4.7: What about power and political economy?
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In section 4.6, I analysed the critique that the capability approach is too individualistic, and argued that this charge is based on a misunderstanding of different distinct types of individualism, as well as a flawed (and unduly limited) understanding of the potential for capability theories to include social structures as factors that explain varying levels of advantage between different people. However, there are two closely related critiques that must be addressed briefly: first, that the capability approach downplays power and social structures, and second, that capability theories divert our attention from the political economy of poverty and inequality, which is much more important than the measurement and evaluation of poverty and inequality. Let us analyse these two critiques in turn.
4.7.1 Which account of power and choice?
The first worry is that the capability approach is insufficiently critical of social constraints on people’s actions, and does not pay due attention to “global forces of power and local systems of oppression” (Koggel 2003). Put differently, the worry is that the capability approach does not pay sufficient attention to inequalities in power (Hill 2003). Similarly, there is also a worry that the capability approach could be used in combination with a stripped-down version of human choice. For example, despite Sen’s repeated criticism of choice as revealed preference, one could in principle make interpersonal comparisons of functionings that assume revealed preference theory: a person will choose from their option set what is best for them. But this ignores the fact that our choices are heavily influenced by patterns of expectations and social norms,7 as well as commitments we have to certain interests that do not necessarily affect our own advantage.8 Depending on the choice theory one adopts, the capability approach could lead to widely divergent normative conclusions (Robeyns 2000; 2001). Standard economics pays very little attention to the social and cultural constraints that impinge on people’s choices, in contrast to sociology, gender studies and cultural studies, among other disciplines. In political philosophy, one sees a similar split between the core of Anglo-American political philosophy, in which the concept of the self that is endorsed is that of a rational, autonomous agent whose own plans take precedence over things he finds as ‘given’ in his life, versus other traditions in philosophy that pay more attention to relations and the social embedding of individuals, including unjust structures in which one finds oneself, as well as mechanisms that reproduce power differences. The consequence is that it is possible to use functionings and capabilities as the evaluative space in combination with many different normative accounts of choice, with a widely divergent critical content.
Take as an example the choices made by men versus women between paid (labour market) or unpaid (care and household) work. In all societies women do much more household and care work, whereas men do much more paid work. Both kinds of work can generate a number of different functionings so that the largest capability set might perhaps be reached only by giving everyone the opportunity to combine both types of work. However, I would argue that in the world today, in which hardly any society allows people to combine market work and non-market work without having to make significant compromises when it comes to the quality of at least one of them, the labour market enables more (and more important) functionings than care work. These include psychological functionings like increased self-esteem; social functionings like having a social network; material functionings like being financially independent and securing one’s financial needs for one’s old age or in the event of divorce.9 Many schools in political philosophy and normative welfare economics have typically seen the gender division of labour as ethically unproblematic, in the sense that this division is seen as the result of men’s and women’s voluntary choices, which reflect their preferences. However, this is an inadequate way of explaining and evaluating this division, because gender-related structures and constraints convert this choice from an individual choice under perfect information into a collective decision under socially constructed constraints with imperfect information and asymmetrical risks. Moreover, evaluating the gender division of labour can only be done if we scrutinise the constraints on choice, and these may turn out to be very different for men and women.10 What is crucial for the discussion here is that both positive theories of the gender division of labour (which are choices made in modules B3, B4, and B5) bear different normative implications. If a housewife is held fully responsible for the fact that she works at home then the logical consequence would be that she had the capability to work in the labour market. However, if we embrace a theory of choice that focuses on gender specific constraints, then we will not hold the housewife fully responsible for her choice but acknowledge that her capability set was smaller and did not contain the possibility for a genuine choice to work in the labour market. It seems, thus, that it is perfectly possible to apply the capability approach in combination with different accounts of gender-specific constraints on choices.
By giving choice such a central position and making its place in wellbeing and social justice evaluations more explicit, the capability approach opens up a space for discussions of how certain choices are constrained by gender-related societal mechanisms and expectations. But again, the capability approach provides no guarantee for this: it depends on the choices made in modules B and C. For example, conservatives will want to integrate a conservative theory of gender relations within the capability approach, whereas for critical scholars it will be crucial to integrate a feminist account of gender relations, which includes an account of power. No doubt the two exercises will reach very different normative conclusions. In short, for scholars who defend a theory of human agency and social reality that challenges the status quo, one of the important tasks will be to negotiate which additional theories will be integrated in further specifications of the capability approach, especially the choices made in module C1.
The conclusion is that the core characteristics of the capability approach (as listed in module A) do not necessarily have significant implications for the role of power in capability theories and applications, which can include widely divergent views on social realities and interpersonal relations. Indeed, the fact that the capability approach interests both scholars who work in the libertarian tradition, as well as scholars who work in more critical traditions, illustrate this conclusion. My own personal conviction is that there is ample reason why we should not adopt a stripped-down view of the roles of social categories and social structures, and hence include a rich account of power that is supported by research in anthropology, sociology and other social sciences. But for everyone advancing a capability theory or application, it holds that they should defend their implicit social theories, and be willing to scrutinize them critically.
4.7.2 Should we prioritise analysing the political economy?
Capability scholars have been criticised for having the wrong priorities: by focusing so much on the metric of justice and on human diversity in the conversion of resources into capabilities, their approach draws attention away from huge inequalities in terms of resources (income, wealth) and therefore helps to preserve the (unjust) status quo. Thomas Pogge (2002) has specifically argued that the capability approach — Sen’s work in particular — overemphasises the role of national and local governments, thereby neglecting the huge injustices created by the global economic system and its institutional structures, such as global trade rules. Similarly, Alison Jaggar (2002, 2006) has argued that western philosophers, and Martha Nussbaum’s work on the capability approach in particular, should not prioritise the analysis of cultural factors constraining poor women’s lives, or listing what an ideal account of flourishing and justice would look like, but rather focus on the global economic order and other processes by which the rich countries are responsible for global poverty.
Pogge and Jaggar may have a point in their charge that capability theorists have paid insufficient attention to these issues, which have been discussed at length in the philosophical literature on global justice. But one might also argue that this is orthogonal to the issues about which the capability approach to social justice is most concerned, namely, how to make interpersonal comparisons of advantage for the purposes of social justice. One could, quite plausibly, hold the view that, since most capability theorists are concerned with human wellbeing, they should invest their energies in addressing the most urgent cases of injustice, investigate their underlying causal processes and mechanisms, and concentrate on the development of solutions. Using the modular view of the capability approach, this critique boils down to the view that we should concentrate on modules outside the core, namely those that explain certain unjust structures.
This is not, however, a valid critique of the capability approach as a general framework, nor does it recognise the role that capability theories can play in substantive debates about global justice and inequality. Rather, the critique should be reformulated to say that the most urgent issues of justice do not require theories of justice, but rather a political and economic analysis of unjust structures. But then we are no longer facing a critique of the capability approach, but rather a critique of our research priorities, which goes beyond the scope of this book.11 It is clear that the capability approach will not solve all the world’s problems, and that we should regard it as a tool to help us in analysing cases that need our attention, rather than an intellectual project that has become an end in itself for academics. However, it doesn’t follow therefore that all scholars developing the capability approach should become political economists — or malaria researchers, for that matter.
7 On the importance of social norms in explaining a person’s choice and behaviour, see e.g. Elster (1989); Anderson (2000a).
8 On commitment, see e.g. Sen (1977a, 1985b); Cudd (2014).
9 As is also suggested by the empirical findings of Enrica Chiappero-Martinetti (2000) who measured achieved functioning levels for Italy.
10 The seminal work in this area is Susan Okin’s book Justice, Gender and the Family (Okin 1989). On the gendered nature of the constraints on choice, see also Nancy Folbre (1994).
11 Serene Khader (2011, 24–30) faces similar critiques in her study of adaptive preferences (rather than the global economic order), and provides a sensible response to those worries.