Emancipation

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Discussion

How Emancipation differs from both 'social protection' and 'marketization'

Nancy Frasers discusses emancipation in the context of Polany's 'double movement', as used in his landmark book, The Great Transformation:

"Emancipation differs importantly from Polanyi’s chief positive category, social protection. Whereas protection is opposed to exposure, emancipation is opposed to domination. While protection aims to shield society from the disintegrative effects of unregulated markets, emancipation aims to expose oppressive relations wherever they root, in society as well as in economy. While the thrust of protection is to subject market exchange to non-economic norms, that of emancipation is to subject both market exchange and non-market norms to critical scrutiny. Finally, whereas protection’s highest values are social security, social stability and solidarity, emancipation’s priority is to overcome domination.

It would be wrong, however, to conclude that emancipation is always allied with marketization. If emancipation opposes domination, marketization opposes the extra-economic regulation of production and exchange, whether such regulation is meant to protect or to liberate. While marketization defends the supposed autonomy of the economy against encroachment from other social spheres, emancipation ranges across the boundaries that demarcate spheres, seeking to root out domination from every “sphere.” While the thrust of marketization is to liberate buying and selling from moral and ethical norms, that of emancipation is to scrutinize all types of norms from the standpoint of non-domination. Finally, whereas marketization claims as its values efficiency, individual choice, and the liberal norm of non-interference or negative liberty, emancipation’s priority, as I just said, is to overcome domination."

Source: Marketization, Social Protection, Emancipation: Toward a Neo-Polanyian Conception of Capitalist Crisis. By Nancy Fraser.