Caring Democracy: Markets, Equality, and Justice

by Joan C. Tronto

A rethinking of American democracy that puts caring responsibilities at the centerAmericans now face a caring there are simply too many demands on people’s time for us to care adequately for our children, elderly people, and ourselves.At the same time, political involvement in the United States is at an all-time low, and although political life should help us to care better, people see caring as unsupported by public life and deem the concerns of politics as remote from their lives. Caring Democracy argues that we need to rethink American democracy, as well as our fundamental values and commitments, from a caring perspective. What it means to be a citizen is to be someone who takes up the how should we best allocate care responsibilities in society?Joan Tronto argues that we need to look again at how gender, race, class, and market forces misallocate caring responsibilities and think about freedom and equality from the standpoint of making caring more just. The idea that production and economic life are the most important political and human concerns ignores the reality that caring, for ourselves and others, should be the highest value that shapes how we view the economy, politics, and institutions such as schools and the family. Care is at the center of our human lives, but Tronto argues it is currently too far removed from the concerns of politics. Caring Democracy traces the reasons for this disconnection and argues for the need to make care, not economics, the central concern of democratic political life.

Genres: Politics, Feminism, Sociology, Economics, Nonfiction, Philosophy

250 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 1, 2013

Reviews

[Gizem Kendik Önduygu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bakım etiği okumalarına başlayınca Carol Gilligan’dan sonra başladım Joan Tronto’ya. 3 kitabını birden (Moral Boundaries, Who Cares?, Caring Democracy) okudum. Çokça duyduğum bakım tanımı ve beş aşamalı modeli birincil elden okuyayım istedim.

Üç kitabında da bakımın, yalnızca özel alanın değil, siyasetin, adaletin ve eşitliğin merkezinde olması gerektiğini söylüyor. Demokrasi ile bakım arasındaki ilişkiyi kurmaya çalışıyor ve güncel demokrasi tanımını bakım ile genişletiyor.

[Jonny M · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is a fantastic analysis of the ethics of care within the context of neoliberal market economies. Tronto explores how the basic human condition to care for others and receive care has been cast aside within contemporary ‘democracies’ (namely USA) due to factors including the perception of responsibilities (and the role that ‘masculinities’ play in shaping patriarchal perceptions of care) and the class-based outsourcing of care roles. The book offers a number of interesting ideas as to how we can redesign society towards a more care-based democracy where individuals are free to care (and be cared for) in their relationships. The book is a good critique of how our current system of neoliberal market capitalism hampers the ability to care and creates inequality (e.g. ‘office hours’ and rigid temporality punishing those with caring responsibilities), and is a great read for anyone interested in the feminist ethics of care and how we can redesign society to just be better!

[Leah · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was all good and all but not radical enough for me. It seemed like it was gonna be a radical take but Tronto tries really hard to continue to work within the confines of capitalism and the current government. Like c’mon you were almost there. Plus, the last chapter was just horrid but I’m also speaking as someone who wants to abolish the military and police so… Chapter 4 and 5 were perhaps the most interesting but Tronto doesn’t do nearly enough work to address disparities in care in relation to racial and socio-economic class. It’s like they were scratching the surface but not really addressing the main issues of institutional sexism, racism, and white supremacy.

[korniszonka · Rating 4 out of 5]

someday i’ll be smart enough to rate this properly, now i just think it’s a good analysis of neoliberal society, i really liked the „passes” critique. I love ethics of care in general and this book was an amazing way to expand my knowledge

[ElFalleret · Rating 3 out of 5]

En un món mediàtic on ens passem hores i hores parlant de geopolítica, del PIB o de l'última animalà que diu un polític o un influencer; és cridaner el silenci que rep les crisis actuals en cures, temps i canvi climàtic. 'Democràcia i cura' fa una lectura encertada de com el neoliberalisme ideològic actual amaga a l'ambit privat els problemes de cura i com afrontem este repte d'una forma tan injusta. La seua tesi la trobe massa abstracta, tot i que encertada: hem de seure tots i decidir entre tots com ens repartim i exercicim les cures, no posant el mercat o la discriminació al mig, sinó la vulnerabilitat universal. La primera part se'm feu massa feixuga ja que tracta de definir el marc teòric de l'assaig d'una forma molt acadèmica i filosòfica, només a l'abast d'experts en ciències socials. Conforme avancí la lectura i me fiu amb el to, disfrutí més d'algunes de les idees exposades a la segona part i la tercera. El resum que oferix la part final també és molt aclaridor per condensar les idees més importants. Això sí, la quantitat d'arguments i idees és tan gran que em caldran un dies per pair-les.

[Francesc Brunés]

Assaig molt interessant que posa sobre la taula la necessitat de rebutjar la concepció contemporània habitual de democràcia que privilegia la independència i menysprea la dependència que afecta tothom. Tenim tanta feina que ens manca temps per tenir cura adequadament dels infants, de la gent gran i de nosaltres mateixos. Segons l'autora caldria repensar la democràcia i la resta de valors i compromisos fonamentals, des d'una perspectiva cuidadora.
Recomanacions de lectures d'interès al blog «Mirades»: https://agorafrancesc.wordpress.com/l...

[Ellen Zegura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating take on what democracy needs and what caring needs. Falls short in the last chapter, IMO, where speculation on how to make democracy more caring feels too much like an unattainable utopia.

[Marianne Hill · Rating 5 out of 5]

A new look at how the world should be

We care for ourselves, and for others. How we organize care defines our society, as the author explains. She opens up new possibilities for how we live together in this world. A fresh and penetrating look at Care.

[Vítor Medeiros · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent work on political philosophy on the care ethics tradition.

[Quin Rich · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is confused.

Tronto starts out with an interesting premise: the substance of democratic politics should rightly be understood as the collective setting of responsibilities for providing care. This opens up many potentially interesting and constructive pathways, and it is a welcome alternative to banal appeals to a “non-instrumental public sphere” that is emptied of all substantive content (e.g. theorists like Rorty and Arendt who everyone loves for some inexplicable reason).

However, Tronto does not develop this thesis in s particularly systematic or critical way. Although she openly critiques neoliberalism and “market fundamentalism,” and she even name-checks Marx and Polanyi, she ultimately endorse liberalism and capitalism.

She pays lip service to critiques of reducing all social value to economic growth and capital accumulation; critiques longstanding gender, race, and class inequalities in the provision of care; deconstructs the public/private divide; and offers several quotable lines that have potentially radical implications if developed further. But Tronto has neither the political agenda nor coherency of arguments to extend her case beyond banal calls for more care.

She also defines care so broadly that she can include military service, policing, and incarceration in her definition. This is wholly dubious, as these institutions are the closest thing to the opposite of care that I can think of. A truly “caring democracy” would abolish all three in favor of more socially progressive solutions to social problems (e.g. transformative justice; comprehensive mental healthcare; an end to war and militarism).

Tronto also doesn’t really develop arguments so much as make interesting claims and then discuss a seemingly arbitrary set of case studies or policy proposals in lieu of systemic argumentation. I would have preferred more engagement with political theorists, philosophers, and other academic theories, and less space spent on superficial examples that are cute but don’t offer any substantive support for her claims.

I’m unclear who this book is for. It seems to narrowly tailored to be of interest to lay readers, but it is also too conversational and insufficiently rigorous to be helpful to academics. She offers something to cite when one is attempting to legitimate certain concerns and forms of activism that have been all but crowded out of contemporary debates about participatory democracy (eg how the revival of Arendt now means that we have to relegitimate feminism as a serious political project because it violates Arendt’s sacred “public/private” distinction). But it remains wholly unsatisfying in its own right.