| It has long been assumed that people engage in social conflict for distributive and utilitarian reasons. Social thinkers have often explained social conflict by assuming that people are motivated to engage in social struggle by economic self-interest, a view I call economism. I propose an alternative interpretation of what prompts people to enter social conflict, arguing that people are motivated by recognition demands at least as often as by economic interests. To illustrate, I examine an economistic account of why many whites in the U.S. oppose race-conscious social policies. To argue that whites oppose such policies because they threaten white economic advantage vis-a-vis blacks is untenable. It is ahistorical and hampered by a narrow notion of reason. Economism is better construed as itself a form of identity or form of agency. Identities, relations, norms, and institutions are constituted by historically contingent recognition relations. In the U.S., whiteness is a form of agency and social relation, a form of identity constructed historically and infused with privilege, authority, and status. Thus if whites rankle at social welfare or affirmative action, I contend that such indignation is better interpreted as a recognition struggle than as a defense of economic self-interest. The claims that some whites feel marginalized, victimized or aggrieved should be taken seriously. But the threat they perceive, the discomfort they feel, has its origin not in economic usurpation by blacks, but in the increasing visibility of whiteness, as well as a growing awareness of its pretensions. |
