Structural Domination and Freedom in the Labor Market: From Voluntariness to Independence

Abstract

The claim that workers are subject to structural domination in the labor market is a central contention of the recent radical turn in republican political theory, but it remains undertheorized. Two core components—the claim that workers have “no reasonable alternative” to selling their labor to capitalists and the relevance of exposure to potential interference in such cases—remain unclear. Without a more precise specification of the conditions of structural domination, it is difficult to assess how well republican prescriptions minimize it. I develop a revised defense of the central claim through an analysis of these components. I clarify what it is to have reasonable alternatives in the labor market but show that holding such options is insufficient to avoid structural domination. I argue that the dependence at the heart of structural domination can be constituted multifariously and develop an additional criterion directed at capturing such dependence in production.

Determination from Above

“…It seems obvious that the free will literature should be thinking about how to directly capture these threats. It may be unclear what interference/domination could mean for freedom when there is still more than one path technically available for agents, but there has been work by those thinking about structural domination on what it takes to have not just bare alternatives but reasonable alternatives (Bryan, 2023). And there are ways of expressing sourcehood concerns as well.…”

Domination at Work: Resisting the Radical Diagnosis

“…In Bryan's words, ‘[D]omination is best characterized not in terms of exposure to the possibility of particular kinds of interference but as a condition of dependence on the cooperation or permission of other agents to engage in productive activity’ (2023, 693). Non-domination requires meeting what Bryan calls the ‘independent production criterion’: when some agent, A, requires cooperation with others to engage in productive activity, these others will both (i) provide such cooperation and (ii) do so on terms that are controlled in the relevant sense by A (Bryan 2023, 699). To illustrate, in an economy where investment decisions by a company impact the livelihoods of workers in a particular town, and this company does not need to consider those worker's interests in its decisions, Bryan would say these workers are dependent on the company and thus dominated (assuming that the workers are unable to engage in productive activity through some alternative arrangement that reflects adequate control).…”

“…A growing group of theorists I call radical republicans agree that workers are dominated. However, unlike more moderate republicans, these radical republicans argue that the domination of workers is built into the capitalist system (Arnold 2017;Bryan 2023;Cicerchia 2022;Gourevitch 2013;Gourevitch 2015;Muldoon 2022;O'Shea 2020a). If capitalism is the cause of domination, the solution requires rejecting private ownership of the means of production.…”