Abstract
This piece seeks to explore three recent works on structural injustice: Virgina Mantouvalou’s
Iris Marion Young's conception of structural injustice triggered a flourishing sub-field of contemporary political theory that seeks to explore question of responsibility for injustice within a connected world. Three recent books have used Young's argument as a starting point: McKeown's
The current global political landscape seems to be dominated by specific actors who hold immense power over the lives of others. From political leaders to oligarchs, billionaires to tech founders, they take centre stage as news headlines breathlessly report on what they have said or done, and whether they are ‘good’ or ‘bad’. But if we can look beyond these actors, we see the structures that shape and enable them as well as the role that we all play in shaping our shared world. These structures can, as Robert Goodin notes, be ‘easily overlooked when focusing, as we more typically do, on the dastardly deeds of the rich and powerful in feathering their own nests’ (2023: 9). But if we wish to understand the world we live in, to say nothing of trying to change it, then we need to look both at the ‘dastardly deeds’ of the powerful and at the underlying webs of action and responsibility that tie us all together.
Interest in these questions has led to a range of recent books on the topic of structural injustice. First developed by Iris Marion Young in her ground-breaking work on social connection (e.g. Young 2006, 2011), this model seeks to explain how harm can be caused without any one agent actively seeking to bring it about. This lens reveals that injustices such as global poverty are not the result of a small number of ‘evil’ actors who deliberately seek to hurt people, but are instead the result of multiple actors inadvertently causing harm to others without meaning too, or even without acting ‘wrongly’. Young famously illustrates this through the story of Sandy. She describes how Sandy and her children are forced to leave their rented home because it is to be sold for private housing. The lack of affordable housing in the area means they have to move further out of the city, and so further away from Sandy's workplace. But, because her job pays so little and she needs to pay for a car to enable her to travel to work, she cannot then afford the upfront rental costs for a new home. Sandy and her family are therefore forced into homelessness through no fault of her own. But nor is this the intention of anyone she interacts with e.g. her boss, her old landlord, or any prospective new landlord (Young, 2011). In order to explain Sandy's situation and the wrong that has been done to her, Young argued for an understanding of responsibility that is not backward-looking, in that it does not seek to assign specific, direct, casual or moral responsibility for the harm caused. Instead, she proposed a model of responsibility that was forward-looking and political, aiming to show what individuals should
Scope
The first theme to emerge from these works is that of scope or scale, in terms of both the extent of the argument and the range of actors who are seen to contribute to structural injustice. In terms of the scope of the argument, the clearest contrast is between Virgina Mantouvalou and Maeve McKeown's works. Mantouvalou's work uses the concept of structural justice as a lens through which to understand contemporary employment practices. Such as approach reveals the role of the law in (inadvertently) shaping working practices so that some individuals, or groups of individuals, are made uniquely vulnerable to exploitation in the workplace. She is therefore exploring ‘state-mediated structural injustice’ (2023: Part Two) or ‘what I call ‘state-mediated structures of exploitation’ at work, namely legal rules that increase workers’ vulnerability that is then systematically exploited, primarily by private actors’ (Ibid.: 11). As the name implies, this approach is focused on the relationship between the state and its members and is therefore focused on internal, ‘domestic’ injustice, with a particular focus on the UK. Though she draws on case law from international bodies such as the European Court of Human Rights (especially in Part Three on ‘Human Rights’), this brought back to the level of the state.
In contrast, McKeown's argument considers transboundary harms, as seen in her discussions of climate change, global poverty and the global garment industry or ‘sweatshops’ (e.g. 2024: Chapter Four) and her subsequent call for collective solidarity movements in response. Goodin's account demonstrates ‘how injustice is perpetuated over time’ (2023: 1) through an explanation of the mechanisms through which structural advantage is either lost or accumulated – or, put another way, ‘how is it that the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer?’ (Ibid.: 151). The scope of the argument is therefore on the shared communities in which these mechanisms operate. For example, in Chapters Four and Seven he considers the role of individual's networks and reputations in either helping to secure, or denying them access to, advantages, and these can operate at either a local or global level.
In terms of scope with regard to actors, Mantouvalou is focused on the role of the state in shaping laws that increase worker's vulnerability. Though she considers how these laws may be exploited by other ‘bad faith’ actors ‘we are not just dealing with cases where some devious employers identify gaps in the law and take advantage of them in order to exploit people. We are considering clearly identifiable legal rules, and the intersection of such rules, that compound workers’ vulnerability, accompanied by widespread patterns of exploitation’ (Ibid.: 24). The state is seen primarily as a law-maker, rather than as an employer itself. Yet through military forces, government bureaucracy, and state-provided services the state is often the main employer within a nation and exploring the result of the employer also setting the conditions of employment more explicitly would be a fascinating addition to this analysis. Mantouvalou's focus on the state contrasts with McKeown's work, which develops an account of responsibility that includes states and corporations (see Chapter Seven) and draws upon collective solidarity in order to oppose these powerful actors (see Chapter Eight).
Goodin's account is primarily focused on an individual level e.g. the account of how internal constraints lead people to rely on mechanisms that unfairly distribute advantage explores how ‘constrains on people's time and attention… lead them to employ various tools and shortcuts which almost inevitably worked to the advantage of some people over others’ (Ibid.: 163). Though he does explore methods of co-ordination and organisation (as seen in Chapter Eight), he does not share Mantouvalou's focus on the state, nor McKeown's focus on corporations. Goodin's focus on individuals could however benefit from a more explicit examination of intersectionality. A person can occupy many, often conflicting, positions within the web of mechanisms that perpetuate advantage. How do they then manage their multiple advantages and disadvantages, and the interaction of these factors, and how does this impact their ability to maintain their overall position? For example, what if one aspect of their identity collects and retains reputational advantage, but another aspect of their identity disadvantages them due to the social expectations and norms placed upon it? Taken together, these arguments highlight the range of actors and organisations that create, shape and maintain structures of injustice.
Responsibility
Secondly, despite sharing Young's model as a starting point, each author interprets responsibility for structural injustice differently, particularly with regard to the role of backward-looking responsibility. As noted above, Mantouvalou explores ‘what I call ‘state-mediated structures of exploitation’ at work, namely legal rules that increase workers’ vulnerability that is then systematically exploited, primarily by private actors’ (2023: 11). Like Young's famous explanation of structural injustice through the case of Sandy, as set out in the introduction, Mantouvalou illustrates her argument through the story of one person, Marcell. Marcell moves from London to Newcastle due to the cost of living in the capital, leaving behind his son. He tries to find work but can only find employment as cleaner for an agency for minimum wage on minimal hours, which leaves him very poor and relying on food banks. There are often delays in the pay due to errors in the agency's system, and his hours were changed when the supermarket contracting to the agency changed the contract. He would like to become a security guard but cannot afford the upfront fee for the licence (Ibid.: 16–18).
Mantouvalou highlights two key differences between Young's story of Sandy and that of Marcell – firstly Marcell's story is not fictional, but a composite of several real people's experiences and secondly his experiences of in-work poverty and exploitation is shaped by the policies and choices of the state. Her argument seeks to account for ‘cases where the state through laws takes identifiable special measures which promote a prima facie legitimate aim, yet in practice increases the vulnerability of workers to exploitation by employees’ (Ibid.: 11). She explores four categories of workers who are made uniquely vulnerable: migrant workers (Chapter Three); those who labour while captive in either immigration or carceral centres (Chapter Four); those who are required to work as a condition of welfare support (Chapter Five); and those in precarious employment, such as people employed via agencies (Chapter Six). Mantouvalou states that, like Young's, her account is not focused on moral responsibility (e.g. she states that ‘malicious intention is not required’ and ‘the concept of structural injustice is important as a starting point, for it situates the issue in a framework that is not focused on individual responsibility’ Ibid.: 116 and 25). However in contrast to Young this is a more backward-looking account of responsibility albeit one that is divorced from moral responsibility, as it operates along a clear (if unwitting) causal pathway e.g. ‘if we do identify laws that have a major role to play [in the exploitation of workers], we may ground backward looking responsibility for injustice, which can be both political and also legal’ (Ibid.: 16) and this ‘pushes us to think about the responsibility of the authorities for this situation’ (Ibid.: 109). Thus she concludes that ‘while Young was right that everyone has political responsibility to address structures of injustice, it is important to underline that the state may have special political responsibility to address the injustice because it has contributed to it’ (Ibid.: 170).
McKeown's account also includes backward-looking responsibility, though this is explicitly mapped onto moral and political responsibility because, unlike Mantouvalou, she believes that there are bad actors who ‘because they exercise power to order to maintain the injustice… deserve to be blamed’ (2024: 89). McKeown draws on both backward- and forward-looking, moral and political responsibility because her account seeks to explore how structural injustice intersects with power. Thus she seeks to ‘defend Young's claim that ordinary individuals are not morally responsible for structural injustice, but I will argue against her that some agents are morally responsible – powerful agents, such as the state and corporations, who have the capacity to ameliorate the injustice and fail to do so, or who deliberately perpetuate it for their own gain’ (Ibid.: 15). She argues that structural injustice has three forms: pure structural injustice, avoidable structural injustice, and deliberate structural injustice. Pure structural injustice is the closest to Young's model, as it refers to a situation in which ‘all of the actors are constrained to the point where it is very difficult for them not to participate in reproducing the injustice, and the consequences of their actions are unintended’ (Ibid.: 41). In avoidable structural injustice, power begins to play a role, as though the majority of participants are unable to disrupt or challenge the structure ‘there are agents in positions of power that could act to change the structures and fail to do so’ (Ibid.: 43). This is taken further in cases of deliberate structural injustice, in which those with power ‘deliberately reproduce the injustice and reap benefits by exploiting the disadvantaged’ (Ibid.: 44) and actively seek to maintain the structure. This typology is illustrated in Chapter Four, with climate change said to be an example of pure structure injustice; global poverty said to be a form of avoidable structural injustice; and the deliberate use of exploitative ‘sweatshop’ labour in the global garment industry given as an example of deliberate structural injustice’ (Ibid.: 79).
McKeown offers this three-part approach, and the subsequent discussion of examples, as a means ‘to generate debate about the role of powerful agents – how their actions or omissions perpetuate structural injustice’ (Ibid.: 46). The point is not whether climate change is an example of pure structural injustice or would be better classified as avoidable, but rather to investigate the role of different actors in creating and maintaining this injustice, and to demonstrate the extent to which responsibility, mediated and shaped by power, flows forwards
Read together, we see that like Mantouvalou, McKeown believes that structural injustice should still retain an element of backwards looking responsibility, though she links this to moral responsibility in a way that Mantouvalou does not, and her account includes both specific and general actors who's power and responsibility is aggregated, in contrast to Mantouvalou's focus on one specific actor (the state). Goodin's account takes a different perspective. He opens by stating that: ‘unlike most books on the subject [his book] is relatively unconcerned to specify what injustice is or how it comes about in the first instance. This book is focused, instead, on how injustice is perpetuated over time’ (Goodin, 2023: 1). Thus, his argument explores the processes and ‘mechanisms’ (Ibid.: 3) by which individuals either gain or lose advantages. The book starts by defining advantage, which is understood as being either absolute or comparative, depending on whether they are consumed in their own right or used to give competitive advantage to their holder (Ibid.: 16). In this way, advantage can be compounded, as having an advantage makes it easier for you to beat others in the struggle to gain yet more advantages. Goodin then explores a range of mechanisms (such as relative position, social expectations and norms, languages and methods of communication). The analysis in these chapters provides a detailed, focused account of precisely how these mechanisms enable some to gain and maintain advantage at the expense of others. This enables the final part of the book to turn to an examination of what drives these mechanisms and how they can be challenged. In assessing the former, Goodin divides the drivers of the mechanisms of advantage into two – the external opportunities and internal constraints (Chapters Nine and Ten respectively). Goodin's argument therefore provides a more diffuse understanding of responsibility. In contrast to Mantouvalou's focus on state's laws and the employment conditions, they inadvertently create, or McKeown's argument regarding powerful actors who maintain injustice for their benefit and so create systems and structures others must operate within, Goodin's account focuses on the everyday mechanisms that individual people reproduce, both unintentionally and consciously. For example, we communicate using the dominant language in our society, trust those we know through our networks, follow the same, standard, social expectations and norms as others, and listen to those in positions that are presumed to be trustworthy. As a result, we do not push back on those ‘standard’ norms and stereotypes, nor seek to work and socialise with new people who are unlike us, nor listen to those who are without power. And thus, Goodin shows, the patterns of advantage are repeated and entrenched without anyone actively seeking to do so. This account of responsibility is both backward- and forward-looking, though the aim is not to assign moral responsibility in favour of exploring the ‘more apparently innocent ways in which unfair advantage is insidiously perpetuated
Pathways to change
The final theme to emerge from these works is that of responding to structural injustice. All three works are motivated by a desire to challenge injustice and to empower other to do so too, though Goodin and McKeown both point out that there is no clear guide to action in Young's initial work (2023, 117; 2024: 17). In contrast these works all end with an analysis of what should be done to address the injustice that the body of their work has identified, with the different pathways reflecting their different approaches to responsibility, as outlined above. However, they all emphasise that there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution to the problem of structural injustice and instead highlight the importance of context-specific responses e.g. Mantouvalou explores how different aspects of case law can assist captive-, migrant-, and precarious-workers in their specific struggles, while McKeown states that we must pay ‘attention to power in context… and each individual will have to consider what that looks like for themselves’ (2024: 224).
Goodin also states that solutions must be specific to the mechanisms that they seek to oppose e.g. changing the power of networks to confer advantage requires a different approach to challenging the power of language. Perhaps surprisingly though, he is pessimistic about the success of such measures: ‘we must resign ourselves to tinkering at the margins when trying to overcome many of the more important elements of structural injustice – which is not of course to say that we should not do what we can in that regard’ (Goodin, 2023: 197). We must focus on the margins because trying to fundamentally challenge the means by which injustice is directly perpetuated will ‘likely fail or anyway, come at too high cost all things considered’ (Ibid.: 174) and so he outlines narrower, targeted strategies to ameliorate the impact of specific mechanisms and create alternatives. For example, he suggests the creation of alternative networking organisations for individuals who are locked out of ‘traditional’ networking spaces, in contrast to banning or dismantling the ‘traditional’ exclusionary networks. The questions of what is ‘too high [a] cost’, and for whom, could have been discussed further in order to ground Goodin's ‘tinkering’ approach. Though Mantouvalou and McKeown's works reflect Goodin's belief that we must ‘do what we can’ even though that structures of injustice cannot be easily dismantled, I do not believe that they share his ‘pessimistic’ conclusion (Ibid.: 197).
Having clearly established the role of the state in creating the structures that lead to unjust, exploitative work, Mantouvalou argues that human rights is therefore the most appropriate tool and seeks to ‘identify some key human rights principles that can address aspects of these unjust structures’ (2023: 116). Chapters Seven and Eight provide examples of human rights law that can respond to the cases of captive-, migrant-, welfare-, and precarious-workers, before the conclusion reflects on the impact that such an approach to worker's rights could have. The way in which wider civil society actors can work with and through the courts to bring about changes in the law using this tool is also well highlighted, and linked to the broader political responsibility of all (e.g. Ibid.: 173). In looking to existing case law, she demonstrates that there is already precedent to overturn structural injustices in the workplace which can be applied in the cases she identifies in order to rectify the injustice wholescale, in contrast to Goodin's ‘tinkering’ approach. McKeown also believes that there are tools available for wider structural change, particularly in the form of collective, emancipatory, solidarity movements. She calls for the creation of alternative or countering alignments that reflects Goodin's mechanisms writ large, and this emphasis on the need for global collective approaches also ties back to the approach to scope and scale discussed in the first section. This approach is grounded in political responsibility, thereby operationalising Young's concept into ‘public shaming, direct action, etc’ (McKeown, 2024: 212) against states and corporations, political support for change through ‘elections, interactions with politicians, the media and civil society’ (Ibid.: 212), collective campaign strategies such as legislation, litigation, divestment, and challenging sports- and culture-washing campaigns (Ibid.: 217–221), and individual philanthropy and volunteering (Ibid.: 222). McKeown's last chapter therefore provides a comprehensive explanation of how to hold those with moral responsibility to account and how to action political responsibility going forward to create alternative just structures.
Each of these books therefore rectifies a gap in Young's account of structure injustice – namely what to do about it. Their solutions differ due to their differing approaches to the questions of scale, scope and responsibility, as the alternative focus on the breadth of the structures explored or actors considered leads to different outcomes. Which approach is appropriate will perhaps be best decided based on the specifics of the injustice in question. In the tension between Goodin's less optimistic, limited, ‘tinkering’ and McKeown's alternative counter-alignments of broader, global, solidarity lies the question at the heart of structural injustice, namely who can, and should act, and at what cost.
In pushing the reader to think seriously about questions of scale, responsibility and effective action, these texts demonstrate that the field of structural injustice is flourishing. More than ever, we need the rigorous, informed and clear-sighted analysis exemplified by Mantouvalou, Goodin and McKeown's arguments if we are to better understand and respond to the injustices of our current moment.
Footnotes
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.