Disadvantage (Oxford Political Theory) 1st Edition by Jonathan Wolff (PDF)

Description

What does it mean to be disadvantaged? Is it possible to compare different disadvantages? What should governments do to move their societies in the direction of equality, where equality is to be understood both in distributional and social terms? Linking rigorous analytical philosophical theory with broad empirical studies, including interviews conducted for the purpose of this book, Wolff and de-Shalit show how taking theory and practice together is essential if the theory is to be rich enough to be applied to the real world, and policy systematic enough to have purpose and justification. The book is in three parts. Part 1 presents a pluralist analysis of disadvantage, modifying the capability theory of Sen and Nussbaum to produce the ‘genuine opportunity for secure functioning’ view. This emphasizes risk and insecurity as a central component of disadvantage. Part 2 shows how to identify the least advantaged in society even on a pluralist view. The authors suggest that disadvantage ‘clusters’ in the sense that some people are disadvantaged in several different respects. Thus identifying the least advantaged is not as problematic as it appears to be. Conversely, a society which has ‘declustered disadvantaged’–in the sense that no group lacks secure functioning on a range of functionings–has made considerable progress in the direction of equality. Part 3 explores how to decluster disadvantage, by paying special attention to ‘corrosive disadvantages’–those disadvantages which cause further disadvantages–and ‘fertile functionings’–those which are likely to secure other functionings. In sum this books presents a refreshing new analysis of disadvantage, and puts forward proposals to help governments improve the lives of the least advantaged in their societies, thereby moving in the direction of equality.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Disadvantage makes an important contribution by introducing the concepts of clustering, “corrosive disadvantages” and “fertile functionings.” The authors neatly avoid the problems of indexing plural values by pointing out that clustering dynamics does a lot of the indexing work for the reformer. They make the further ingenious point that a society that has achieved genuine equality will be one where such clustering of disadvantages wouldn’t occur. There will still be disadvantages, but they wouldn’t be ruinous. The indexing problem wouldn’t be solved, but it also wouldn’t matter very much.Fertile functioning likewise works against the indeterminacy problems associated with plural value systems (like the capabilities approach the authors use). If certain functionings or capabilities can be identified that reliably tend to lead individuals to achieve other important functionings, then policy should focus first on promoting these fertile functionings. An example they use is affiliation. Being embedded within a social network–having friends and family, participating in groups–is an important functioning in its own right, but it also leads to better health, better security against misfortune, and access to work and leisure opportunities.The authors don’t mention this, but an immediate thought I had was that access to high quality legal and market institutions can be seen as such a fertile functioning as it leads to innovations in health and leisure in addition to the general abundance they produce and the intrinsically worthwhile security of civil and property rights.The method the authors use is interesting as well. They conducted in depth interviews with persons identified as being either disadvantaged themselves (by a prior reckoning of disadvantage) or as people close to disadvantage, like social workers. This wasn’t a scientific polling, as the authors were interested in more than just the participants’ pre-existing views. Pre-existing views were noted, but then they were asked to engage with the philosophically informed prompts. The results were used to inform the philosophical models themselves. The authors called this “public dynamic reflective equilibrium.”One complaint I had about the book was the apparently naive belief that there must always be a government policy response to identified disadvantage. They occasionally note where skeptics might make this criticism, but they don’t seem to take it seriously. As an example, in the discussion of affiliation, they note that the government obviously cannot coerce citizens into engaging with one another, but that that the government can subsidize various community organizations. But the authors left unremarked the problem of how to choose which organizations to subsidize, how such choices will inevitably lead to political contestation and quite possibly a scourge rent-seeking, and the various reasons citizens might object to their taxes being used to prop up organizations they have reason to oppose. After all, churches are one of the main sources of community belonging in the world and state support for specific churches at best creates a tension with obligations to neutrality.Finally, just as a side note, I was surprised at how dismissive the authors were of universal basic income guarantees. UBI proposals were dismissed as poorly targeted and on the basis that mere increases in wealth won’t solve various problems like lack of affiliation and poor health. But of course no fertile functioning is a silver bullet. For authors who otherwise go to great pains to emphasize the importance of being secure from risk (one of their italicized phrases is “(genuine) opportunities for (secure) functionings”), the advantages of a stable source of income to supplement other income and other more targeted programs should be obvious, but it’s completely ignored. Even if a person may not change their life much by an additional 10k/year (or whatever), the very knowledge that they had that income to fall back on in case of an emergency could alleviate much of the stress, health side effects, and relations of dependence and domination associated with poverty.

⭐Changed my thinking on poverty snd helped conceptualise capability approach for my work.

⭐Aside from the horrible navigation and responsiveness on kindles (I have a kindle touch from a while back), this $45 digital document doesn’t have hyperlinked footnotes. I guess that was too big a technical challenge. There are also numerous places in the text where the print is defective (for example, letters split vertically and separated). Does amazon accept kindle content returns?ps – and don’t bother to use google to go to web addresses inserted in references: the links contain garbage characters that require one to type in corrections.

⭐This book has definitely enriched my understanding of Sen and Nussbaum’s Capability Approach with its considerations about functionings being secure or insecure for persons. Before this book, it was rarely addressed that the Capabilities Approach needed to sustain functionings for persons; such a notion was merely assumed but never justified. What Wolff and De-Shalit bring to the table is this: that such capabilities should allow persons to reach certain functionings in a society and persons should be able to sustain functionings for long periods of time without unnecessarily risking them by being placed in ‘forced’ situations. If persons must place themselves in predicaments that endanger their functionings more so than others, then it is evident they are disadvantaged.The examples in this book were accessible and the book has an overall feel to it that can be appreciated by both a casual reader and an academic reader. The book reads like a progressive narrative with a “plot” or main idea of what it means to be disadvantaged, problematizing disadvantage, then reaching a “climax” where some solutions are suggested in trying to address issues of functionings being insecure due to not so carefully planned public policies, which later on Wolff and De-Shalit argue, should become inhumane and never be legislated. Though later on in the book, Wolff and De-Shalit give careful attention that fertile functionings are not known as well by policymakers as corrosive disadvantage.The strategy and argumentation in the book is also noteworthy. Wolff and De-Shalit commit to argue the existence of what they call fertile functioning and corrosive disadvantage where acquisition of some functionings naturally lead to other functionings while some insecurity of functionings cause loss or risk of loss to other functionings. The major thrust in their argument is this: prove the existence of these fertile functionings and corrosive disadvantages and society/government cannot help but to agree with their existence. Let their existence influence public policy where society will ensure that only fertile functionings are promoted.If you’re looking for a book that has concrete, exact, universal answers for legislation, you will be disappointed because it is not that kind of book. It is more a book that evokes persuasion to accept the existence of disadvantage, then through justification, show that disadvantage should not be perpetuated by public policies.This book has influenced the work of Martha Nussbaum in her new book Creating Capabilities. But ultimately I feel that reading this book has given me more respect for Nussbaum’s book because I read Nussbaum’s book initially expecting witty suggestions to create specific laws that would universally transcend cultural norms. Instead, Wolff and De-Shalit have shown me that the best way for democratic liberalism and policy change to take place is to simply prove the existence of injustices and benefits to society, then with education of these existential claims, legislators cannot help but to make laws that conform to this justification. Wolff and De-Shalit’s strategy was the same as Nussbaum’s and I find merit in this form of argumentation now. Great work and I hope to see this discourse continue in future books and conferences.

⭐I’d love to read this book on my kindle, but I’m not even going to sample it because I can’t afford it. The author must be completely academic in his interest not to contemplate the possibility of making it available at a reasonable price in digital. His thesis and analysis may be terrific, but it won’t be very useful – except to the privileged few.

⭐An excellent progression of capability theory, accessible and easy to read, very enjoyable

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