Citizen and citizenship ate powerful words. They speak of respect, of rights,
Consider the meaning and emotion packed into the French citoyen
Word that condemned tyranay and social hierarchy while affirming
us equality: that was 2 moment when even women.
« ‘ommistee, We Find no pejorative uses. It's
rental, humanist word,
na.+y FRASER ANI
nce, public heal
expression “private wealt
dangerous to enter. In general
enship: for example, public schools, public parks,
services. T “social
16s a richly elaborated discourse
il citizenship.”
‘vision las been shaped largely
-versus-charity opposition. Invi
tions are drawn, for example, between
‘would not erase the needs of
or the infirm. No decent
‘rable entitlemer
cceptual resource
” programs andNave
tizenship, was to be constructed in the twentieth century; for Marshall,
the guarantee of economic security, but also the
dissolve divergent class cultures imto a
a progressive decoupling of money income fro
‘which would include many tax-funded services provided pal
ja established by public provision, be hoped,
gh as to approach thee
ld buy would be mere fells. The the purchased ser-
the norm.
ity of market mechanisms and
iced that the further development
ig the
izenship co te social rel oward greater equality
‘TH. Marshall is tonic reading in this period of widespread
pessimism about pul be appropriate
When questions about gender and race are put at the center of the inquiry
's analysis become periodization
ket forces
arenas of dou
tween work and welfare,
and continger
need not be
Reimagining
who cannot obiai
who are disabled or whoLIS Nancy PRasen AND LINDA Gonos
ndered, ideological opposition between contract an
tures state provision of welfare today. (In this essay we use
ips were cast as vol
iments, entered into out of individu:
actual agreement, defined as anc»
posed the
enforce
be they comm
orable phrase, c
coaly of the tangi
es of ci
the ability t0|
n arbitrary imprisonment
iberty of movement and bo Teeclom of speech, thought,
sue in a court of Iaw in order to enforce al
one’s other rights
Certain!
way of eoneei
this property-centered contract model is not the
civil society. In the eighteenth and nineteen
cont
izenship.
hhas since become, the contra
I society represented a revolutio
recognize “individu
pendent of their place in a statu
as freely chosen,
citizenship was not
{or the most radical early proponents
Women, of course,
tizenship for cen:
citizenship should be
different. Consequently, civil so-
“civil society.” not
were excluded fron
turies, and there was no.
acconded the poor, servi
slavery. In the leg
the
raditional subject-United States, for examp!
and civil citizenship guaranteed the
property rights of one to possess the other. In one of the great ironies
history of civi U.S. Married Women’s Property Act,
passed in Mississippi in 1839, was aimed at securing slaveholders’ wives
tights over slaves.’ Meanwhile, the citizenship claims of white male wage
earn! Aga
helped construct core
Since
hardly surprising that those excluded from civil citi-
ose who did not own property, either because they
c
‘were unable to get their resources defined as proper
tenants, workers) or because they
Jed to heads of households against intrud
often deprived slaves, workers, women, and
to stop abuse by their mast
theory, then, civil
duals.” They belonged instead to male
in coverture, and the legal classi
ple matters of exclusion. They actual
ip, for it was by protecting, subsuming, and even ow
‘white male property owners and family heads became citizens,y- and kin-based relationships. Instead of depend-
ishands, wives usually had a variety of bases from which
(o claim needed resources,
. from the moral-economic
consequently, the property
geoisie
juncture between two different
“spheres” of society y
fe: resources were exchanged for ex-
cuit of exchange,
This
several respects, The norm:
ice, and different social g
teal agendas. For exat
between two “spheres” was ideological in
propounded were constantly violated in prac-
working-class men and women used ideas
ruggles for ving and working
‘conditions and in the dev
and respectability. Likewise,
to argue for
influence as mothers,
‘contractual exchange, ws
he presupposi
advantage. It was applied even to nonmarket spheres, such a pk
as to commere!
luence representations
lations appear to be
theory.
dance over a progressively larger share of
‘complementary other. C!
the recipient had no ct
‘The binary
ther ideologi
the giver
s, such doubts fueled repeated waves ot
sought to counter the “degenerative” indisc
‘on recipients and on society as a whole. Thus the co
sition repeatedly menaced the charity side; what had appeared to be a sta
le dichotomy was always in danger of dissolving.
Second, the contract-versus-charity dichotomy shrouded the very
‘of noncontractual reciprocity, rendering invisible a whole range‘of popular practices that defied the official binary categorization.
neighborly, and community obligations
in a variety of guises and forms. Yet these practices
‘and official politcal legitimacy, In time,
their existence contributed to
teenth century, moreover, whi
States,
ig the experience of interpersonal help that was nei.
ther contractual nor charitable,
CONTRACT, CHARITY, AND WELEARE
The contract-versus-charity dichotomy thus to some extent remade reality
its image, crowding out other types of relations, It impressed its stamp
rongly on state provision of welfare, which developed along dic
In the United States, government programs from ear
‘on some of the trappings of civil exchange, gua
to some citizens by mimicking private contract
trast, were cast as proffering unreciprocated
ty stream was exemplified by mothers’ pensions.®
coded ichotomy persists today in
»position between social insurance and public assis-
‘ance programs, The first were designed by reformers to appear “contribu
.” seemingly embodying the principle of exchange; recipients, originally
ended to be exclusively white, male, and relatively privileged members
of the working class, are defined as “entitle
8 recipi-
insurance advocates of the early twen
{erm contributory as a thetorical ss
aware that all welfare programs are financed through
fering only as to where and how
curtailed. For example, AFDC
the United States have been denied the
{abridged by state residency requirements); the right to due process (abridged
inistrative procedures for determining eligibility and terminating ben-
right (0 protection from unreasonable search and seizure (abridged
by unannounced home visits); the right to privacy (abridged by “morals test
ng”) and the right to equal protection under the law (abridged by a
above). In the 1960s and 1970s U.S courts overtumed many of these
tices, bat 70s and 1980s brought a rash of new restrict
receipt of
ym continues to hamper
Cial provision today. Since the wage appears as an exchange
labor, it is argued that all resources should be apportioned
change. The widespread fear that “welfare” recipients are “gett
thing for nothin
impact of economie recession, the claims
States today are being weakened by a resurgence
logy of ei ip stands in a tense,
tionship to soci ip. This is nowhere more
ted States, where the dominant understanding of civil
Citizenship remains strongly inflected by notions of “i “inde-
7 been constructed fo connote “char-120 Nancy Feaasert Np Lina Goroon
and “dependence.” What is missing is
pressing ideas
's conception of social citizenship.
ceaship in the United States are, of course,
-—intemational as well as domestic. Nevertheless,
ideological conceptions, such as contract, make it more difficult to develop
public support for a welfare state, especially where the cultural mythology
citizenship is highly developed, Marshall underestimated these ide-
‘ological difficulties. Should we conclude, then, that civil rights and social
ip represents an urgent task, for pk
social movements
‘What would it take to revivify soci
new contractarianism? One be
less property-centered, more solidaristic form. This would permit us to re-
claim some of the moral and conceptual ground for social has
been colonized by property and contract. We might try t0 recone
somal liberties in terms that nurture rather than choke off social solidarity.
Certainly we need to contest conservative and liberal claims that the preser-
rights to social sup-
port, Today, when rhetoric about the “triumph of democracy” accompanies
social and economic devastation, it is time to insist that there can be mo
democratic citizenship without social rights.
Noves
1. TH. Marshall, “Citizenship and Social Class," in Class, Ciizenship,
‘and Social Development: Essays by T H. Marshall, &. Seymour Martin Lipset
Hobbes 1 Locke (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974).
3. Rogers M. Smith, “One United People: Second-Class Female
Citizenship and the American Quest for Communit
‘Humanities 1, no. 2 (May 1989): 29-93,
4, Judith Shklar, American Cit
(Cambridge, Mass : Harvard University Pre
Yale Journal of Law and the
‘Quest for netusion
Coneac versus CH
5, Linda J. Nicholson, Gender and History: The Limits of Saciat Theory
inthe Aa he Family (ew York: Columbia Univer rs, 186)
essays in Women, the State and Welfare, ed, Linda Gorton
surance and Public
ce: The Influence of Gender in Welfare Thought inthe United States,
1890-1935," American Historical Review 97, no, T (Feb. 1992),THE Cir
GERSHON SHAFIR, EDITOR
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