Young visits SMC, discusses attitudes toward welfare today
By KATIE McVOY
News Writer
Thomas Jefferson may have had the wrong idea when he said that self-sufficient families create the ideal republic. According to political philosopher Iris Marion Young, Jefferson and most current political theorists and politicians have confused the idea of self-sufficiency with autonomy and this is where the problem with our welfare system lies.
During her lecture on "Autonomy, Self-sufficiency, and Welfare Justice" Thursday night, Young suggested that the continuous problem with the American Welfare system is that its supporters justify the system based on the non-existent idea of self-sufficiency.
"Self-sufficiency is an illusion," Young said. "The idea of self-sufficiency to which those who passed [the 1996 Welfare reform bill] turn [for justification of the bill] is conceptually problematic."
Young's conclusion was that a welfare system that forces people to make choices without personal freedom is a denial of autonomy and contradicts a human ideal. Political philosophers such as Locke and Rousseau have based their political philosophy on the idea of self-sufficiency. According to Young, a distinction needs to be made between this illusory idea of self-sufficiency and the true ideal of autonomy.
"Self-sufficiency brings to mind an ideal of a kind of life in which we can meet our material and emotional need without having to rely on other people," Young said. "[A society based on this idea] is a very seductive dream."
However, it is this "seductive dream" that causes major problems in the United State's social welfare system. Most American public policy operates under the assumption that citizens need to be self-sufficient. However, the idea of self-sufficiency is in opposition to a society that operates on a system of interdependence.
"Only a moment's reflection shows we exist with significant interdependence," Young reminded her audience. "Interdependence is part of the human condition."
Although many middle-class Americans do not recognize this interdependence, it is part of their daily lives. Workers depend on their employers and these employers, in turn, rely on each other, foreign competitors, and the market itself.
"We dwell in webs of interdependence," Young said.
The question then arises that if self-sufficiency is an illusion, why are appeals to it so successful. Young replied to this question by saying that these appeals are successful because self-sufficiency is confused with autonomy, and it is autonomy that is truly the good ideal.
Making a distinction between moral and personal autonomy, Young defined personal autonomy as "being able to determine your own projects and goals and how you're going to live your life without having to answer to anyone else for those goals and without having to obey their orders about how you'll live your life."
It is in this ideal of autonomy that social welfare programs should be based.
Young argued that interdependence was a necessary part of autonomy because making autonomous decisions requires social support. She said Americans achieve their skills through a system of interdependence. Based on this background, Young showed that any public policy built on the idea of self-sufficiency (which lacks interdependence) instead of autonomy will be ineffective.
Based on the idea that autonomy is grounded in interdependence, Young concluded that the autonomy of all people depends on social support. "Especially the poor people need a good deal of social support to be autonomous," Young said.
Although she did not specify a particular system, Young suggested a system of social welfare that is contrary to the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, which required time restrictions and work requirements in order for recipients to receive benefits.
Young spoke as part of the Women in Philosophical Landscapes series, which is in its third year at Saint Mary's. Young is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago.
Her focus is on political theory and feminist social theory, and she has authored several books including Justice and the Politics of Difference and Throwing Like a Girl and Other Essays in Feminist Philosophy and Social Theory. Young will return to Stapleton Lounge Friday at 12:30 p.m. to discuss "Power, Violence, and Legitimacy," a discussion which is open to the public.
All News Stories for Friday, February 16, 2001
