What Disability Civil Rights Cannot Do: Employment and political economy

Abstract

The Americans with Disabilities Act is both a liberal civil rights bill and a labour economics bill meant to increase the employment of disabled persons. It identifies the source of unemployment in discriminatory attitudes of employers and physical barriers in the work environment, and promotes inclusion through the establishment of regulations that are intended to create 'equal opportunity' in the labour market. Such liberal reforms primarily focus on 'irrational' discriminatory attitudes. Operating within an individualist framework, civil rights have not given sufficient attention to structural barriers, which 'rational' business practices, the economic system and class power relationships erect. This paper will both micro- and macro-economic realities of US capitalism, which directly impede disabled peoples' employment and perpetuate a disabling society. The failure of rights legislation to increase disabled people's employment exposes the contradictions of promoting equal opportunity in a class-based (unequal) society.