49 pages • 1 hour read
Iris Marion YoungJustice and The Politics of Difference
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1990A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Introduction and Chapters 1-2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Introduction Summary
Young explores the implications of social movements such as the civil rights movements of the 1960s and 1970s for traditional concepts of justice. Seeking to shift the focus from distribution to the concepts of domination and oppression, Young wants justice to confront issues of decision-making, the division of labor, and culture. When some groups dominate and oppress others, a theory of justice must address group differences. Young does not seek to develop a theory of justice but instead uses critical theory to expose the problems with traditional liberal theories and imagine alternatives. Critical theory rejects the notion of universal values and argues that normative or value-based ideals are grounded in particular societies in historical time. Those particular ideals, which are embedded in a society, are used to criticize and ponder other possibilities. Postmodern theorists, who represent a school of academic thought that denies universal principles and is skeptical of abstract reason, invoke critical theory at times. Young embraces much but not all of postmodernism. Because some critical theorists posit a homogeneous public, for example, Young is careful to stipulate that she rejects some tenets of critical theory. She uses it as a tool of analysis only, as group differences are central to her argument.
In the Introduction, Young sketches the plan of her book and tells the reader how her argument will unfold. In her first chapter, she will highlight the limits of the distributive approach to justice, which she associates with the modern capitalist welfare state. That approach focuses on the distribution of material or economic goods. It does not apply well to processes and obscures issues of domination and oppression. She acknowledges that the distribution of material goods is important but argues that a conception of justice must extend beyond that to relational and procedural concerns. To broaden this conception, Young will define oppression in her second chapter to include five aspects—specifically, exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence. Because oppression happens to social groups, she will develop a concept of social groups in this chapter as well, arguing that the oppression of social groups results in part from the denial of difference. She will also introduce a broad conception of politics that includes “all aspects of institutional organization, public action, social practices and habits, and cultural meanings insofar as they are potentially subject to collective evaluation and decisionmaking” (9). In Chapter 3, Young will criticize welfare state capitalism for the depoliticization of public life and applaud new social movements for their efforts to “politicize vast areas of institutional, social, and cultural life” (10). In Chapter 4, Young will explain how the ideal of impartiality—an assumption of liberal theories of justice—denies differences and contributes to cultural imperialism by enabling a particular experience to claim universality and legitimacy.
In Chapter 5, Young will highlight “modern society’s denigration of the body” (11). Society judges some bodies beautiful while labeling others (often those of people belonging to oppressed groups) ugly. Only when oppressed groups culturally express themselves and project a positive self-image can differences be acknowledged and valued. In Chapter 6, Young will defend affirmative action as a means to counteract biases. However, she will object to the ways in which the affirmative-action debate legitimates the prevailing conception of justice: The notion of meritocracy, Young will argue, obscures political biases and leads to a hierarchical division of labor that separates task-defining from task-executing functions. In so doing, it contributes to exploitation, powerlessness, and cultural imperialism. In the next chapter, Young will note how the ideal of community suppresses difference and will promote the virtues of city life: heterogeneity, social differentiation without exclusion, eroticism, and publicity (13). As a result, Young will propose metro-regional rather than local governance. In the Epilogue, Young will ponder the application of her analysis to an international context (her focus throughout is socially situated in the late 20th-century US).
Stipulating that her passion for justice began with the feminist movement, Young states that she intends to speak from multiple positions. She is not speaking for others but is using her experience in several social movements and her discussions with others involved in those movements. She highlights the assumptions that she brings to her analysis. First, “basic equality in life situation for all persons is a moral value” (14); second, “there are deep injustices” in American society “that can be rectified only by basic institutional changes” (14); third, several groups are oppressed; and fourth, “structures of domination wrongfully pervade” (14) American society.
Chapter 1 Summary: “Displacing the Distributive Paradigm”
Liberal theories of justice focus on the distribution of benefits and burdens. As a result, they assume social atomism (or individualism) and a static conception of society. Young highlights two major problems with this approach. Because these theories dwell upon material goods, they ignore the context that helps to determine the distributive pattern. An adequate theory of justice must recognize the reproduction of a distributive pattern over time. For example, a pattern that awards prestigious positions to white males only must be flagged and the process questioned. Secondly, the distributive approach does not apply well to nonmaterial goods. It fails to represent them as a “function of social relations and processes” (16). There is a tendency to emphasize the distribution of material goods, such as medical care, when evaluating the just nature of a society: The distributive paradigm considers possessions and does not consider the actions of people.
Young provides several examples to highlight the poor application of the distributive paradigm to nonmaterial goods. Rights and opportunities are not possessions, and to speak of them as such does not make sense. Power is another concept that is relational and not a possession. It exists in action and is a complex concept. Often, a larger structure of agents and actions mediate between two actors (31). The distributive approach misses this complexity and fails to notice domination or the exclusion of people from participating in determining the context of their actions. While people are consumers, they are also actors, and that additional role must be a part of any concept of justice.
For these reasons, Young argues for broadening the concept of justice to include the institutional context. This would include “any structure or practices, the rules and norms that guide them, and the language and symbols that mediate social interactions within them, in institutions of state, family, and civil society, as well as the workplace” (22). Accordingly, she wants to include decision-making, the division of labor, and culture in the conception of justice. Democratic decision-making is a part of justice, so we must ask who has the authority to make decisions and what the rules and procedures are for making decisions (22). The division of labor not only encompasses the allocation of jobs, but how society defines the occupations themselves. Culture includes “the symbols, images, meanings, […] stories […] through which people express their experience and communicate with one another” (23). The status of people is impacted by the meaning people assign them. Questions of distribution remain important, but Young wants to expand the conception of justice to these other areas.
Such an expansion is consistent with her broad definition of politics, which includes not only the actions of the government but also the actions of other public actors. For example, when a large corporation decides to close a factory and therefore economically destroy a community, it is making a political decision. Young does not want the question of justice to be synonymous with the question of living the good life, as ancient philosophers assumed it was. Individuals and groups select their own preferences. However, social justice produces an institutional context in which all persons can develop and exercise their capacities, express their experiences, and participate in determining their actions and the conditions of their actions (37). Social justice is therefore the opposite of oppression and domination. Young defines oppression as systematic institutional and social processes that prevent people from learning and exercising skills in social settings or inhibit their ability to play and communicate with others or express their perspectives (38). Domination, meanwhile, “consists in institutional conditions which inhibit or prevent people from participating in determining their actions or the conditions of their actions” (38).
Chapter 2 Summary: “Five Faces of Oppression”
Oppression and domination are unjust. Oppression is a central complaint of social movements such as feminism, civil rights, and gay rights. All oppressed people “suffer some inhibition of their ability to develop and exercise their capacities and express their needs, thoughts, and feelings” (40). Oppression, as understood by the social movements in the 1960s and 1970s, is structural. It is not necessarily intentional (though it can be) but rather the result of unconscious assumptions and habits embedded in institutional rules. Racism, sexism, and ageism are all forms of oppression. Furthermore, every oppressed group has a privileged counterpart (42). Social groups are a collection of people who are distinguished from at least one other group by culture, practices, or way of life (43). Groups exist in relation to other groups and the members of the group identify with it; they are not simply an aggregate group that shares some attributes. Groups can form an individual’s sense of history and perspective. It is possible to exit and enter some social groups, such as when one leaves a religious group. All persons have multiple group memberships, which are important to their identity.
Young contends that there are five faces, or forms, of oppression. Each oppressed group might experience one or more of these forms. Exploitation creates “rules about what work is, who does what for whom, how work is compensated, and the social process by which the results of work are appropriated” (50), all of which create disempowerment and inequality for one group in relation to another. For example, the categorization of women’s work as unpaid or worth less than men’s work is a form of exploitation.
A second face is marginalization, or when a social group is “expelled from useful participation in social life” (53). Racial oppression and ageism often take this form. While marginalization causes material deprivation, it creates injustice as well by depriving people of rights and subjecting them to punitive treatment via welfare bureaucracies. It prevents people from exercising their capacities in socially legitimate ways (54).
A third form of oppression is powerlessness. People who do not participate in making the decisions that impact their lives are powerless. Typically, they do not have autonomy at work, nor do they get to use their judgment or expertise. They do what they are told and are disrespected. Young attributes this status to the working, nonprofessional class. In contrast, professionals, who are educated, have some autonomy at work and a higher social status that commands respect.
A fourth form of oppression is cultural imperialism, which “means to experience how the dominant meanings of a society render the particular perspective of one’s own group invisible at the same time as they stereotype one’s group and mark it out as the Other” (59). Society deems the dominant group’s experience normal, with other experiences considered inferior. Worse still, the dominant group negatively defines the experience of other groups via stereotypes. This oppression can cause group members to see themselves as the dominant group perceives them.
The final face of oppression is systematic violence. When members of a group live with the legitimate fear of attack, they experience this oppression. For example, women experience the fear of rape, while African Americans and Hispanic Americans fear police brutality. The social context makes this violence possible and accepted. When a member of a group is targeted for violence because of their identity, all members of that group are victimized and oppressed.
This conceptualization of oppression, Young says, avoids the reductionism of Marxism, which traces all forms of oppression to economic forms. It also avoids limiting itself to one definition that might exclude some oppressed groups. If any of these five factors are in place for a social group, that group is oppressed. It is possible to use these criteria to determine which groups are oppressed and how. They discourage comparison of groups’ oppression and instead value the experience of every group.
Introduction and Chapters 1-2 Analysis
A professor of political science, Young uses philosophical analysis to highlight the failings of prevailing theories of justice. She invokes critical theory, which rejects universal values and singular imperatives of rationality in favor of situational analysis grounded in historical and social contexts. As she acknowledges in the Introduction, she is influenced by her participation in the feminist movement and advocacy on behalf of other civil rights movements in the late 20th-century US. Her experience with those movements and the claims of those movements demonstrated to Young that contemporary notions of justice were wanting. With this work, she therefore sets out to explain why these theories fail to address the grievances of the many groups seeking civil rights in the late 20th century. Consistent with many academic works, Young provides a synopsis of her argument in the introduction. In the subsequent chapters, she elaborates on and adds details to her thesis.
Prior to World War II, social movements in the US were dominated by the labor movement. The fight was for economic justice in the form of better wages, reasonable hours, and safe working conditions, as well as for a social safety net for the unemployed and elderly. In the 1960s and 1970s, new social movements emerged focused not on economics, but on other issues related to human rights. Some of these movements had political goals, such as African Americans fighting for voting rights in the South, but they all had a broader agenda of cultural change. In addition to the movement for African-American civil rights, there were movements for women’s rights, gay liberation, American Indian rights, the rights of youth, and those of Mexican Americans. Later, those with disabilities organized to ensure their rights, as did older Americans. All gave voice to the injustice of their position in American society. Yet their complaints were not limited to the unfairness of their material conditions, though that was often a consequence of their poor treatment. Young explains that all such groups were fighting against oppression and domination.
A theory of justice therefore must accommodate these claims and go beyond questions about how goods and services are distributed in society. It must address decision-making processes, the division of labor, and culture. When it does so, it defines oppression and domination as unjust. Young gives theoretical voice and meaning to these terms so as to operationalize them. She contributes to the academic literature by defining five specific and observable components of oppression . Three of her criteria—exploitation, marginalization, and powerlessness—have connections to economics, while the other two—cultural imperialism and violence—do not and thus clearly expose the noneconomic aspects of justice and injustice. By highlighting the many faces of oppression, Young explicitly hopes to avoid unhelpful arguments about which social group is more oppressed. Writing in the 1990s, Young demonstrates prescience, as several movements in the 21st century, such as Black Lives Matter and #MeToo, focus on oppression in the forms of cultural imperialism and violence.
