Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government (Oxford Political Theory) by Pettit Philip

Author:Pettit, Philip [Pettit, Philip]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 1997-05-07T16:00:00+00:00

Personal independence

The third of our five areas of policy-making bears, not on what should be done by way of providing the collective goods of defence and protection, but rather on what it is necessary for the state to do in fostering the independence—the socioeconomic independence—of each individual person. To be independent in the intended sense is to have the wherewithal to operate normally and properly in your society without having to beg or borrow from others, and without having to depend on their beneficence. It is, in Amartya Sen’s (1985) illuminating account of these things, to have the basic capabilities that are required for functioning in the local culture. Or if it is not always to have the capabilities themselves, it is at least to have the things that those capabilities normally enable a person to secure (Cohen 1993).

The basic capabilities required for functioning in one society may be different from those required in another (Sen 1983; cf. Smith 1976: 870). You need to be able to provide yourself with enough to eat in any society, as you need to be able to keep yourself in clothes and to provide yourself with shelter. But what it is to have enough to eat and what it is to have adequate clothing or shelter will vary from one sort of society to another. And in any case there are all sorts of things that are necessary for functioning in one society which are not necessary in another.

The necessities of life in a contemporary developed society, for example, far outstrip what would have been required in a more traditional community. To function properly in a contemporary society you have to be able to read and write, to do basic mathematics, to have access to information about matters like work opportunities, medical facilities, transport services, weather forecasts, and to have the resources—a postal address or a telephone number—to make yourself available for contact by others—say, by potential employers. And to function properly in such a society you need also to know how to ascertain and assert your legal rights in dealing with the police, with your children’s school, or with your spouse; to know where you can bank your money and how you can use credit facilities; and to have the means of getting about in your local environment and of availing yourself of opportunities for work and leisure. As society has become more complex, and as the demands of successful social living have multiplied, so the standard necessary for assured access to a decent quality of life—the standard necessary for socioeconomic independence—has risen too.

If a republican state is committed to advancing the cause of freedom as non-domination among its citizens, then it must embrace a policy of promoting socioeconomic independence. I may be dependent on others for access to some of the things necessary for a decent quality of life without necessarily being dominated by them. I may not be dependent on any given individual or group, for example—my dependence may be anonymous, as it were—and so may not be exposed to domination by any agent in particular.

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