The Shadow Of Unfairness

Many observers of Western democracies - from Thomas Piketty in Capital in the Twenty-first Century to proponents of compagn finance reform in the United States - have lamented the rise of plutocracy, claiming that putatively democratic, capitalist societies are moving ever closer to rule by and for the wealthy. These critics' common understanding seems to be that the movement toward plutocracy is not only a pernicious and growing phenomenon, but also one that might have been prevented. In this sequel to his prize-winning book, The Eyes of the People, Jeffrey Edward Green advances the polemical argument that plutocracy is a permanent feature of any liberal-democratic regime. Green draws on philosophy, history, social science, and literature to ask what democracy can mean in a world where it is understood that socioeconomic status to some degree will always determine opportunities for civic engagment and career advancenent. Under this shadow of unfairness, Green argues that the most advantaged are rightly subjected to compulsory public burdens. And just as provocatively, he urges ordinary citizens living in politics permanently darkened by plutocracy to acknowlege their second-class status and the uncomfortable civic ethics that come with it - specifically an ethics whereby the pursuit of egalitarianism is informed, at least in part, by indignation, envy, uncivil modes of discourse, and even the occassional suspension of politcal care. The Shadow of Unfairness is likely to unsettle all sides of the political and educational systems will always be tainted by socioeconomic inquality. - from dust jacket.

In this sequel to his prize-winning book, The Eyes of the People, Jeffrey Edward Green draws on philosophy, history, social science, and literature to ask what democracy can mean in a world where it is understood that socioeconomic status to some degree will always determine opportunities for civic engagement and career advancement. Under this shadow of unfairness, Green argues that the most advantaged class are rightly subjected to compulsory public burdens. And just as provocatively, he urges ordinary citizens living in polities permanently darkened by plutocracy to acknowledge their second-class status and the uncomfortable civic ethics that come with it -- specifically an ethics whereby the pursuit of egalitarianism is informed, at least in part, by indignation, envy, uncivil modes of discourse, and even the occasional suspension of political care. Deeply engaged in the history of political thought, The Shadow of Unfairness is still first and foremost an effort to illuminate present-day politics. With the plebeians of ancient Rome as his muse, Green develops a plebeian conception of contemporary liberal democracy, at once disenchanted yet idealistic in its insistence that the Few-Many distinction might be enlisted for progressive purpose. Green's analysis is likely to unsettle all sides of the political spectrum, but its focus looks beyond narrow partisan concerns and aims instead to understand what the ongoing quest for free and equal citizenship might require once it is accepted that our political and educational systems will always be tainted by socioeconomic inequality.

In this sequel to his prize-winning book, The Eyes of the People, Jeffrey Edward Green draws on philosophy, history, social science, and literature to ask what democracy can mean in a world where it is understood that socioeconomic status to some degree will always determine opportunities for civic engagement and career advancement. Under this shadow of unfairness, Green argues that the most advantaged class are rightly subjected to compulsory public burdens. And just as provocatively, he urges ordinary citizens living in polities permanently darkened by plutocracy to acknowledge their second-class status and the uncomfortable civic ethics that come with it -- specifically an ethics whereby the pursuit of egalitarianism is informed, at least in part, by indignation, envy, uncivil modes of discourse, and even the occasional suspension of political care. Deeply engaged in the history of political thought, The Shadow of Unfairness is still first and foremost an effort to illuminate present-day politics. With the plebeians of ancient Rome as his muse, Green develops a plebeian conception of contemporary liberal democracy, at once disenchanted yet idealistic in its insistence that the Few-Many distinction might be enlisted for progressive purpose. Green's analysis is likely to unsettle all sides of the political spectrum, but its focus looks beyond narrow partisan concerns and aims instead to understand what the ongoing quest for free and equal citizenship might require once it is accepted that our political and educational systems will always be tainted by socioeconomic inequality.

For centuries it has been assumed that democracy must refer to the empowerment of the People's voice. In this pioneering book, Jeffrey Edward Green makes the case for considering the People as an ocular entity rather than a vocal one. Green argues that it is both possible and desirable to understand democracy in terms of what the People gets to see instead of the traditional focus on what it gets to say.The Eyes of the People examines democracy from the perspective of everyday citizens in their everyday lives. While it is customary to understand the citizen as a decision-maker, in fact most citizens rarely engage in decision-making and do not even have clear views on most political issues. The ordinary citizen is not a decision-maker but a spectator who watches and listens to the select few empowered to decide. Grounded on this everyday phenomenon of spectatorship, The Eyes of the People constructs a democratic theory applicable to the way democracy is actually experienced by most people most of the time.In approaching democracy from the perspective of the People's eyes, Green rediscovers and rehabilitates a forgotten "plebiscitarian" alternative within the history of democratic thought. Building off the contributions of a wide range of thinkers-including Aristotle, Shakespeare, Benjamin Constant, Max Weber, Joseph Schumpeter, and many others-Green outlines a novel democratic paradigm centered on empowering the People's gaze through forcing politicians to appear in public under conditions they do not fully control.The Eyes of the People is at once a sweeping overview of the state of democratic theory and a call to rethink the meaning of democracy within the sociological and technological conditions of the twenty-first century.

"In the Shadow of Justice tells the story of how liberal political philosophy was transformed in the second half of the twentieth century under the influence of John Rawls. In this first-ever history of contemporary liberal theory, Katrina Forrester shows how liberal egalitarianism--a set of ideas about justice, equality, obligation, and the state--became dominant, and traces its emergence from the political and ideological context of the postwar United States and Britain. In the aftermath of the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War, Rawls's A Theory of Justice made a particular kind of liberalism essential to political philosophy. Using archival sources, Forrester explores the ascent and legacy of this form of liberalism by examining its origins in midcentury debates among American antistatists and British egalitarians. She traces the roots of contemporary theories of justice and inequality, civil disobedience, just war, global and intergenerational justice, and population ethics in the 1960s and '70s and beyond. In these years, political philosophers extended, developed, and reshaped this liberalism as they responded to challenges and alternatives on the left and right--from the New International Economic Order to the rise of the New Right. These thinkers remade political philosophy in ways that influenced not only their own trajectory but also that of their critics. Recasting the history of late twentieth-century political thought and providing novel interpretations and fresh perspectives on major political philosophers, In the Shadow of Justice offers a rigorous look at liberalism's ambitions and limits."--

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