Capabilities, Contributive Injustice and Unequal Divisions of Labour

Abstract

It is argued that the radical implications of the capabilities approach have been widely overlooked, primarily because of a tendency for the approach to be combined with inadequate theories of society, particularly regarding the external conditions enabling or limiting capabilities. While the approach is accepted in principle, by turning to the theory of contributive justice, which focuses on what people are allowed or expected to contribute in terms of work, paid or unpaid, we can see that job shortages and unequal divisions of labour are a major cause of capability inequalities and deficiencies. In so doing the theory helps us to appreciate the radical implications of the capabilities approach.

Keywords:

• Capabilities
• Capability approach
• Economic development
• Inequality
• Well-being

Notes

For example, subsuming those causes of inequality which are not the product of individual free choice under the heading of ‘luck’ obscures the nature of these processes, many of which result from structures of power. Worse, it treats domination and exploitation as equivalent to random events such as accidents or illness, individualizing and depoliticizing them.

This is one of Menon's criticisms of Nussbaum's discussion of capabilities in relation to India (Menon, 2002). The rise to prominence of national competitiveness indices and the threat of capital flight have had an extraordinary disciplining effect on states, increasing the power of capital to veto democratic decisions and impose austerity measures.

While this pattern of emphasis is attractive to dominant interests, educational institutions, with their commitment to the development of individuals' capacities, can easily be co-opted to this neoliberal agenda (Andresen et al., 2010).

I am aware that skill is a contested concept and that some skills, especially those associated with women, are undervalued. Nevertheless, this does not mean that all acknowledged skill differences are purely illusory.

Gomberg (2007) also argues that task rotation makes work more meaningful not only because it provides variety, but also because it can allow workers to do several tasks that form interdependent parts of a unified process or project that is comprehensible to the worker. Doing your own photocopying when you need to do it as part of the completion of a project is more meaningful than doing everyone else's photocopying and nothing else. Again, structural conditions—in this case, job and workplace design—may inhibit or facilitate the realization of capabilities.

Some university departments construct points systems to measure individual contributions of teaching, administration and research so they can be roughly equalized (Sayer, 2008)

Note that the primary target of Marx and Engels' early critique of capitalism in The German Ideology was division of labour rather than class (Marx and Engels, 1973).

If distribution were more equal, employers would have a weaker financial incentive to strip out low-skilled tasks from skilled workers jobs and give them to lower paid workers.

British Prime Minister, David Cameron, a graduate of Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford and son of a rentier, has written a paper on eudaimonia in a collection on well-being and climate change, in which he skirts round the matter of structural inequality and argues that it is not government but societies, particularly families, that can improve our lives, though government can induce individuals and organizations to fulfil their wider social responsibilities (D. Cameron, 2008).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Andrew Sayer

Andrew Sayer is Professor of Social Theory and Political Economy in the Department of Sociology, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK