Why economic agency matters: An account of structural domination in the economic realm

Abstract

Authors like Iris Young and Philip Pettit have come up with proposals for theorizing ‘structural injustice’ and social relations marred by ‘domination’. These authors provide conceptual tools for focusing on concrete economic structures and re-focus the debate about justice onto questions of power. In this article we build on their work, but we argue that a positive notion of economic agency is needed as a criterion for what makes economic structures dominating and potentially unjust. We propose a notion of economic agency, which we relate to a more general notion of autonomous agency to create a dual-level account. Domination in the economic sphere happens where individuals are deprived of their economic agency, to the extent that such agency is necessary to lead an autonomous life in general. Using the example of creditor-debtor relations we argue for the usefulness of this theoretical framework. Finally, we define injustices in terms of threshold levels of economic agency, the latter being spelled out in terms of a set of capabilities. This proposal overcomes the artificial boundaries between those theorizing ‘justice’ and those theorizing ‘power’ when analyzing the economic domain.

Property-owning democracy, market socialism and workplace democracy

“…Even in a just society groups might emerge, a managerial class or group of digital natives for instance, that come to control considerable economic resources like information assets. Those groups might use their economic power to amass sufficient political power to threaten the stability of a just society (Claassen & Herzog, 2019). Also unforeseeable institutional constraints can emerge.…”

The material conditions of non-domination: Property, independence, and the means of production

“…Various recent contributions to the literature advance interpretations of the requirements of economic independence that explicitly extend beyond the basic requirements of non-domination (Claassen & Herzog, 2021;O'Shea, 2019). The contrast between views of this kind and other positions can partly be attributed to a difference of opinion regarding the function of economic independence.…”

Socialist Republicanism

“…31 Structural domination happens when someone's socio-structural position leaves them without a reasonable alternative to being subjected to a master. 32 In structural domination, "an unequal structure of control over productive assets" leads to workers being "dominated by a number of agents, but not any single, given agent in particular." 33 So understood, structural domination compels the worker into a contract of employment, and then the arbitrary power of a particular boss leaves them personally dominated once they are so contracted.…”