PPECMC2023Sextons

In his  Reconsidering Reparations , Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò offers a global, progressive approach to reparations. As Henry pointed out in his blog post, Táíwò offers a historical account that emphasizes the fundamental role that trans-Atlantic slavery and colonialism played in the development of the "global racial empire" (32). Táíwò also appeals to the notions of cumulative advantage and disadvantage to describe the nature of the relations between the oppressors and oppressed.  A significant aspect of Táíwò's argument is its recognition of the global scale of the system of cumulative advantage and disadvantage. He states: "At a global scale, these forces shift advantages across countries and continents, toward the so Global North. Disadvantages are shunted toward the developing nations, the Global South" (33). This is not to say, however, that the same system does not have implications at a lower, national scale. Táíwò argues that a nearly identical motion of cumulat...

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò's argument in Reconsidering Reparations  provides a compelling rejoinder to Thomas Nagel's argument in "The Problem of Global Justice." That said, I do not think that Táíwò's argument adequately establishes that we have an international obligation of social justice under the political conception of justice. According to Nagel, "some would argue that world economic interdependence already brings into force a version of the political conception of justice, so that Rawls' principles, to some alternative principles of distributive justice, are applicable over the domain covered by the existing cooperative institutions" (Nagel 137). This view—along with more philosophical argumentation and historical context—is Táíwò's perspective. Nagel rejects this perspective since, according to him, "mere economic interaction does not trigger the heightened standards of socioeconomic justice" (Nagel 138). Nagel argues that our current s...

Nagel provides an account of the current state of global justice, and how we may tackle its issues. He begins by leveraging Hobbesian ideology to demonstrate how justice can be conceived of as contingent upon a sovereign state. He then contrasts cosmopolitan and 'political' justice, explaining that cosmopolitan justice refers to the idea that "the institutions to which the standards of justice can be applied are instruments for the fulfillment of that duty" (119) of equal concern for human beings. Political justice regards justice as a political value, a virtue of political institutions, and claims that the existence of the sovereign is what allows justice to be applied. He uses both of these views, as well as Hobbes' view to demonstrate that "global justice would require global sovereignty" (122). The cosmopolitan and political view call for global sovereignty in different ways, but both do so nonetheless. There is more in his account, but these aspects...

  When considering the duties we owe to one another and the requirements of global justice, I found Nagel’s exploration of the difference between cosmopolitanism and the political view fascinating. The central question Nagel seems to be grappling with is one of extension: should the egalitarian principles of justice be coherently extended from the internal practices of nation-states to a global arena? What is the moral unit of justice, individuals or societies? What levels of duty and justice do we owe to everyone vs. what we owe fellow citizens of our state? At first thought, the cosmopolitan framework seems natural to me. Adopting a Rawlsian perspective, it is unjust to allow factors that are arbitrary from a moral point of view to impact inequality and opportunity. In society, this means that we adopt principles of justice to protect each other’s statuses as moral beings, and the difference principle ensures protection for the most vulnerable groups. Thus, it seems natural that,...

  Thomas Nagel’s The Problem of Global Justice considers the limits of distributive justice on a global scale. One key idea that Nagel speaks to is the notion of responsibility. Nagel claims that each individual in a society is given a role in the “collective life” of a society (129). Such a role imposes upon individuals both a responsibility for society’s actions and a responsibility to obey law and conform to norms. Thus, if a society creates certain inequal circumstances, we are collectively responsible for such a scenario. Due to this responsibility, individuals must ask themselves whether they should accept society’s actions. Typically, this active engagement by individuals has a moral component (129). The demands which citizens place upon the state and vise vera create the positive obligation of justice. Critical to Nagel’s political conception, however, is that these obligations “reach no father than the demands do” (130). Of course, individuals posses a “minimal humanitar...

In The Problem of Global Justice Thomas Nagel explores how some of the major philosophies we've been learning in our class can be applied on the global level. He points out how there is a lack of philosophy on what to do between states and across national lines. Millions live in extreme poverty, for example. But most of our philosophy on justice centers around what to do within our state.  Some of the theory is what he calls "cosmopolitan" and is based off of rights and duties that should apply to any fellow human. But some is "political", meaning the duties are only obligations between people who associate together, usually applying in a nation state.  Philosophers like Hobbes and Rawls seem to have focused their minds to the question to the likes of "how should we organize a just society?" The important word in this question is "we". Hobbes, from England, and Rawls, from America, were both focused on what and who was around them. This could...

In "The Problem of Global Justice," Thomas Nagel provides a nice account that helps to differentiate certain liberal thinkers we have encountered throughout the semester. Nagel outlines the differences between the cosmopolitan and political conceptions of justice. On the cosmopolitan conception, "the demands of justice derive from an equal concern or a duty of fairness that we owe in principle to all our fellow human beings" (Nagel 119). Because we have a duty of fairness to everybody regardless of their nationality, the duty of justice extends globally. On the political conception, "justice is something we owe through our shared institutions only to those with whom we stand in a strong political relation (Nagel 121). On this account, our duty of justice is contingent upon whether we have an " associative  obligation" (Nagel 121) to someone. Consider our duty of care: we may say that I have a duty of care to my sister but not to Camille's sister. ...

  My post will be fairly short as it is just a clarifying question. In her response to Tyler Cowen, Anderson states that we should "let workers speak for themselves in the context of a system of workplace governance in which they have a voice" (Anderson 143). I am curious as to what that would look like. Anderson writes about labor unions in chapter 2 of Private Government , and while I like labor unions because they shift the balance of bargaining power in the direction of the workers, I am afraid that they are just that: a tool to help workers get more favorable outcomes out of transactions within the firm. Ultimately, that still relies on a market within the firm to uphold workers' rights, and I don't know if that is a safe bet.  Additionally, unions only work when the employer themself allows them, so how do we ensure that people who want to unionize can in the first place? I am also curious as to what role Anderson believes the state can have in securing workers...

As a response to Anderson, Economist Tyler Cowen makes some compelling arguments on why “Anderson’s portrait is too negative towards business and too unwilling to confront the relevant trade-offs square on.” (Cowen, 116) However, Anderson tries to counterargue by claiming that “market outcomes thereby grossly undervalue the costs to workers of private government.” (Anderson, 138) She makes all sorts of empirical and theoretical claims about how the “staggering scale of wage theft,” (Anderson, 140) the existence of sexual harassment in all industries, the dubious productivity effects of codetermination, and the lack of voice in economic modeling all point towards the need for“some kind of institutionalized voice at work.” (Anderson, 143) However, I argue that the extent to which autonomy, dignity, or any other freedoms are defined plays a crucial role in determining how unjust an employer-employee relationship really is. The way we define autonomy, dignity, and other freedoms has a sign...

I found Anderson’s Private Government very powerful in communicating the modern-day abuses that come from arbitrary and unaccountable government in the workplace. I was highly persuaded by her account, but an argument from Cowen’s rebuttal gave me significant pause. Cowen claims that “at the margins, the employer discretion leads to abuses, some of which are documented in Anderson’s piece. But those abuses are relatively few in number, and the gains for workers and customers from the firing discretion [of employers]—not just the gains for bosses—outweigh those costs” (112-113).   Perhaps the reason this argument really resonated with me was because I had lived it. Working as a crew member at Chipotle last summer, a colleague of mine would always take extended time to perform menial tasks during rush hour. He’d spend 45 minutes looking for extra cups in the storage room and consistently take 20 minute bathroom breaks. We were understaffed, which simultaneously gave him more power as...

In Private Government, Anderson argues that the current American workplace operates under private government. Anderson defines “private government” as “arbitrary, unaccountable power” that employers hold over employees. This is due to a pervasive ideology that Anderson argues “misrepresents the situation of workers in the economy, and that is thereby unable either to appreciate their complaints or to generate and properly evaluate possible remedies.” I agree with Anderson’s account of employees’ exploitation due to this structure, but I have one question about how she defines it. Anderson, I argue, defining private government’s power as arbitrary weakens her argument about the exploitation of this structure. It is not that private government is arbitrary; the danger with private government is that it systemically allows the exploitation of workers to enter the American workplace. For widespread harm to occur across several workplaces, I believe it weakens Anderson’s argument by claimin...

Having Anderson illustrate how bad ideology surrounding working environments has allowed for workers to accept gross injustices in the workplace has truly been enlightening. I agree with Anderson's rejection of Cowen's arguments of the need for efficiency, thus legitimizing the need for authority. Although I would love to further explore this debate, I am sure some of my other classmates can do a better job doing so. Instead, I will focus on one of the obstacles Anderson's response that "workers need some kind of institutionalized voice at work" (Anderson 144) faces. That is, the need to adjudicate between "the costs and benefits of alternative workplace constitutions" (Anderson 134).  Although I agree with Anderson that many of Cowen's arguments on efficiency in the workplace do not legitimize the unjust conditions and expectations placed on workers, I still think Cowen is right to question the efficiency of "labor unions, co-ops owned and run ...

 I'm not sure about my classmates, but in Anderson's work I trembled a few times. I found her conclusions and lenses of looking at the way people spend much of their lives to be awfully scary.  There is a sense in current times that we have it much less bad than earlier times. In high school I remember learning about the horrors of the late 1800s and early 1900s due to the effects of the industrial revolution. We learned about magnates Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller, and the horrendous factories where losing limbs, death, workplace-caused sickness, and fear of losing your job at any moment were commonplace. We learned about the circumstances that were so untenable that they gave rise to entire new ideas for governance like socialism and communism, intended to give power to workers and get rid of the unjust, massive inequality between the owners of capital and the workers.  We speak as if we've progressed today. Today we have anti-discrimination laws, OSHA, and diver...

In her chapter seven response to critics Kolodny and Cowen, Anderson reaffirms the focus of Private Government as on “the critique of an ideology that misrepresents the situation of workers in the economy, and that is thereby unable either to appreciate their complaints or to generate and properly evaluate possible remedies.” (119) I specifically want to focus on the argument she makes about the inability to appreciate the claims of employees. My inquiry comes in two parts: 1. Have sociopolitical issues become so intertwined with corporate positionality that the structures of private government have weakened? And thus, 2. Are we remiss to ignore investor and public interest in securing employee satisfaction?  On the first matter – In my view, the employee voice is becoming increasingly powerful against corporate authority by way of the ESG movement. I am curious as to how Anderson would qualify the strength of the ESG movement: does she agree that progressive cultural demands have ...

  As I was reading Anderson’s portrayal of the American workplace, I asked kept asking myself: Is there an incentive for American firms to establish better working conditions that promote republican freedom for their workers? Within chapter 6 response to Anderson, economist Tyler Cowen takes up this question. First, he criticizes Anderson’s overly negative portrayal of corporate impositions on worker dignity. Second, he makes the claim that many companies do go out of their way to protect and promote the freedom of their workers largely because it is in their best interest to do so. Through respecting the autonomy and dignity of their workers, firms are able “to attract and keep talent”, which should in turn drive growth for their company (114). Cowen’s analysis helps us to understand two critical points. First, that there are incentives for bosses within firms to promote and secure the well being of their employees. Second, that the incentive for companies establishing better w...

In Private Government, Elizabeth Anderson demonstrates a deep understanding of how post-industrial market conditions have contributed to the degradation of workers' rights and how the original free market ideologies represent an ideal of freedom we should strive for. Despite this, Anderson does not offer any alternative to the current market conditions that have squashed the ideals of a free market society. Yes, she offers an alternative to the current  workplace conditions  that market conditions (along with neglect from the state) have created. But that is a mere band-aid fix to the deeper issue of the dysfunction of modern capitalist economies. In this post, I will demonstrate how the systems created by post-industrial market society (namely the division of labor and profit as the primary metric of success) are what perpetuate worker abuses and urge Anderson to consider that they may need to be dismantled to ensure individual rights fully. I then expand my argument to offer...

Anderson's responses to her commenters are well-articulated and enable her to strengthen the points she makes in her lectures. I find her response to Cowen's argument particularly interesting. I appreciate that she points to the severity of the issues of private government. She argues: "Both workers' safety and their freedom of speech are thereby compromised by dictatorship at work" (136). She illuminates this point with several examples of corporations that demonstrate employers' arbitrary control over their employees. By doing so, she reveals the fallaciousness of Cowen's argument that private government may not be so bad given its benefits.  I feel compelled, however, to push on Anderson's argument on two fronts. First, in arguing against Cowen's assertion that "the market decides best" (138), Anderson states: "I believe that existing market orderings are distorted by the state's prior allocation of unaccountable power to empl...