Azmanova’s Capitalism On The Edge, Explained
Social precarity and inequality are not the same thing. Azmanova argues that the real issue we are facing is precarity, the problem often overlooked in our fight against inequality. The root cause of precarity is the competitive production of profit, the core dynamic of neoliberalism.
Workers (1926) by Franz Wilhelm Seiwert
Note: this article proceeds along with the conversation between Hannah, a girl who loves to read and talk about western political thought, and a guy, who just reacts in italics.
Unfair Treatment
God! This stupid yoga teacher I’ve been going to is such a pain in the ass. You know, I have to admit that my yoga skills are not top notch, but man, that guy, he is like an angel to those who are good, but turns into a godamn devil to those who aren’t. He singlehandedly managed to make my yoga miserable. Listen, this afternoon, he was assigning a yoga pose to each student according to their mastery, okay? And he assigned to almost all of us the “handstand scorpion,” the hardest, most honorable pose of all, and you know what he assigned to me and Dave? … the mountain pose! It’s just standing with arms at your sides, palms facing forward, and frankly, I’m sick of it, bro. I’ve been there for like a half year and all he gets me to do is the mountain pose!? So I was like, “Are you kidding me?” I mean, clearly this guy doesn’t see my full potential to be a super competent yoga master easily capable of whatever scorpion thing he shows off every time. It’s just so unfair that the better ones get better treatment and the worse ones get the worst treatment.
I hear you, I hear you. I don’t know this can lighten up your mood but, it is everywhere: unfair treatment based on whatever advantage someone has, whether it is skill, or capital. In fact, it is even the cause of social inequality and financial precarity that has plagued many advanced economies. Albena Azmanova, in her book Capitalism on the Edge, examines this issue in detail.
You know, I love how you highjack my deepest life concern and start talking about political stuff. I’m not annoyed at all.
The Origin Of Precarity
According to Azmanova, more and more people are relying on poorly paid, insecure jobs, and she sees neoliberal policies (such as free and unregulated economies and open markets) and globalization as the origins of such precarity. She observes that “[i]n the new circumstances of closely integrated markets, global production chains, and intensified competition, maintaining the competitiveness of national economies became a top policy concern (Azmanova 2020, 106).” Since the world economy now behaves more and more like one big economy, each state is forced to put products with a relative advantage in the market so that they can win a customer in the global economy. It seems like a natural result of the open global market. But Azmanova argues that it is the very cause of precarity.
This is because the state’s focus on competitiveness alters the distribution of risk and opportunity for business entities. Put differently, states prioritize and aid the sectors or companies that have competitive advantage in the global economy, while cutting aid for less competitive sectors. Through this policy change, the powerful that already have an advantage get to obtain aid and security, whereas the weak receives no aid or security, rendering them exposed to market risk and thus precarity.
The most obvious example of this inequality can be found in the publicly funded bank bailout during the 2008 financial crisis. It is widely considered that the cause of the financial crisis was the reckless attitude of investment bankers. Despite that, the US government not only condoned their wrong-doing, it sustained their businesses by providing a massive subsidies.
This means that the powerful aren’t exposed to significant risk, while the weak, the one without great resources, do have a considerable amount of risk, since governments are not there to support them when the chips are down. The increasing importance of competitiveness renders this type of policy reasonable. Azmanova calls this type of policy a “socially irresponsible rule,” which “disregards the social consequences of economic policy such as growing inequality, poverty, and social precariousness, even as growth is effectively obtained (ibid, 116).”
Legitimacy Deal
But hasn’t this been the case all these time? The market is merciless and there is always huge risk out there.
Yes, but it is still very different in that now the governments openly favor the powerful and the competitive. For these beneficiaries of state policy, there is no risk, and that is obviously unfair to the weak.
But if it’s a real problem, people will get super angry and governments will do something about it, right?
Well, in fact, Azmanova argues that because many citizens consider that upholding the nation’s competitiveness is what the government is supposed to do, there is no legitimation crisis that would lead to a social movement. Meaning, there are few questions posed about the legitimacy of the authorities and their policy. She explains this situation by highlighting the concept of a legitimacy deal between citizens and public authority, that is “what citizens consider to be valuable services the state can and must perform for society (ibid, 7).” The policy result considered here is both desirable and feasible. If a government can successfully deliver what citizens expect, the government can gain legitimacy.
Furthermore, such a legitimacy deal is based on a legitimation matrix. The legitimation matrix “grounds the legitimacy of the whole social order, as it defines the core norms that give it significance and signification (ibid, 45: emphasis in the original).” And it “spells out shared ideas of life-chances (notions of a successful life and an accomplished self) and their fair distribution in society (ibid, 45).” So, in sum, a legitimacy deal is about how the government is supposed to work, and the legitimacy matrix is more general; it is about how society is supposed to work.
Politicization
Importantly, the legitimacy deal and legitimation matrix also represent the stages of politicization. This process is driven by public discourse. An issue enters the first stage of politicization when it starts to be seen as politically relevant when citizens start to think it is relevant to their life-chances, which is legitimation matrix [1]. The issue can walk into the next stage when it is considered to be something desirable and feasible to be delivered. When it happens, it becomes a part of the legitimacy deal. However, even after getting noted as politically relevant, not every issue can become a part of legitimacy deal.
Really? I don’t know about that. Because we saw lots of movements like Black Lives Matterand Occupy the Wallstreet, and all these moments seem like talking about economic hardship in some sense, right?
Yes, but to be more precise, it was about inequality, not the precarity. This is why precarity, or social safety, couldn’t be a part of legitimacy deal; it failed to be politicized. In Azmanova’s view, the social movement has been primarily aiming not at precarity or lack of social safety, but rather at inequality, or the asymmetrical distribution of wealth, power, and status. Here is what she has to say:
“Capitalism avoids its legitimation crisis, even as it has violated the ground rule in its legitimation matrix of correlating social opportunities and risks. This is the case because the legitimacy deal — not despite, but through social protests — has gradually altered to exclude a robust social safety net. … By politicizing the roots of the crisis (e.g., a political economy that produces massive precariousness) into the frames of inequality and the menace of immigration, struggles against injustice are enabling the system not only to escape a legitimation crisis, but also to successfully co-opt the emancipatory energies of protest and thus regenerate itself (ibid, 134).”
But is precarity a big deal? I mean, inequality is also quite an important issue, and precarity is kinda part of the whole “we are the 99%” thing, don’t you think?
It is a big deal, because addressing inequality cannot solve the problem of precarity or more importantly, the problem of capitalism right now. In other words, inequality and precarity come from different causes. Inequality is the result of relational domination, which “involves the subordination of one group of actors to another by force of the unequal distribution of power in society (ibid, 51).” On the other hand, precarity emerges out of systemic domination, which “subordinates all members of society to the constitutive dynamic of the social system (ibid, 51).” By the constitutive dynamic, she means the imperative of competitive production of profit, the core drive of capitalism. Remember that precarity is the result of state’s economic policies prioritizing competitiveness. Based on this observation, she argues that the origin of precarity is this capitalistic urge for competitiveness.
Azmanova points out that many social movements are erroneously politicizing relational domination. Populist voices from the right to the left, from ”keep foreigners out” to “tax the rich,” are just focusing on inequality and exclusion, which is a relational domination between the rich and the poor, and between the citizens and foreigners. For her, this is like addressing the superficial problem (redistribution) and failing ton address the root cause (competitive production of profit).
What is worse is that the successful politicization of relational domination may even exacerbate systemic domination. For example, ”[w]hile feminists struggled against the oppressive structure of patriarchy and fought for equality with men in the labor market, women in fact increased the desirability and, ergo, the legitimacy of the competitive production of profit as a systemic dynamic of capitalism (ibid, 56).”
The Transformation Of The Legitimacy Deal
The fact that precarity is excluded from the legitimacy deal also can be found in the transformation of the legitimacy deal. This is why Azmanova argues that “a driving force in the transformation of capitalism has been the adjustments made to the legitimacy deal in order to safeguard the legitimation matrix (ibid, 45).” Let’s see how the legitimacy deal has transformed.
Azmanova illustrates the change of the legitimacy deal and of the risk bearer in four stages. First is the liberal capitalism of the 19th century, whose legitimacy deal is characterized as the teenage state. Here, control over the market belongs to individuals, who bear their own risk. Motivational energy in this stage is the “purported control over one’s destiny.” The second stage is the welfare capitalism of the early mid-twentieth century, where control and the distribution of risk belongs to bureaucratic hierarchies. The legitimacy deal is called the nanny state, since states kindly take care of the economy and entrepreneurs. The third stage is neoliberal capitalism where control belongs to multinational cooperations and international financial institutions. The legitimacy deal here is called the stepmother state. Here, the state is simply enforcing self-reliance. The last stage is precarity capitalism, where the risk bearer is society. The legitimacy deal is now the rich uncle state, since it is just like an uncle supporting just the most gifted child in the family business, states aid the most competitive actors. The motivational force in this stage is fear.
In rich uncle states, the narrative is something like social safety net is still politically desirable, but it is economically unfeasible. Therefore, a social safety net is no longer considered to be a part of legitimacy deal, meaning the legitimacy deal is changed so that states do not have to carry the responsibility of maintaining a correlation between risk and opportunity. Overall, the changes in legitimacy relations enabled capitalism to avoid a legitimation crisis.
How To Fix Systemic Domination
Okay, so what should we do about precarity and the whole competitive production of profit?
Based on these observations, Azmanova’s recommendation on policy is to tackle systemic domination, the root cause of precarity. To be honest, however, she doesn’t offer a detailed recommendation as to what can we do about it. She calls her policy proposal radical practices, which are social practices aiming to change the capitalist mechanism of the competitive production of profit. But what she proposes is basically only this vague idea. But the difficulty of proposing something concrete to tackle systemic domination is understandable. How do you think we can fix systemic domination?
References
Azmanova, Albena. 2020. Capitalism on Edge: How Fighting Precarity Can Achieve Radical Change Without Crisis or Utopia. New York: Columbia University Press.
[1] To avoid complexity, I omit the discussion of ethos, based on which legitimation matrix emerges. According to Azmanova, it also constitutes a part of politicization.
