Title:
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Work, domination, and contemporary republicanism
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Republicanism - in particular the 'Roman' or 'neo-Roman' republicanism of Philip Pettit and Quentin Skinner - has brought notions of domination and power to the forefront of political philosophy. Its proponents argue that non-domination is a radical ideal, one that is demanding and practical, and which can ground an effective and open-ended "normative and institutional research program". I hope to show that non-domination in the sense envisioned by most mainstream republicans is indeed a radical ideal, but one that requires much more substantial change than many of those republicans envision. Specifically, this thesis intervenes in ongoing debates within and around contemporary republicanism about the demands of non-domination when it comes to the organisation of work. It has both a critical and a constructive element. Where they pay attention to the organisation of work at all, the typical republican strategy involves little more than strong workplace regulation and some very limited mechanisms of worker voice. This set of proposals is coupled with tentative support for a universal basic income, or other ways of lowering the exit costs of any given job. After defending the application of personal accounts of domination to the world of work, I critically assess this mainstream republican approach to the workplace before arguing in favour of two broad strategies that better satisfy a commitment to non-domination: the pursuit of workplace democracy and the reduction of work. I argue that both strategies ought to be cornerstones of an anti-domination approach to the workplace, whether from a republican perspective or not.
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