Revealing invisible inequalities in egalitarian political theory

ABSTRACT In this paper, I consider what one might call a negative-critical turn in egalitarian political theorizing, according to which egalitarians should not begin with a positive account of how a society of equals would supposedly look, but with the identification and critical analysis of existing hierarchical relations. Subsequently, these relational egalitarians proceed by asking what kind of political actions are needed to combat these hierarchies. For this egalitarian critique to be successful, however, it is crucial that unjust hierarchies can actually be identified. Yet, because many hierarchies perform their deadly operations at the margins of societal life, operate subtly and silently, or are disguised by hegemonic epistemic frameworks, they tend to be invisible to powerfully situated subjects. While critical race and feminist relational theories tend to be well aware of this problem, mainstream relational egalitarian theory often ignores the existence of these sorts of inequalities. This paper asks what relational egalitarian political theory can learn from critical race and feminist relational theories with respect to the operation of hidden hierarchies.