Emphasizing the Economic: Nancy Fraser, the Cultural-Redistributive Divide, and Social Justice’s PR Crisis

Abstract

The philosopher Nancy Fraser defines two paradigms for social justice: the economic and the cultural. These two paradigms often find themselves at odds (the familiar struggle between class politics and identity politics), but only when working in conjunction, according to Fraser, can they reach their emancipatory potential. Contra Fraser, this paper argues that there exist some historical moments in which it is necessary for one paradigm to take precedence over the other. In our current political moment, both the Right and the Left can be said to be fixated on culture, and this fixation ultimately disadvantages the Left: it appears as if the Right has already won the culture war, at least within the minds of a statistically significant portion of the American populace. Legal attempts to protect social justice seem similarly doomed. In order to persuade the public of the advantages of the movement, this paper argues that we must begin to emphasize its universal economic benefits.