Structural domination in the labor market
| Author | Lillian Cicerchia |
| Published date | 01 January 2022 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1474885119851094 |
| Date | 01 January 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article EJPT
Structural domination
in the labor market
Lillian Cicerchia
Fordham University, USA
Abstract
In recent years, there has been a wide-ranging debate about the neo-republican prin-
ciple of non-domination. Neo-republicans argue that domination is a capacity for one
to intentionally use arbitrary power to interfere in someone’s life. Critics of
neo-republicanism argue that this definition of freedom as non-domination precludes
a structural analysis of domination, which would explain and critique the ways in which
societies produce structural domination unintentionally. The article focuses on capital-
ism’s labor process and its labor markets. It argues that critics are correct to think that
the neo-republican principle of non-domination has an insufficient scope, but that an
alternative account of structural domination should still support the neo-republican
idea that agency must be involved. Otherwise, we might simply fail to explain the social
processes that reproduce structural domination. What is needed is to explain how the
labor process creates incentives for agents to intentionally produce structures that
have unintended, yet dominating effects, and in turn, how the intentions of agents
are conditioned by their social positions. Domination is thus agential and structural.
Keywords
Capitalism, labor republicanism, markets, neo-republicanism, structural domination
Introduction
In June 2016, in a little-known town called Normal, Illinois in the United States,
Mitsubishi Motors shut its doors as the last of the plant’s 1200 workers finished
their shifts. One hundred and seventy people signed their final paperwork
(see Chicago Tribune, 2016). According to the Chicago Tribune (Yarick and
Corresponding author:
Lillian Cicerchia, PhD Candidate, Philosophy Department, Fordham University 441 E, Fordham Road, Bronx,
New York 10458, USA.
Email: lcicerchia@fordham.edu
European Journal of Political Theory
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DOI: 10.1177/1474885119851094
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2022, Vol. 21(1) 4–24
Cancino, 2015), Mitsubishi had been lured to Normal in 1988 with US$249 million
in state and local subsidies. In 2004, Mitsubishi laid off a prior group of 1200
workers as it went from two working shifts to one. Over the next 10 years,
Mitsubishi phased out production at the plant, saying that the cause was declining
sales in the North American market and under-utilization of their production
capacity. In an effort to retain 1200 jobs, the state pledged US$30 million in tax
incentives over 10 years, plus vouchers and employee training funds. The citizens
of Illinois had paid for the work, and then the work left. The Tribune reports
asking the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity if it
would recoup the incentives. The department said it was “premature” to comment.
The Mitsubishi plant closure in Normal is a familiar story in the auto industry. As
such, it offers a useful starting point for a discussion on the issue of structural
domination because it is about something, well, normal. Scholars do not agree
about whether this all-too-ordinary situation is one of domination or why. In
recent years, there has been much debate about the neo-republican principle of
non-domination. Neo-republicans and their critics would disagree about whether
Mitsubishi had the capacity to dominate the people of Illinois, who depended on it
for jobs. Neo-republicans favor a strong state and regulated markets, but deny that,
in principle, markets are a source of domination. As they define it, domination must
be a capacity to use arbitrary power to intentionally interfere in someone’s life, and
capitalist markets need not grant such a capacity if they are sufficiently regulated.
On the other hand, critics have the strong intuition that no individual need have had
such a capacity for Mitsubishi to make the decisions that it did. Rather, social
structures, like markets, produce and reproduce injustice unintentionally. In aggre-
gate, many individual decisions can lead to unintended consequences that make
some people vulnerable to domination. The worry is that the situation is an instance
of a social structure reproducing domination, and despite its normalcy, it may not fit
into the paradigm of domination that neo-republicans describe.
In this article, I will focus on capitalism’s labor process and its labor market.
I argue that critics are correct to think that the neo-republican principle of non-
domination has an insufficient scope, but an alternative account of structural
domination must be agential to avoid mystifying the social processes that repro-
duce it. What is needed is to explain how the labor process creates incentives for
agents to intentionally produce structures that have unintended, yet dominating
effects, and in turn, how the intentions of agents are conditioned by their social
positions. Domination is thus agential and structural. My view has much in
common with the labor republican position revived recently by Alex Gourevitch
(2011, 2013, 2015), but I go beyond it by clarifying how capitalism inhibits collec-
tive action as a constitutive part of structural domination.
Freedom as non-domination and the market
Neo-republicans define domination in relation to their concept of freedom.
Freedom is the absence of someone having the capacity to arbitrarily and
5Cicerchia
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