This is one of those papers that quietly reorients the whole debate. Instead of treating equality as a cosmic accounting problem (“compensate brute luck, penalize choice”), she argues that this framing predictably turns into stigma, paternalism, and weird moral surveillance of people’s preferences and life-plans. Her alternative is democratic equality: equality as a relationship rather than a distribution pattern. Then, the question becomes: what social conditions let people stand as equals, i.e., not be vulnerable to domination, marginalization, exploitation, or exclusion from civil society? That pushes you toward capabilities and civic standing (education, access, dignity, participation), over mere transfers. I also liked her “joint production” move (i.e., in a modern division of labor, the Robinson Crusoe story (“I did it myself; I owe nothing”) is a convenient fiction that makes some common intuitions about injured workers, disability, and caretaking obligations look a lot less obvious). Curious how people here think this take changes current UBI / welfare-conditionality / gig-economy arguments.
This is one of those papers that quietly reorients the whole debate. Instead of treating equality as a cosmic accounting problem (“compensate brute luck, penalize choice”), she argues that this framing predictably turns into stigma, paternalism, and weird moral surveillance of people’s preferences and life-plans. Her alternative is democratic equality: equality as a relationship rather than a distribution pattern. Then, the question becomes: what social conditions let people stand as equals, i.e., not be vulnerable to domination, marginalization, exploitation, or exclusion from civil society? That pushes you toward capabilities and civic standing (education, access, dignity, participation), over mere transfers. I also liked her “joint production” move (i.e., in a modern division of labor, the Robinson Crusoe story (“I did it myself; I owe nothing”) is a convenient fiction that makes some common intuitions about injured workers, disability, and caretaking obligations look a lot less obvious). Curious how people here think this take changes current UBI / welfare-conditionality / gig-economy arguments.