means to subsume all under a particular group’s identity. Second, the state seeks to establish a political and economic unit on a scale appropriate to a modern society, which implies a degree and kind of integration unnecessary and inappropriate to a society organized around small locally self-sufficient units, as Ernest Gellner (1983) has argued. So far as the state is inherently devoted to this latter integration, it poses a threat to all local culture and to the groups defined in relation to local cultures. The state pursues integration as a part of the imperative of establishing a modern society, which is to say a society operating on a scale and unified by a type of integrating force appropriate to modern economic, political, and cultural life. Gellner links this movement to the domination of the larger political unit by a particular culture, which has, no doubt, historically been the case. But, this loses sight of the change in culture implied by the larger scale and different basis for integration implied in a modern society. Gellner notes this change when he differentiates the new culture from the culture of the premodern group from which it may derive:

Culture is no longer merely the adornment, confirmation, and legitimation of a social order which is also sustained by harsher and coercive constraints, culture is now the necessary shared medium, the lifeblood or perhaps rather the minimal shared atmosphere, within which alone the members of society can breathe and survive and produce. For a given society, it must be one in which they can all breathe and speak and produce; so it must be the same culture. Moreover, it must now be a great or high (literate, training sustained) culture, and it can no longer be a diversified, locally tied, illiterate little culture or tradition.

(1983: 37—8, emphasis Gellner goes

on

to

insist that such

appropriate organization

or

a

culture

must

in

original)

be sustained

by

institution, and that this institution is what

the we

have come to know as the modern state. The state poses, then, not one danger, but two. One is the danger the group poses to the individual, where the likelihood exists that the state will come under the domination of the group. The other is the opposite danger that integration into a modern political unit poses to the group member both because citizenship and group membership are not necessarily the same thing, and because citizenship can derive from membership in one particular group. If this is correct, then the danger to the individual is not in the state, but in the possibility the state will come under the domination of the group.

Integration and

the individual

The state represents a principle of integration, first into the high culture of a dominant group, but eventually into a cultural milieu unconnected to the group and appropriate to the life of citizens rather than group members. If this is so, we may wonder about the relation between the integrating mission of the state and the integration of individual subjective experience that I have considered the primary basis for judging institutions. This can be considered a part of the question of the connection between group identity and integration of subjective experience. If individuation means separation from the group, it means establishing boundaries separating into distinct units what were previously members of a single organism (the group). Where subjective experience was the experience of the group as expressed most notably in the ideas of group spirit and solidarity, subjective experience is now that of the individual. The separation of persons implied in the movement away from group membership demands a new centre for the integration of subjective experience, which we refer to as the individual. And, in this sense, we can say that the push toward cultural and political integration led by the state

has as its other side the integration of subjective experience at the level of the individual. If integration operates against the power of the group, it weakens the

group’s domination over the individual. This links political and social integration to the integration of subjective experience. Then, far from endangering the individual, as Friedman fears, integration is a necessary condition for securing the central experience that constitutes individuation. Yet, integration is only possible in this sense if the principle of individual subjective life as it appears for this particular individual is not inherently in conflict with that principle as it exists for others. That is, underlying the assumed conflict over the state, and thus the emergence of the state as a means of coercion, is the prior assumption that others and their ends constitute a threat to the individual’s attempt to achieve his or her ends. This is an assumption about the nature of the individual, one consistent as we have seen with the business mentality and the economic institutions of an

unregulated private enterprise

Uneven If the

economy.

development and global society

is not stateless, is it global in the rather than existing in the legal structure of a system of states? The movement toward integration, because it separates right from particular groups to make it universal, impels us toward large units. This movement calls into question the particular state as one linked to a particular nation, and rights that are particular to national cultures. The resulting ideal is the one expressed in the notion of universal human rights originating not in a particular nation, but in an international sense

normatively compelling economy answers to a single state,

that it

organization. Rights are particular to national and sub-national units so far as culture continues to assert its hegemony over ways of life rather than affording the freedom of opportunities yet undetermined. We can say, then, that the integration of a supranational culture hinges on the extent to which the particular national cultures have given up their hold over ways of life and offer instead only particular settings for individual freedom to develop in directions yet be determined. This movement progresses at different rates and achieves different degrees of success within different national and sub-national groups. Because of this, the development in the direction of a political and cultural unit appropriate to subjective freedom and the emancipation of the individual from the group is not uniform, but proceeds unevenly across geographic, social, and political space. Uneven development poses a problem for international integration. Those states that express most fully the principle of integration around the universalistic norm of freedom will find integration with states still committed to the hegemony of culture over ways of life a threat, just to

the latter will find integration with the more modern nations a threat cultural survival. Thus, for example, integration of a religious state with a secular state demands that the former give up the claims to hegemony embedded in religious belief, or that the latter restrict citizens to ways of life consistent with that hegemony. The persistence of the state system expresses the link between states and as

to

national cultures. It also expresses the wished for hegemony of those cultures, and the different degrees to which different states have achieved their emancipation from the fantasy of cultural hegemony over ways of life. Thus, the state system both protects the hegemony of the particular national culture within its borders, and undermines that hegemony by situating the particular culture within a setting of many cultures of many nations. The multiplication of cultural experience undermines the claim of culture to endow ways of life with moral standing, and thus weakens the hegemony of group culture over the individual. The processes just briefly summarized establish the relativism of moral judgment, that is, the judgment rooted in the morality of group life. It is not surprising, then, to find that these processes provoke various forms of philosophical relativism that express the insistence that since morality is group morality, there will be as many moralities as there are groups. Relativism stems, then, from the breakdown of the hegemony of the group. But it also insists on group hegemony, only now in the form of many groups, and thus fails to grasp the alternative made available by the loosening of the hold of the group over its members, which is the universality of creative living. Exploring this alternative has been my primary concern in this volume. When the putative universality of common life experience gives way, normative judgment can no longer seek to determine for us what is the good life, and therefore how we ought to lead our lives and how we ought to shape institutions that instantiate predetermined ways of life. For political economy since the time of Adam Smith, this has meant an attack on those institutions through which society imposes order and ends on its members. Such institutions can also allow collective moral judgment to overtly and consciously govern conduct. As an alternative, the early political economists favour institutions that, at best, yield a normatively compelling outcome as an unintended by-product of an activity guided by a self-interest that

particular

makes

no

claims

to

ethical

Yet, self-interest need

standing. be judged

to be without ethical standing, or the enemy of ethical conduct. Nor must the ethical standing of institutions other than the market be judged by their ability to impose ways of life on individuals. There is a self-interest that recognizes its limits in others. This is the interest in creative living explored here. We can conceive institutions that facilitate creativity and the self-interest associated with it rather than imposing group interests or norms on the whole. Indeed, the even

not

creativity can animate institutions, as it can ways of life made possible by those institutions. If we adopt this norm, we can retain what is valuable in the insights of the political economists regarding freedom, choice, and markets, without joining their attack on the state and celebration of an unregulated system of self-seeking. Freedom as creative living rather than freedom as the absence of limits will enable us to judge economic institutions by the opportunities they afford us and not by the constraints they do or do not impose on our choices. norm

of

Notes

1 Introduction 1What I refer

to

I have found the

here

as

the liberal

account

presented

image can be interpreted in various ways. in Unger (1975) particularly helpful.

2 Ends a line of thinking within the classical theory that treats subsistence primarily a matter of physical survival. Because, however, this way of thinking about subsistence runs into difficulty, the main classical thinkers eventually abandon it; see Levine (1998: Chapter 1). In a recent work. Sen equates capabilities with freedom, in this way making

1 There is need

2

as

freedom his central normative ideal (Sen 1999). term ‘disembedding’ has the disadvantage that it presumes speak of economy in the general way discussed at the end of the last chapter; though for Polanyi this is not a disadvantage. 4 I use the term ‘modern society’ here not to refer to a specific national experience (‘Western’ societies for example), but to refer to those societies organized to a significant extent around the ideal of individual self-determination. 5 Though the classical economists tend to lock the individual into a division of labour in a way that dismisses any possible element of autonomy. This is because they treat the division of labour as something given independently of the intersubjective system, particularly of exchange. This, then, requires that exchange and want adapt to the material reality of a preset division of labour. 6 These terms should not be confused, and important distinctions can be made between them. For present purposes, however, I will use them interchangeably. 7 Thinking this way assumes that self-interest is driven by greed, which it may be. But, to assume that self-interest is attached to greed assumes too much about the nature of the self and its interests. I consider this problem in Chapter 6. 8 If we distinguish difference from equality, we might make some progress with one problem Sen raises, which is why all ethical theory includes ‘equality’ on some level. The answer is that Sen has made equality synonymous with any consideration of persons as other than irreducibly particular, thus having some common quality as persons (‘personhood’), the distinctions between ethical theories being in what that quality is.

3 For

our

we can

purposes, the

9 The result is something like the effort tion

on

society by removing

the

to

eliminate the influence of

supply of drugs rather assumption that little

than

with demand, because of the human impulses that lead to addiction.

can

drug addicconcerning yourself

be done about the

10 Sen suggests we define poverty as ‘capability failure’ rather than wealth or basic need satisfaction (Sen 1992: 109). 11 For an interesting argument along these lines, see Zucker (2000).

of

amount

12 There may, of course, be different types of corn, in which case corn is also universal. This does not bear on the argument advanced here however.

a

13 We may consider this capacity innate in the sense that humans are typically born with the potential to develop the Capacity, though the potential may or may not be allowed and enabled to develop this way. We could say, then, that the potential is universal in Nussbaum’s sense, though neither the capacity

itself

nor

its normative

14 I have borrowed the

significance is universal in this sense. subjective freedom from Hegel, who

term

different, though related 3 The

quality

1 The

of

opposition

sense

uses

it in

a

(1952: 109).

subjective experience drawn here is

arguably

too

sharp.

Awareness also

depends

on

interest, so cognitive experience is itself invested with the elements I here attribute to psychic life and emotional experience. 2 I refer here to Marx’s later writings on political economy. In some of his earlier work, the quality of subjective experience plays a primary role. 3 On integration as a normative ideal, see Hinshelwood (1997) and Levine (1999) .

4 I leave open in what

sense

talents and interests

are

original

and do

not

claim

entirely, a matter of physical endowment. distinguished the two normative constructs in the languages of morality (the norm of group membership) and ethics (the norm of individual subjectivity); see Levine (1999) 6 We can also question the assumption that alienation must be to subject oneself to another. This leaves out of account the possibility that we may be both victim and victimizer in our own self-estrangement. they

are, or are

5 I have elsewhere

.

4 Needs and

rights

problems in the idea that objective freedom can be created in subjective conditions. A system of law organized around the idea of freedom is unlikely to secure freedom where subjectivity is not well enough developed as an internal or psychic structure. For a critique of the idea of group rights, see Donnelly (1993). Objectively existing need not mean having a material or physical form. The object is outside us in that it exists for others. Thus an idea may be objective for us though it is not manifest in a material thing. Nonetheless, material form is important to objectivity, and even ideas eventually take on this form in one

1 There

are

also

the absence of its

2 3

way

4 For

or

another.

discussion of this distinction, 5 There may also be a point at which a

tion the individual’s

capacity

to

see

French (1993).

impairment of subjectivity calls into queshave and exercise rights. When we limit the

rights of criminals, we clearly insist that their impairment does not so much bestow additional rights, but jeopardizes the rights we consider universal. It is important to consider at what point impairment of subjectivity makes the individual a danger to self or others and thus means that participation in the system of right must be in some way restricted. This limitation on right carries a claim for support as much as does the limit imposed by impairment for the individual’s ability to take advantage of the system of right for creative living. 6 Arguments for rights of this kind can be found in Plant (1986) Sadurski (1986) and Copp (1992). 7 It is also the case that those whose subjectivity is intact will at times (due for example to illness or unemployment) need to have their welfare secured by means other than the exercise of right. I consider the security of those whose ,

,

subjectivity is not impaired in Chapter 7. Clearly, what I say here applies only when we accept the distinction between need and right and that need does not create right. 9 For a discussion of the system of commodity production as a subjective

8

(social) rather than material-technical order, (1988). 5 State and is

3 4

5

6

7

Levine (1978) and Winfield

society

term society to refer to what Hegel terms ‘civil society’, which of the system pursuit of private interest. In this connection, we might also consider the ideal of the hermeneutic state whose task is to interpret sacred texts, whether those be the constituting myths of the group, or a written constitution produced by its founders. Here, also, the idea is to restrict the state to thinking what has already been thought for it. For a discussion of the idea of a closed system, see Fairbairn (1958) Fear of deprivation can become a fear of desire since desire leads us toward the object we fear we will lose. If the fear of loss is great enough, then desire provokes that fear and becomes something to fear. The distinction to which I have just alluded has been formulated in the language of narcissism. The different kinds of self-interest express different types of narcissism, which Otto Kernberg refers to as pathological and healthy narcissism (1975). The idea of want without limit actually contains two different ideas, and it will prove important to distinguish between them. In the first, want without limit means a want for all things. In the second, want without limit means a want that is not already given or predetermined for the individual, but the expression of his or her own creative capacities and unique identity. For the present, I will focus on the first sense of limitless want, which has a special connection to the idea of a closed system. This language is strongly implicated in Hobbes’s theory of the state, where

1 I 2

see

am

using

the

a

.

greed plays a primary role into determining the form 8 I do

not

consider here the

in

shaping the human motivations that then enter political association must adopt. international setting in which rights can exist by

that

agreement among states. 9 The capacity for ethical conduct is closely linked with Lawrence idea of moral judgment, see Kohlberg (1971). The difference is that

Kohlberg’s Kohlberg’s

focus is ture

6

cognitive development, psychic meaning.

on

and

Capitalism

and the

where the

emphasis

here is

on

psychic

struc-

good society

use the term paranoid to refer not to delusions of persecution, but to the use of the defences of splitting, projection, and introjection to cope with the prevalence of powerful aggressive impulses (see Laplanche and Pontalis 1973). On normal and pathological narcissism, see Mitchell (1988 : 182) and Kernberg (1975). Following Melanie Klein and Ronald Fairbairn, we could refer to the psychic effort involved in this isolation of ourselves from our experience as a schizoid defence (see Fairbairn 1952: Chapter 1). Integration refers here to reclaiming the split off and disavowed aspects of the self. Or, it gets resolved by transferring the most alienating labour to others: workers in other (less developed) countries, or immigrant workers (internal others). Though some attention is paid there to skilled labour, emphasis is never placed on the idea that work can express the worker’s creative capacities. I explore the paranoid quality of public life in Levine (1999) Freud, of course, argues that repression is the necessary basis of civilization (Freud 1961 ). I have elsewhere explored the celebration of the self and its interests in the post-classical theory, and shown how it too is deeply problematic (Levine 1998 ). Because a society becomes good by splitting off and projecting outside what is bad in it, a society can only be good in relation to one that is bad. This splitting of good and bad is typical of the paranoid situation already considered. We can readily see, then, the powerful connection binding the good

1 I

2 3

4 5

6 7 8

9 10

.

capitalism, which is its opposite. developed in the following paragraphs is a variant on one that was important in nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century social thought; see particularly Durkheim (1984) Yet, in practice, participation creates significant opportunity to exclude others by providing a public forum and captive audience for those with a need to society

to

11 The distinction

.

12

dominate. 13 On this aspect of the

spirit of capitalism,

see

Tawney (1962).

7 Income from work and social insurance

only applies for a finite identity that can be maintained by a finite amount of income. Finite identity in this sense is not inevitable in a capitalistic society, where it is also possible for the individual to shape a purpose in life not around finite identity, but around the limitless accumulation of wealth 2 Here, we are of course concerned with individual identity and with the income needed to sustain it. The idea of a standard of living linked to identity is not limited to individual identity, as we saw when we considered the subsistence as the means to satisfy the needs of group identity. 1 This

an important exception to this, which is the possibility of acquiring low-wage labour abroad. I will not take up the implications of the various ways of using foreign labour here. Alternatively, we may be asking whether those who are employed would find it in their self-interest to provide support for the unemployed.

3 There is

4

8

Justice 1 A

and economic

good example of

the

democracy interpretation referred

to

in this

and Gintis (1986) especially Chapter 1. 2 The identification referred to here is frequently the

paragraph

is Bowles

,

sort

that seeks comfort for

feeling of deprivation by displacing it onto others, where we can deal it in a less personal way that does not engage the damage we feel we suffered, but only that suffered by others. Such identification also, of

our own

with have

course, uses others

observed, is

a

form

for

our

ends, and, in this

exploitation. chapter, I consider what,

sense, as has sometimes

been

or

3 At the end of this in making the economy

more

more

concretely, might be implied

democratic.

4 This is a major theme in Freud’s essay on group psychology (Freud 1959). 5 For a fuller discussion of the connection between abstract thinking and the capacity for ethical conduct, see Kohlberg (1971). 6 For a discussion of regression in groups, see Eisold (1985). For a discussion of group phenomena in connection to relevant issues in political theory, see Alford (1994). 7 This is, admittedly, an odd use of the term political economy, which traditionally refers to the difference between a national economy and a family economy. For the classical economists, including Marx, a political economy is not at all political in the sense considered here. The non-political nature of the economy followed, for these thinkers, from what Karl Polanyi refers to as the ‘disembedding’ of the economy from non-economic social relations. This disembedding is characteristic of modernity. Without the disembedding of the economy, which makes the economy a separate sphere, there would be no political economy. Marx was very much the classical economist when he defined political economy as the study of the ‘anatomy of civil society’, thus invoking Hegel’s notion of civil society (a non-political realm) in defining his subject matter.

9 The economy: national, international, 1 It is for this individual the

state.

as

reason

global

that Durkheim (1958) insists that the emergence of the state implies a growth in the responsibilities of

the end of the

References

Alford C. Fred ( 1994 ) Group Psychology and Political Theory New Haven : Yale ,

,

Press

University

.

Barber Benjamin ( 1984 ) Strong Democracy Berkeley : University of California Press Christian ( 1982 ) Self-Respect as a Human Right: Thoughts on the Dialectics of Wants and Needs in the Struggle for Human Community ’. Unman Rights Quarterly 4 1 : 53 - 75 Bion W. R. ( 1961 ) Experiences in Groups London : Routledge Boris Harold ( 1994 ) Envy Northvale, N.J. : Jason Aronson Bowles Samuel David Gordon and Thomas Weisskopf ( 1983 ) Beyond the Wasteland .

,

,

Bay

‘

,

.

,

.

,

,

.

,

,

,

,

Garden , —

City,

,

,

N.Y. : Anchor Press

.

and Herbert Gintis ( 1986 ) Democracy and Capitalism New York Basic Books James and Gordon Tullock ( 1962 ) The Calculus of Consent Ann Arbor : ,

Buchanan

.

,

,

,

University of Michigan Press Copp David ( 1992 ) The Right to an Adequate Standard of Living: Justice, Autonomy, and the Basic Needs ’, in E. Paul F. Miller and J. Paul (eds) Economic Rights Cambridge : Cambridge University Press Dahl Robert ( 1956 ) A Preface to Democratic Theory Chicago University of Chicago .

‘

,

,

,

.

,

,

,

Press

,

.

—( 1985 ) A Preface to Economic Democracy Berkeley University of California Press Sidney ( 1979 ) Basic Needs or Comprehensive Development: Should the UNDP Have a Development Strategy? ’, World Development 7 3 : 291 308 Diamond Michael ( 1997 ) Administrative Assault: A Contemporary Psychoanalytic View of Violence and Aggression in the Workplace ’, American Review of Public Administration 27 3 : 228 - 47 Donnelly Jack ( 1993 ) Third Generation Rights ’, in C. Brolmann et al. (eds) People ,

Dell

.

,

‘

,

—

.

,

‘

,

.

,

‘

,

and Minorities in International Law The Netherlands : Kluwer Academic Press ,

.

Durkheim Emile ( 1958 ) Professional Ethics and Civic Morals Glencoe, 111 .: The Free ,

Press

,

.

—( 1984 ) The Division of Labour in Society New York : The Free Press Dymski Gary and John Elliott ( 1989 ) Capitalism and the Democratic Economy ’, Social Philosophy and Policy 6 : 140 - 64 Eisold Kenneth ( 1985 ) Recovering Bion’s Contributions to Group Analysis ’, in A. Colman and M. Geller (eds) Group Relations Reader 2 Washington, D.C. : .

,

‘

,

.

‘

,

,

A.K. Rice Institute

.

Erikson Erik ( 1964 ) Insight and Responsibility New York : W.W. Norton —( 1980 ) Identity and the Life Cycle New York : W.W. Norton ,

,

,

.

.

Fairbairn W. R. D. ( 1952 ) Psychoanalytic Studies of the Personality London : Routledge ,

,

Kegan

&

Paul

.

‘

—( 1958 ) On the Nature and Aims of Psychoanalytic Treatment’ Internatoinal Journal of Psycho-Analysis XXXIX V : 374 - 85 Fitzgerald E. V. K. ( 1985 ) Stabilization and Economic Justice ’, in K. Kim and David Ruccio (eds) Debt and Development in Latin America Notre Dame, Indiana : ,

.

,

‘

,

,

Notre Dame

University Press French Sally ( 1993 ) Disability, Impairment or Something in J. Swain et al. (eds) Disabling Barriers Enabling Environments .

‘

Between ?’, in

,

—

Publications Freud

WAV. Norton

Sage

and the

Analysis of the Ego

New York :

,

.

—( 1961 ) Civilization and Its Discontents Norton

London :

.

Sigmund ( 1959 ) Group Psychology

,

,

J. Strachey

trans.

,

,

New York : W.W.

.

Friedman Milton ( 1982 ) Press ,

Capitalism

and Freedom

Chicago : University of Chicago

,

.

‘

Geertz Clifford ( 1963 ) The Integrative Revolution ’, in C. Geertz (ed.) Old Societies and New States New York : Free Press ,

.

,

Gellner Ernest ( 1983 ) Nations and Nationalism Ithaca : Cornell University Press Gilpin Robert ( 1987 ) The Political Economy of International Relations Princeton : ,

.

,

,

,

Princeton University Press Hegel G. W. F. ( 1952 ) Hegel’s Philosophy of Right trans. T.M. Knox Oxford : Oxford University Press Hinshelwood R. D. ( 1997 ) Therapy or Coercion London : Karnac Books Kernberg Otto ( 1975 ) Borderline Conditions and Pathological Narcissism New York : Jason Aronson Kohlberg Lawrence ( 1971 ) From is to Ought ’, in T. Mischel (ed.) Cognitive Development and Epistemology New York : Academic Press Kohut H. ( 1977 ) The Restoration of the Self New York : International Universities .

,

,

,

.

,

.

,

,

,

.

‘

,

.

,

,

Press

,

.

and J.-B. Pontalis ( 1973 ) The Language Nicholson-Smith New York : W.W. Norton

Laplanche J. ,

of Psycho-analysis

,

D.

trans.

.

,

Jonathan ( 1990 ) Love and its Place in Nature New York : Noonday Press Levine David P. ( 1978 and 1981 ) Economic Theory Vols 1 and 2, London : Routledge & Kegan Paul Lear

,

.

,

,

,

.

(— 1997 ) Self-Seeking and the Pursuit ofJustice Aldershot : Ashgate Press —( 1998 ) Subjectivity in Political Economy London : Routledge —( 1999 ) The Capacity for Ethical Conduct ’, Psychoanalytic Studies 1 1 : 73 85 Lifton Robert J. ( 1993 ) The Protean Self New York : Basic Books Linton Simi ( 1998 ) Claiming Disability New York : New York University .

,

.

,

‘

—

.

,

,

.

,

,

Press

,

.

Locke John ( 1955 ) Second Treatise on Government Chicago : Gateway Editions Loewald Hans ( 1980 ) Papers on Psychoanalysis New Haven : Yale University Press Lyth Isabel Menzies ( 1988 ) Containing Anxiety in Institutions London : Free Associations Books Marx Karl ( 1977 ) Karl Marx: Selected Writings D. McLellan (ed.), Oxford : Oxford ,

.

,

,

.

,

,

,

.

,

,

University Press Mitchell Stephen ( 1988 ) Relational Concepts Harvard University Press .

,

.

in

Psychoanalysis Cambridge, ,

Mass. :

Nussbaum

Martha ( 1995 ) Women, Culture and Development: A Study of Human Capabilities Oxford : Oxford University Press Plant Raymond ( 1986 ) Needs, Agency and Rights ’, in C.J.G. Sampford and D.J. Galligan (eds) Law, Rights and the Welfare State Wolfeboro, N.H. : Croom Helm Polanyi Karl ( 1957 ) Aristotle Discovers the Economy ’, in K. Polanyi (ed.) Trade and Market in the Early Empires Chicago : Henry Regnery Rawls John ( 1971 ) A Theory ofJustice Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press Riviere Joan ( 1964 ) Hate, Greed, and Aggression ’, in M. Klein and J. Riviere Love, Hate and Reparation New York : W.W. Norton Sadurski Wojciech ( 1986 ) Economic Rights and Basic Needs ’, in C.J.G. Sampford and D.J. Galligan (eds) Law, Rights and the Welfare State London : Croom Helm Sahlins Marshall ( 1972 ) Stoneage Economics Chicago : Aldine Sen Amartya ( 1992 ) Inequality Re-examined Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University ,

.

,

‘

,

.

,

‘

,

.

,

,

.

,

‘

,

,

.

,

‘

,

.

,

,

.

,

,

,

Press

.

—( 1999 ) Development as Freedom New York : Alfred A. Knopf Nina ( 1994 ) Ownership and Management ’, in P. Davidson and J. Kregel (eds) Employment, Growth, and Finance Aldershot : Edward Elgar Stewart Frances ( 1989 ) Basic Need Strategies, Human Rights, and the Right to Development ’, Human Rights Quarterly 11 : 347 74 Tawney R. H. ( 1962 ) Religion and the Rise of Capitalism Gloucester : Peter Smith Unger Roberto ( 1975 ) Knowledge and Politics New York : The Free Press Weber Max ( 1958 ) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism trans. T. Parsons New York : Scribners Winfield Richard ( 1988 ) The Just Economy London : Routledge Winnicott Donald ( 1971 ) The Use of an Object and Relating through Identifications ’, in Playing and Reality London : Routledge & Kegan Paul —( 1986 ) Home is Where We Start From New York : W.W. Norton Wood Geoff ( 1997 ) States without Citizens: The Problem of the Franchise State ’, in D. Hulme and M. Edwards (eds) NGOs, States and Donors New York: St .

,

Shapiro

‘

,

.

,

‘

,

—

.

,

.

,

,

.

,

,

,

,

.

,

.

,

‘

,

.

,

.

,

‘

,

,

Martins

.

.

Yamin Alicia ,

Formulation

‘

Ely ( 1996 ) Defining Questions: Situating Issues of Power in the of a Right to Health under International Law ’, Human Rights

Quarterly 18 : 398 438 Zucker Ross ( 2000 ) Democratic DistributiveJustice Cambridge : Cambridge University —

.

,

Press

,

.

Index

Dahl, R. 126 Dell, S. 15 16 democracy 74 - 5 101- 2

agency 45

aggression 93 - 4 104

-

,

associations 126 autonomy,

133 - 4

,

136

,

119- 20 ; , economic and workplace 135 - 8 equated with government 120 ;se ,

freedom

see

Barber, B. 130 1 basic need 14 - 17 31 67- 8 120 basic situation 89 -98 104 105 Bion, W. 63 Boris, H. 78 Bowles, S. 127 business mentality 89 - 92 98

participation

-

,

,

denial of impairment 61- 2 , 64- 6 dependence: mutual 22 125 ; personal 17 30 153 122 , 76 deprivation desire 75 - 7

,

,

,

,

,

destruction, asger ion

,

27 54 5 59 61 63 96 7 99 104 112 ; uneven 148 50

development capabilities 17 - 19 35 51 2 56 7 62 ,

42 44 50

,

,

,

,

48

creative

108

,

; cognitive

,

,

,

,

capitalist 92 97 ,

economic determinism 98 - 9 economic policy 137 - 8 economics and politics 132 - 4 economy 8 - 9 100 ; depoliticized 132- 4 ; global 141 - 2 ; government control of 132 ; international 140 ; local 139 141 ; stateless 142 - 5 ; see

-

,

,

,

,

-

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

separation education 59 - 60

,

-

,

-

emotions 37

,

,

,

—

,

,

,

-

-

,

,

,

38

empathy 66

-

,

,

,

,

-

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

character structure 98 104 choice 13 , 45 55 citizens 128 129 - 30 civil society, see society classical economics 3 , 13 - 14 , 15- 16 , 22 26 73 89 99 116 17 149 151 closed circles 92 99 103 5 closed systems 75 153 coercion 48 128 134 community 27 28 40 44 80 82 , 99- 101 ; democratic 74 - 5 101- 3 , 124 5 129 32 ; see group competition 110 - 112 creativity 7 8 49 50 56 116 149 50 ; in labour 48 93 4 - 96- 7 108 115 116 culture 33 4 146 30 ,

-

-

,

,

140

,

,

-

capacity for ethical conduct 85 capitalism 26 89 - 98 100- 1 116

,

,

,

-

and emotional 36

,

,

Diamond, M. 94 difference 24 5 28 9 100 1 107 145 6 151 difference principle 121 disability 61 - 2 disinterest 5 - 6 division of labour 22 - 3 116 , 140 151 domination 116 134 drug addiction 152 Durkheim, E. 154 155

,

capacities:

-

,

-

,

-

-

-

,

-

,

,

envy 64

,

102

23 9 64 129 30 151

equality

-

,

-

,

101 2 -

,

,

128

,

Index Erikson, E. 20 ethics, see capacity for ethical conduct regard for others 5;

exchange: voluntary relationship 131

integration, see subjective experience, integration of interdependence 140

,

interest 6 37

ethical

as

,

expertise 132 138 5 - 6 47- 9 113- 14 145

42

74 76 132 ;

,

,

,

,

rates 133 -4 International Monetary Fund 121

,

justice 29 31 103- 4 119 29 -

-

,

family 3 - 4, 20 famine 124

70 1 -

,

see

,

interest

,

exploitation

,

self-interest

,

,

,

135 8

73

-

fate 94 95 fear 75 7

Kohlberg,

,

L. 153

Kohut, H. 38

-

Federal Reserve Board 133 - 4 137 free trade 141 freedom 17 18 23 27 28 31 5 40 45 6 51 2 116 17 134 142 3 150 151 ; see subjective freedom Freud, S. 64 154 155 Friedman, M. 142 - 3 145 ,

-

-

,

,

,

-

-

,

-

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

labour: alienation of 46 - 8 93- 6 98 ; of children 71 ; and income 108 ; unskilled 96 7 113 14 115 17 136 large-scale production 140 Lear, J. 37 liberal image of society 4 - 6 Lifton, R. 110 11 livelihood dependent on exchange 95 98 104 Locke, J. 73 81 83 ,

-

,

,

,

,

frustration 79

-

,

-

-

,

,

,

-

Geertz, C. 146 Gellner, E. 146 global society 148 50 good society 99 103 104 gratification, see satisfaction greed 77 9 151 group 2 3 7 8 15 19 26 29 30 100 104 124 5 128 136 147 149 ; identity 40 1 55 6 58 129 32 134 145 154 -

,

,

management: need for control

-

,

-

-

,

,

,

,

,

,

-

,

,

,

,

,

,

-

-

,

,

,

-

,

,

,

loss 78

-

-

,

,

,

by

104 markets 70 95 102 143 ; embeddedness of 2 19 ; failure of, 107 109 112 ; freedom of 1 19 23 74 91 139 141 ; regulated 91 Marx, Karl 4 5 - 6 19 25 26 29 32 37 77 96 114 116 17 152 155 ; on alienation 46 - 9 95- 6 ; on business mentality 90 mental life 36 Menzies Lyth, I. 103 modern society 17 24 - 5 26 27 28 32 4 52 55 96 99 107 151 morality 7 100 131 149 152 ,

,

,

,

-

,

,

-

,

G.W.F. 96

Hegel,

152

,

,

,

,

,

Hobbes, T. 153 honour 26

,

,

,

,

,

,

-

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

identification 100 122 125 131 134 155 identity 2 6 20 40 2 67 80 107 8 115 154 ,

,

,

,

,

—

,

,

,

,

,

,

-

,

,

,

ideology 131 2 impairment, see subjectivity -

,

to

84 ,

,

,

,

-

,

,

,

-

,

,

,

—

inequality,

see

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

narcissism 105 ; see self-interest narcissistic illusion 90 101 2 national integration 139 - 40 145- 7 need 56 - 7 , 96 ; and identity 108 ; see -

-

,

,

,

individual 3 6 8 20 25 29 44 57 8 97 105 6 107 8 131 134 ; integration of 147 8 ; separate from need 79 - 81 ; separate from organization 84 - 5 -

,

,

incentives 27 income 107 - 9 , 113 ; from work 115 ;

right

,

-

equality

institutional design 105 insurance 109 - 114

,

119 - 20

,

want

neoclassical economics 37 non-tariff barriers to trade 141 norms 29 Nussbaum, M. 17 19 31 -

,

152

,

32

,

50 62 ,

,

Index

objective freedom 34 54 56 ,

,

81

,

-

3

self 5 38 43 58 9 61 106 123 ; adaptability of 110 11 ; division in 39 ; finite 80 1 90 154 ; see -

,

,

152 16 - 17 , 69 , 117- 18 open systems 80 - 1 opportunity 20 24 28 30 - 1 32 56 116

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

-

,

oppression

30

34

,

,

94 122 145

,

,

,

character 104 ;situaion

paranoid 154 ;

89 98 103 104 ,

,

130

-

,

1

-

144

,

154 ;

,

democracy

people 95

101

,

Pluralism 128 - 9 Polanyi, K. 2 19

137 8 -

,

,

,

,

,

,

-

,

,

59

,

,

,

,

123

,

Steuart, J. 139 stewardship 60

70 ,

71

,

2 , 74 , 79 , 84 5 ,

-

-

113 , 117 18 Stewart, F. 15 subject 45 -

Rawls, J. 121 2 -

103 - 4

and

subjective:

132

recognition 53 59 100 123 - 4 131 regard for others 130 - 1 regression 99 101 ; in groups 131 ,

objective

103

subjective experience: enrichment and impoverishment of 45 47 65 94 154 ; integration of 44 - 5 47 58 61 99 147 8 subjective freedom 34 36 49 51 54 6 58 9 62 4 84 5 152 subjectivity 34 42 44 48 51 - 9 - 69 70 108 114 118 ; impairment of 60 6 69 112 115 17 152 3 ; structures of 57 62 3 68 9 ,

,

,

-

-

,

,

retirement 112 - 14 ,

,

,

,

-

Sahlins, Marshall 14 16 139 satisfaction 6 - 8 , 13 , 21 , 45 , 75 80 , ,

,

-

,

,

,

-

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

-

-

,

,

-

-

,

70 2 -

subsistence 15

,

56 ,93169-7501 ,

R.H. 16 20 truth 132

Tawney,

,

,

,

unemployment Unger, R. 151

-

,

,

,

92 97 113 schizoid defence 154

,

-

,

,

-

-

,

,

,

repression 97 99 104 ,

,

-

,

30 43 51 60 63 70 73 82 - 4 132 ; of criminals 152- 3 ; as limits to state and market 143 - 5 ; natural 81 ; workers’ 96 136 - 7 risk 114 15

,

,

,

relativism 149

,

,

system 148 - 50

state

,

-

-

,

139

statesman

-

saving 109

,

-

,

-

143

-

,

,

,

-

-

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

-

,

-

,

,

,

-

,

,

,

,

-

,

,

,

-

,

-

,

-

,

,

-

,

,

-

,

-

,

,

politics

,

,

-

separation

,

,

,

,

125 - 6 , 127 , 132 ; and economics 132 - 4 poor 121 4 138 popular economics 138 potential 32 , 42 , 44 , 54 , 56 - 7 , 60 , 63 4 , 80 , 152 112 poverty 13 14 28 103- 4 , power 51 69 70 113 14 , 134 , professional ethics 84 5 projection 64 5 91 93 102 property right 6 , 20 , 23 , 57 9 , 127 , 143 public choice 120

106

,

,

,

,

90

,

of workers 135 40 44 63 65

,

,

,

,

,

-

,

,

rights 29

,

,

,

,

100 151 155 political economy 3 - 4 73 85 99 127 132 139 149 155 ; see ,

,

43 85

,

,

2

,

,

-

-

reality testing

-

-

-

Plant, R. 68

,

47 9 97 99 152

,

self-interest 5 6 24 5 36 7 39 64 76 8 91 2 105 6 149 50 151 ; predatory 6 91 102 105 153 154 ; see interest Sen, Amartya 14 25 151 152 85 100 4 separation: of economy 1 , 127 - 8 132- 4 ; of persons 147 ; of state 74 5 82 85 service sector 117 Smith, A. 14 26 27 , 36 7 139 socialism 132 - 3 society 74 81 132 3 153 splitting 93 101 154 standard of living 83 4 107 154 60 73 7 79 81 5 139 40 state 22 142 7 state of nature 81

see emotions

passions,

self-alienation 44 self-awareness 41 self-boundaries 42 self-denial 98 self-determination self-esteem 26 39 76 7 136 ,

,

participation 101 2

,

subjective experience

.

reason

,

—

obligation

see

-

108 - 15

29

,

,

United Nations 54 83 universality 18 31 5 53 ,

-

,

-

,

6

Weber, M. 92 welfare 45 66 - 9 112 ; reform ,

,

103 4 wilful control 51 , 69 145 will 57 63 66 70 94 95 105 Winnicott, D. 49 - 50 -

vocation 108

vulnerability,

111

,

see

,

exploitation

2 - 3 6- 8 74 133 ; limitless 77 9 153 wealth: enough 24 27 ; growth of 97 ; need for 14 23 6 30 1 90 want

,

,

,

-

,

,

-

,

-

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

work, see labour worker’s fate 93 - 6 104 ,

,

104

,