Self-Responsibility: Transformations

Abstract

Self-responsibility is a concept of modern times; however, it has roots going back to ancient times. It points to the accountability of individuals for their actions. Therefore, it presupposes at least some degree of autonomy of the individual as a responsible member of the social fabric. That self-responsibility has changed significantly in modern times, and particularly during recent decades, is the main thesis of this article. In a first part, the concept of (self-)responsibility is examined briefly, and its different dimensions are pointed out. Recent transformations in the notion of self-responsibility are put forward as a hypothesis. Then the central part of this article addresses the question how welfare arrangements have been reorganized in recent decades as a result of the transformations in the concept of self-responsibility. Finally, I mention the main forms of resistance this new type of self-responsibility.

Introduction

The concept of (self-)responsibility means the accountability of an individual or collective actor for actions that have already been performed or are going to be performed in the future. In this short definition appear quite a number of dimensions, such as an individual versus a collective dimension, and a reference to the past but also to the future, concerning plans of actions. It is evident that responsibility points to actions and also to plans of actions. In other words, responsibility can be retrospective and prospective. However, the accountability of the actor can only depend on satisfactory fulfillment of the criteria set for the task, criteria either preestablished or elaborated during the process of acting or planning to act. However, in both cases, one has to refer to a normative dimension in the concept of responsibility. This normative dimension might, moreover, differ in the cases of individual and collective actors. These remarks show already the complexity of the concept of responsibility.

Related to this concept is that of autonomy, which points ideally to the capacity of human beings to reason self-consciously, to be self-reflective and self-determining. More in particular, autonomy designates the ability to deliberate, judge, choose, and act with regard to various courses of action, in private as well as public life.

The recent transformations in the nature of individual self-responsibility form the central point of this article. Therefore, the examination of the origins of responsibility in history and the so-called collective responsibility will be quite succinct. We know very little how power was exercised in hunter-gatherer societies; however, it seems quite certain that with the emergence of larger social entities, social and political power was mainly exercised in the name of religion, and only a very small degree of autonomy was possible for the individual members of such a collectivity. A greater degree of autonomy was first possible in (city-)states that were not based on religious legitimations. First experiments here seem to have been the city states of Greece (Held, 1987). Such experiments were however in any case quite limited.

Only in modern times have more elaborate experiments and conceptual innovations emerged. However, the notion of responsibility was, to begin with, mainly elaborated with regard to the exercise of political power (in city states or emerging national states) and applied to governments, which were conceived as responsible to and for citizens (Held, 1987). Individual responsibility certainly has roots going back a long time, but it was not designated as such. A discourse in terms of virtue was used, pointing to a moral or religious origin. And next to this discourse of virtue, there existed various versions of practical exercises applied to oneself for realizing a virtuous and good way of living. But such a discourse or such practices did not highlight the qualities of individuals as embedded in a social fabric, but more as members of holy communities or as manageable bodies. Only very slowly was the concept of individual responsibility elaborated in relation to the concept of the autonomy of individuals. Practically, this process meant a radical reordering of the social fabric, by many measures such as the separation of “fools” from “normal” individuals, the new identification of “criminals” as distinguished from law-respecting individuals, the identification of “minors,” the abolition of slavery, and many more. These processes are studied, for example, by Foucault in his books “Madness and Civilization” and “Discipline and Punish.” The elaboration of the concepts of autonomy and responsibility can be found in the works of philosophers such as Locke, Rousseau, Marx, and J. S. Mill. For example, in the historically emerging system of jurisdiction, persons can only be conceived as guilty when understanding clearly that what they have done is contrary to the law. (Self-)responsibility is therefore a concept related to autonomy.

In the context of this article I would like to designate this emerging concept of responsibility as the second phase of the historical elaboration of the concept (preceded by the practices and discourses on a good life and virtue, the first phase). The modern concept of self-responsibility was only elaborated completely during the 19th and 20th centuries, together with the emergence of democratic regimes, generalized forms of education, the requirements formulated for “able workers,” and the development of welfare arrangements. In theory, this was driven by liberalism and Marxism, which have a partially shared conception of autonomy (see Held, 1987, pp. 270-274). To summarize this: Self-responsibility as a concept was elaborated in relation to the concept of autonomy in modern times, in particular in Western capitalist market economies in liberal democratic states.

Clearly, the concepts of self-responsibility and autonomy go hand in hand with the invention the “individual,” one of the new central building blocks of modern liberalism (Siedentop, 2014) and a necessary ingredient in modern societies, but for whom, even as necessary building block (e.g., as the “responsible citizen”), isolated, the capabilities supposed by the concepts are totally impossible to develop or to exercise practically because they are historical inventions and can only be attributed to individuals completely embedded in a wide network of personal and social relations.

In the next part of this article, the second phase of the elaboration of (self-)responsibility is presented in relation to the establishment of welfare states. One can distinguish two subphases the first elaborates the theoretical responsibility of governments and citizens; the second subphase elaborates the self-responsibility of the modern citizen—who also holds social rights—in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In this article I concentrate directly on the modern form of self-responsibility.

The following and main part of this article—building on the author’s earlier insights on the life course, welfare arrangements, and inequality dynamics (de Graaf & Maier, 2015)—presents a further (third) phase of the elaboration of self-responsibility—a new, very individualized form of self-responsibility. The central thesis is that in recent decades we have witnessed this new form of self-responsibility becoming dominant in discourse and practice, one that applies to all individuals and is not only quite individualized but also more or less cut off from former linkages of solidarity.

The Responsible Citizen and Employee

Toward the end of the 19th century, generalized schooling, a well-trained work force and the first elements of welfare arrangements were instituted in the Western world. However, these transformations have only been completed after World War II. Important actors driving these developments were the state on the one hand, and the organized employees (unions) and employers on the other hand. The state provided general education and formulated the social welfare laws establishing the rights and duties of employees (labor laws and welfare arrangements), while organizations of employees and employers were often responsible for executing the established welfare arrangements such as unemployment and pension benefits. However, the particular constellations of political power and social conditions in various countries led to the establishment of different regimes of welfare arrangements (Esping-Andersen, 1990) such as the so-called liberal, continental, Scandinavian, and Southern European regimes.

Welfare arrangements define rights of citizens and employees, such as the right to a wage during illness (for a certain period) or the right to receive a pension, which imply the fact that there are resources available to fulfill these rights in terms of specific benefits attributed to those who are bearers of these rights. In general, there are almost no universal rights, with the exception of the right to elementary education and the right to medical help in case of life-threatening illness. All the other social rights are conditional and depend, for example, on the number of years of employment or the level of contributions employees (and employers) have paid into a specific welfare arrangement, such as pensions.

Some other general characteristics of social rights have already been briefly mentioned. First of all, citizens (and to some extent legal residents) and employees have rights to resources. Second, the sources of these resources are either taxes (such as to pay for elementary education) or contributions paid by employees and employers. Third, with a few exceptions, the rights are conditional. To claim such a right, these conditions have to be fulfilled. There are many conditions, such as length of employment, age, civil status, being ill (certified by a doctor), having lost employment, and so on.

A fourth characteristic is that welfare arrangements are linked to specific phases of the life course. For example, only children have the right to be enrolled in free elementary schooling, or only persons of a defined age can claim pensions. However, the life course has been historically rather well standardized into three main phases: education, work (e.g., after child labor was abolished), and finally retirement. Between these basic phases there are possibly some movements back and forth, such as in periods of unemployment or temporary illness. Moreover, this standardization was to begin with more or less fully gendered (in dependence on the welfare regime), because women were supposed to marry, have children, and care at home for their children and (working) men.

A fifth characteristic is that the right to receive benefits in case of significant, life course disturbing problems such as losing one’s means through illness, temporary unemployment, or poverty in old age, on a large enough scale can threaten the cohesion of the social fabric, so it has to be specified by social policy what problems of citizens are sufficient significant to justify the guarantee of intervention.

A sixth, more specific characteristic of these welfare arrangements is the objective of the arrangements. All these arrangements point to a specific phase in the life course, such as the passage from initial education to work, from work to unemployment, from being single to setting up a family, from work to retirement, from being healthy to being (temporarily) unable to work, and so on. In other words, these arrangements concern a status change or a change in identity. One stops being a student and becomes an employee, or one stops being an employee and retires. There are significant status or identity changes for practically all the welfare arrangements mentioned, and some of the changes tend to be permanent while others can be reversed, for example, illness or unemployment. The welfare arrangements set up and define all kinds of different identities—employed versus unemployed, ill versus healthy, single versus married, working versus retired, and so on.

The seventh characteristic is the normative nature of the welfare arrangements. Because all the welfare arrangements mentioned are linked to one or more phases of the life course, they ideally cover the entire life of citizens. In fact, this already starts before birth because good parents prepare well for birth, socialization, and early education. But it will increasingly be the task of the young child and then the adolescent to get a good education in order to become a good, healthy, and productive member of society. This means that the implicitly prescribed path will, for the great majority, signify becoming a productive employee who through education and work experience can fulfill the role of good citizen and employee. After the active phase of the life course (possibly including family formation and raising children), this “citizen-employee” can take a well-earned retirement with the help of the pension benefits built up during the active phase of the life course. The image portrayed here is certainly oversimplified. Welfare arrangements (including labor laws) have created a relatively new individual—the “citizen-employee,” an active and productive member of society who helps the national society become an effective actor in international competition.

Implicit in this simplified presentation is the last characteristic of the welfare arrangements, namely, the responsibility, attributed to any member of the national community, of taking care of one’s life. As the life course is more or less gendered (in dependence on the welfare regime), the responsibility for it can also be gendered. This responsibility begins early on with a good initial education and is intended to prevent general risks (of unemployment, ill health, economic depression, but also the risk of poverty in old age) through employment and regular payment of fixed contributions. This self-responsibility is, however, linked to important forms of solidarity. First of all, solidarity with the national community as a citizen and employee represented by employee organizations (trade unions), which defend and possibly extend the rights of their members. There are many reasons why such a configuration has been created. Here, I limit myself to some which have been studied in detail. Next to the creation of nation states during the 18th century and above all the 19th century, the intensified industrialization of Western countries required a well-qualified and stable workforce. But as the workers organized themselves politically (and into political parties), the need to integrate them into the national state stimulated the creation of welfare arrangements. To assure a satisfactory form of government by nonviolent means, the responsibilization of citizens and employees was a good solution, though there was certainly also significant resistance to this scenario, such as the more authoritarian forms of the exercise of power in regimes like fascism and communism, and later, the rejection of the paternalistic and gendered characteristics of responsibilization by the social movements of the 1960s and the women’s movement.

A New Version of Self-Responsibility?

The main goal of this article is to establish how during recent decades this form of self-responsibility has been transformed in significant ways, involving a further individualization of self-responsibility and a loosening of the forms of solidarity, which existed previously. I first show how welfare arrangements have changed over recent decades, entailing a transformation of self-responsibility, and then in the following section, I discuss how these changes have influenced self-responsibility.

Education and Lifelong Learning

With growing international competition, the European Union (EU) and other international organizations such as the OECD have, over the past two decades, developed a new responsibility discourse that deploys the concept of “knowledge economies.” Education and lifelong learning play an important role in this discourse, in which parents are held responsible for their children’s education, with particular attention to early and preschool learning. Indeed, a good education in this discourse is increasingly deemed the responsibility of the individual, both in terms of initial education and lifelong learning. The belief is that certain risks, for example, losing one’s job, lengthy periods of unemployment, and so on, can be prevented through good and flexible education and a well-educated population would also seem to be one of the main guarantees of a country’s (or region’s in the case of the EU) success in an internationally competitive marketplace.

Some 10 years ago, the OECD set up PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) with a view to establishing a robust information based on students’ educational attainments. PISA has become strategically important in the discourse on international education policy. Meyer and Benavot (2013) question whether such an assessment instrument will indeed stimulate a worldwide educational standardization that connects schools more closely with ideas of economic efficiency, while at the same time sacrificing their role in preparing students for independent thinking and civic participation. Indeed, PISA is a standardized assessment that is not sensitive to the world’s considerable cultural and institutional diversity. Moreover, motivation and other noncognitive aspects of performance are not taken into account. While European countries perform relatively well on PISA, its concentration exclusively on a precise ranking does seem to be somewhat exaggerated since these rankings depend at least to some extent on the accidental combination of different criteria. It is therefore questionable whether PISA data can be used as an absolute indicator of educational performance.

In the new discourse, initial education and lifelong learning are both the responsibility of the citizen. Barros (2012) shows that the former discourse of “lifelong education” (with the main aim of encouraging the overall participation of citizens) has been transformed into the discourse of “lifelong learning,” with a strong emphasis on employability. Numerous European policy goals and programs featuring this approach have been formulated in the past 10 years (Broek & Hake, 2012; West, 2012). However, analyses demonstrate that the effects of these programs are rather limited. For example, an examination of the survey of adult skills known as PIAAC (Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies; European Commission, 2013) shows that participation in adult learning is very unevenly distributed. An individual with high skills is, on average, five times more likely to be engaged in adult learning activities than someone with skills at the lowest level. In other words, people who need more skills the most are much less likely to do something in order to acquire them.

Lifelong learning also involves the learning effects of working itself, without any formal learning as such in addition to work. In other words, this is the inherent learning from being an employee, sometimes referred to as “discretionary learning” or “learning while working.” This learning effect depends on the internal flexibility of the work organization and on the hierarchy within them. According to the “European working conditions survey” (Eurofound, 2012), once again those employees with higher initial education have more opportunities to “learn while working” than employees with lower initial education.

While in principle the new discourse on education provides equal opportunities (and responsibilities), it has not—at least to date—led to opportunities for individuals who, for one reason or another and at some time in their life course, have had an educational problem they must now compensate for. This is of course not out of the question in the future, but all the indications point to growing difficulties for those who lack skills and competencies to access real opportunities to overcome their deficiencies.

Work, Unemployment, Flexibility

Generally, the past three decades have seen a move from social security arrangements focusing on work (unemployment benefits, social assistance, disability insurance) toward activating people to be responsible for finding and retaining a job, that is, “active labor market policies.” These policies can involve a number of measures or a combination of measures such as assistance, training, subsidized employment, and workfare (Bonoli, 2010). Importantly, subsidized employment, a popular instrument in the nineties, has declined everywhere. Vocational training has in most countries also diminished. The emergence of “active labor market policies” has been accompanied by a reduction in benefit levels and their duration and by more stringent benefit conditions (Hemerijck, Drábing, Vis, Nelson, & Soentken, 2013). This policy change can be described as “from welfare to labor participation,” and is now increasingly looking more like a “work-first” approach without the appropriate supporting measures and with growing pressure on individuals to be responsible themselves for finding a job under whatever circumstances.

This change has taken place in the context of growing need for flexibility in the labor market, particularly after the 2010 Euro crisis, involving a shift from permanent to temporary jobs or forms of independent work, and away from labor security (dismissal protection, labor agreements) toward more insecure arrangements. The regular job, although still dominant, is gradually disappearing, and work contract conditions are deteriorating. This creates the need for new social provisions, and accordingly the argument for more “flexicurity” (Crouch, 2010) has come to the fore, which is, however, something that has not come about in most countries. The crisis has led instead to increased marketization and less compensation (Crouch, 2014). The catchphrase “from job security to work insecurity” captures the essence of this “flexibility.” During this period, employee organizations have lost much influence in terms of membership (with the exception of welfare states where benefits are linked to membership, as in some Scandinavian countries) and bargaining power.

There has always been unemployment in the EU, but it has increased considerably since the crisis, rising in some countries to unprecedented heights (Eurostat, 2014), but decreasing slightly during the past few years. This high level of unemployment has barely been the target at all effective policy in the EU. The restrictions on national budgets have been given priority in policy, while the rise in youth unemployment in South Europe in particular, but also elsewhere on the continent, is set to pose a major problem of social exclusion for years to come. The policy of neglecting unemployment follows the adage that economic growth, due to budget austerity, will in the end create sufficient new jobs and render the current state of affairs transient. This is a remarkable policy change (Crouch, 2014) given that the EU has always promoted employment (“jobs, jobs, jobs”) to remedy welfare dependency. This shift may be seen as a strengthening of marketization and economic growth at the expense of investing in employment.

A further shift is the partial degendering of labor markets and consequently of the standard life course. In rather strongly gendered welfare regimes, the restrictions on women enrolled in welfare arrangements have been abolished, while there remains a significant division of labor concerning household work in families.

If we combine these four shifts, it is possible to place the developments into a life course perspective. The first shift points to the growing responsibility of men and women to make themselves “employable.” This starts by making the right choices at school, by familiarizing oneself with the labor market, and by adapting oneself to the educational possibilities accordingly. Employability has to be unequivocal in a labor market where flexible arrangements are gradually on the increase. To do this, making the right individual investments in education, skills, and resilience is essential. This task requires heightened self-responsibility throughout the entire working life. Moreover, the dominance of this particular view of work implies that other life choices such as starting a family, friendship, or voluntary work at times conflict with the needs of employment. In adverse economic circumstances everybody has to wait for things to improve, while at the same time maintaining capacity to participate in the labor market. This may involve accepting low-paid or less desirable work, temporary employment, education abroad, and so on. Moreover, it may require a difficult combination of work and family care, and the ability to endure frugality and sometimes even economic hardship.

Health and Welfare State

There is a growing body of evidence that the health condition statistics of welfare states differ among welfare state regimes (Hurrelman, Rathmann, & Richter, 2011; Muntaner et al., 2011). These are usually mortality and life expectancy, but other aspects may be infant mortality, mental health, suicide, and so on. The Nordic or social-democratic welfare states have the highest level of population health; the continental or conservative welfare states are in the middle range, while the Anglo-Saxon and liberal welfare states have the lowest levels of general health. But if we look at health inequality within countries, the Nordic welfare states perform less well than their continental counterparts, and Anglo-Saxon countries have the greatest health inequalities. This is generally seen as a paradox (Mackenbach, 2012) because social inequalities are assumed to be causally related to health inequalities. Several theories have been put forward to explain this, which point to other factors such as living and working conditions, and the ways social networks are involved in sustaining healthy behavior (Bambra, 2011; Mackenbach, 2012).

One of these is that structural political and economic factors influence the levels of population health and health inequalities (Therborn, 2013). Thus, health might be affected by the recent crisis, which is often compared to the crisis of the 1930s. Although it is too early for the data to be satisfactory or even complete, it is possible to rely on earlier research into the effects of economic recessions (Karanikolos et al., 2013). This shows that mortality may actually fall because people drive less, consume less alcohol, and have more time for exercise. But there are also indications that unemployment affects (mental) health and mortality (e.g., more suicides). Health budget cuts and higher user charges resulting from austerity policies also affect access to care and the level of care. Interestingly, health conditions tend to deteriorate more in areas that are already disadvantaged, thus, geographically based inequalities affect health (Mackenbach, Karanikolos, & Mckee, 2013; Navarro, 2009; Pearce, 2013).

Health levels are codetermined by policies and institutional regulations, as the figures for welfare state regimes show. There have always been differences among countries in how health provisions are arranged in line with varying degrees of public spending. However, the past 20 years have seen converging developments in Western Europe where privatization of health care dominates, insurance companies have taken center stage, hospitals are allowed to make a profit, with fiscal and financial arrangements supporting these trends (Navarro, 2009). As states heavily reduce their budgets, higher user charges are affecting low-income groups.

Overall, there seems to be a robust relationship between socioeconomic conditions and health effects, although the precise workings of this relationship are still a matter of theoretical and empirical debate (Wilkinson & Pickett, 2010). However, disadvantages such as poverty, unemployment, poor housing, one-parent families, and the like can be associated with poorer levels of health, and these inequalities may be regionally concentrated. The recent crisis has contributed to the growth of this inequality in health.

Pensions

Pensions are more explicitly linked to the life course, first because all European countries have defined legal pension ages, and second because pensions duration depend on life expectancy. A generally recognized problem is the fact that—at least up to now—the life expectancy of European citizens has increased more rapidly than the defined legal retirement age. Consequently, the sustainability of European pension systems is not guaranteed in the long run (Frericks, Harvey, & Maier, 2010). And that makes them crucial to preventing poverty in old age and therefore inequality.

These acknowledged facts explain why, over the past two decades, numerous reforms to the various European pension systems have been initiated, and why the EU has defined policies that are supposed to guarantee the sustainability of pension systems. The EU cannot intervene directly at the level of member states on this point; it is only possible indirectly through the “Open Method of Coordination.” The most important EU policy recommendations are to (1) link retirement age to increased life expectancy; (2) restrict access to early retirement schemes; (3) support longer working lives by providing better access to lifelong learning by adapting workplaces to a more diverse workforce, developing employment opportunities for older workers, and supporting active and healthy aging; and (4) support the development of complementary retirement savings to augment retirement incomes (European Commission, 2012).

We do not go into detail here because each country has its own unique pension system, but the reforms to European pension systems have generally raised the legal retirement age as well as effective retirement ages. However, only a few countries have linked pensions to life expectancy. This can be achieved in many different ways, for example, by adjusting the retirement age, or by measures to link the level of pension benefits to life expectancy (as enacted in Portugal). The EU strongly recommends linking pensions to life expectancy.

Three remarks are pertinent at this juncture: First, in addition to increasing the legal retirement age, numerous other reforms in Europe include moving to a system of “defined contributions” instead of “defined benefits,” or changing the method of how pension benefits are calculated—all of which tend to diminish the level of pension benefits. Indeed, the increase in retirement age also changes how benefit levels are calculated, and all those who do not or cannot reach the legal retirement age will see their pension levels decrease.

Second, while formulated with good intentions, the European Commission recommendations are, to some extent, contradictory because not only do they encourage building up pensions through private savings, they also stimulate longer and widespread participation of everybody in the labor market (including the necessity of lifelong learning), while at the same time—as we have indicated—opting for a policy that does not really favor general employment, at least in the short run.

Third, though life expectancy is on the rise, it is disputed whether increased life expectancy is equally distributed (there seems to be significant life expectancy inequality among different categories of citizens, along the lines of education, wealth, and other indicators). It is even more of a problem how many years of “longer” life are actually “healthy” years, and whether these extra years are more or less equally distributed. There are currently no satisfactory data on this last point.

Why Have These Changes Occurred?

The dominant discourse during this period is that globalization on the one hand, and technological innovation on the other, are the main causes of these changes in welfare arrangements, and while it may cause temporarily some hardship for certain groups, in the long run everybody will profit from it, or in other terms, general wealth will increase. That is without a doubt a very misleading discourse, because many of these transformations in welfare arrangements have been made possible by political decisions of governments and are not “natural” consequences of globalization or technological innovation. Here, I indicate just some of these decisions. Financial liberalization has been made possible by political decisions of the EU in the early 1990s. Deregulation of labor markets and the introduction of flexible or limited work contracts was also only possible by changing labor laws. In short, most of these transformations are consequences of political decisions. And the flexibilization of work contracts has had a negative influence on wages, as shown by research of the Central Bank of the Netherlands (DNB, 2018). Many employees face increasing uncertainty about their status, wages, and perspectives (SCP, 2016).

Studies on the development of the wage share show that during this period the wage share decreased significantly (Stockhammer, 2012). In other words, salaries have not increased at the same level as productivity, and in particular, the lower middle classes and low-paid jobs have not seen their wages increase; on the contrary, on average they have decreased. A good overview of data on the situation of employees in Europe is published by the European Trade Union Confederation (Etui, 2018). A similar collection of European macroeconomic data, in a study of the Netherlands Planning Office shows that the level of investments cannot completely explain the decrease in the wage share. It is, rather, the growing influence of shareholders and the decreasing influence of stakeholders that explains why wages have almost not increased at all during this period.

A New Version of Self-Responsibility?

I now examine how the transformations in the social fabric and in particular in the welfare arrangements of Western countries of recent decades have also affected the concept of self-responsibility elaborated during the preceding centuries, as well as the characteristics of modern self-responsibility presented in the preceding section of this article.

Citizens and employees remain bearers of rights; however, the transformations have affected the sources of the resources as well and the conditions under which a bearer of rights to resources can claim benefits. We have seen that the sources have been up to now mainly taxes and contributions paid by employees and employers. The transformations in social arrangements have had a significant influence. First of all, the contributions paid by employers have decreased, partly directly and partly by the fact that an increasing number of flexible employees—often self-employed—now have to pay for their own insurance against risks. Also, the reforms of pensions (e.g., to stimulate private savings from net wages to stock up pension rights) affect the sources of the resources. Concerning the conditions, modifications have been introduced in almost all countries on access to benefits, such as higher legal pension ages, or conditions on the length of employment necessary to claim unemployment benefits. But another important transformation concerns the management of arrangements: in many, organizations of employers and employees have had an important role, but this has changed. Employee organizations have lost much power and influence over this management in recent decades.

A further characteristic of the classic welfare arrangements was that they were linked to phases of the life course. Now, the more or less standardized life course men and women has changed, becoming more flexible and less gendered. Changing jobs has become more usual, and women are less excluded from working careers. Also, both men and women are encouraged to pay continuous attention to their employability, work opportunities, lifelong learning, and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Moreover, the reforms of pensions, in particular the raising of legal pension ages, also necessitates attention to the level of pension benefits. In short, the connections between welfare arrangements and life course phases have rather diversified taking on more and more a prospective function directed above all at safeguarding against becoming unemployed or poor in old age.

Concerning the question of status identities created by welfare arrangements, such as “employed” versus “unemployed,” and so on, there is a very important modification. Employability, which was certainly quite important before, has definitely become a central feature. Possible disturbances to optimal employability have to be proactively identified and prevented. Employability has become the overarching social identity and is promoted in new welfare arrangements such as “active labor market policies.”

Concerning the normative character of the welfare arrangement, one can identify a strengthening tendency, first of all by its extension to hitherto not explicitly mentioned domains such as health or qualifications, which have to be continuously readjusted by individuals. Second, the attention given to a prospective outlook on later phases of one’s life course underscores another extension of the normative character: If someone does not succeed in managing optimally his or her employability, it is not considered plausible anymore to be due to “bad luck” or a constellation of circumstances: It has become a personal failure—“it’s your own fault.”

Two completely new characteristics of welfare arrangements are, first, a growing number of institutions and private enterprises whose remit is to effectuate the welfare arrangements, for example, concerning lifelong learning, care, private pensions, and training. The old forms of governance were mostly public and state financed and/or set up in accordance with government, employers, and trade unions who took the responsibility for administering the execution of the older welfare arrangements. Second, this growing number of institutions means there is growing fragmentation in how the welfare arrangements are realized. Coordinating these arrangements is thus a new problem, leading to forms of supervision and control that escape democratic testing.

These partially new characteristics have greater consequences for self-responsibility. Everyone has over recent years become responsible for their own employability, but an employability that covers more terrain than before. It has a central prospective dimension. Moreover, former connections with collective dimensions have been partly weakened, in particular to other employees through membership in trade unions or identification with more or less stable professional groups. The link with national citizenship certainly remains, but it has become more abstract because citizenship alone offers less solid guarantees for the working of the welfare arrangements. Everyone has become responsible for maximizing their own employability in the present and future. This means the “ideal” is no longer the “responsible” citizen and employee but a new figure, namely, the manager of one’s employability as an employee or as self-employed. In other words, everyone has become the principal of their own labor capital and responsible for the most productive use of it throughout the life course. This formulation is certainly a simplification but captures the central meaning of the new type of self-responsibility promoted over recent decades. It is overtly individualistic, or “hyperindividualistic,” because at the limit it is independent of all the social, political, economic, and institutional conditions in which everyone is embedded.

Resistance

It is hardly astonishing that resistance to this state of affairs can be noted. To examine this resistance is important because a pure and simple rejection of this hyperindividualistic version is problematic. Theoretically, such a task would underscore the shortcomings of the hyperindividualistic version, point out meaningful extensions, and show how resisters attempt to redefine self-responsibility. Here, this is, however, limited to a few indications.

One type of resistance is populism. Populism in its simplest form is anger at the way political parties exercise power and voting for a party which opposes this form of power, often in the name of nationalist convictions, antimigration issues, and so on. As an alternative to self-responsibility it is clearly quite limited: It is just a reaction to one aspect of self-responsibility, namely, to refuse or reject something considered misleading and wrong. Moreover, in some countries populist parties attempt to reinforce certain types of solidarity, by invoking a more or less mythic national community, or God, or new forms of militancy or political parties that mostly center on specific issues such as climate, animal well-being, and so on. All these attempts, while without any doubt interesting, are certainly limited in scope, but they offer nonetheless quite important insights into the limitations of the currently dominant version of self-responsibility. They underscore the necessity to link self-responsibility to specific types of solidarity, be it to future generations, animals, nature, and so on. However, in these cases quite often a rather problematic aspect of the new hyper self-responsibility is sometimes reproduced, namely paternalism, as for example, in discourses such as “it is wrong to eat meat.” There are also more theoretical forms of resistance that can be found in formulations of critical discourses concerning one or the other aspect of the present world, such as, for example, in the critical discourse on economy formulated by Kate Raworth in her model promoted as the “doughnut.” This model points out missing forms of solidarity in the dominant model of self-responsibility. Despite the limitation to this one example, these short remarks concerning resistance may show why it is important to study them, for they can offer alternative viewpoints or criteria necessary for elaborating a more satisfactory version of “self-responsibility.”

Conclusion and Discussion

A new configuration of self-responsibility has emerged in the past few decades. It is a hyperindividualistic version, only loosely linked to solidarities with other groups, states or the environment, including animals and plants. Uncoupling self-responsibility to a large extent from solidarities is the main difference vis-a-vis the earlier modern concept of self-responsibility. According to this new version, every single individual becomes a kind of capitalist, valorizing his or her own human capital in the most “profitable” way during the life course. As such, each individual also has to be considered autonomous; however, I remind the reader that a strictly individualist conception of autonomy is rather problematic. To be a responsible manager of oneself means to invest in rational ways in one’s own human capital over a long-term perspective of valorization, namely, one’s life course. And in this sense, there is an important difference to present-day capitalism, which in its financial turn is mainly looking for short-term profit. Certainly there are quite important and significant forms of resistance to this dominant conception, which highlights the serious shortcomings of this concept of self-responsibility.

This type of self-responsibility attributed to individuals is still to some extent gendered (e.g., in the systematic differences between men and women’s housework). Moreover, this concept hides to a large extent the barriers to equal participation (as discrimination of various kinds) faced by important sections of the population. If everyone must do their maximum best but some are (unfairly) hindered, yet not succeeding is still considered to be one’s own fault, it means the failure of self-responsibility.

The question may be raised whether this concept is really so distinct from the former versions of self-responsibility. Foucault in his lectures at the Collège de France (1978-1979) examined the birth of biopolitics, and how neo-liberalism was already presaged in the 1930s (as ordo-liberalism) and how the welfare state helped to give form to a concept of self-responsibility (in English translation: Foucault, 2010). However, it may not be useful to distinguish clearly two phases in the elaboration of the concept of self-responsibility, since some of the characteristics of the new version of this concept are not mentioned in the study by Foucault nor in the article by Hache (2007), such as the association with lifelong learning, pensions, or employability. But I acknowledge my debt to these publications, which have stimulated the ideas in this article.

Finally, as to a quite different problem: in other parts of the world the historical development of capitalism and of capitalist state forms, whether democratic or not, have long followed quite divergent paths. Therefore, it is accurate to say that this article covers above all the history of what is called the Western world. However, there seems to be a certain convergence among the variants on the latest version of self-responsibility in all parts of the world because of (financial) globalization. It will be an important future task to study the areas of this global convergence and divergence.