11. Labor, Collectivity, and the Nurturance of Attentive Belonging

Ibid., 135.

Ibid., 34.

Ibid., 7.

Quentin Skinner is highly critical of Macpherson’s approach to the history of ideas and argues that it proceeds by way of an “unhistorical level of abstraction.” See his: “Some Problems in the Analysis of Political Thought and Action,” Political Theory 2, no. 3 (August 1974): 280. For a defense of Macpherson against Skinner’s critique see Geoff Kennedy “Capitalism, Contextualisation and the Political Theory of Possessive Individualism,” Intellectual History and Political Thought 1, no. 1 (2012): 228–251. And, also: Ian McKay, “A Half-Century of Possessive Individualism: C.B. Macpherson and the Twenty-First-Century Prospects of Liberalism,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 25, no. 1 (2014): 307–340.

Ibid., 8.

While it is beyond the scope of this chapter to engage in a detailed analysis of republican thought, it is important to note that there is significant debate within political theory around its main tenants and types. Philip Pettit emphasizes the idea of freedom as non-domination as the central tenant of republican thought and distinguishes between two different schools, the Italian-Atlantic and the Franco-German. He associates Hannah Arendt with the latter and argues that she replaces the idea of freedom as non-domination with freedom as participation. He is critical of this move because he thinks it ushers in a communitarian ideology that undermines the capacities of individuals to critique the government. Philip Pettit, “Two Republican Traditions,” in Republican Democracy: Liberty, Law and Politics, ed. Andreas Niederberger and Philipp Schink (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013), 169–204. While this is a disturbing charge, it doesn’t impact the claims of this paper which contrasts republicanism with liberalism by emphasizing the significance of collectivity in the former without arguing that it is the highest value in human life. Pettit himself recognizes the significance of civic virtue, political participation, and belonging for freedom as non-domination to be achieved and maintained. See: Philip Pettit, “Civilizing the Republic,” in Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 241–270.

Roberts, “Marx’s Social Republic,” 17.

Karl Marx, “On the Jewish Question,” in The Marx-Engels Reader, ed. Robert C. Tucker (New York: W.W. Norton, 1978), 43.

Ibid., 42.

Ibid., 46.

Simone Weil, “Human Personality,” Selected Essays 1934–1943, ed. and trans. Richard Rees (New York: Oxford University Press, 1962), 18.

Ibid., 21.

Andrew, “Simone Weil,” 63.

Ibid., 64.

Ibid., 89.

Ibid., 301.

Ibid., 296–297.

Ibid., 296.

See Footnote 14. For more on how different strands of republican thought are conceptualized (particularly in contemporary debates over neo-republicanism), see: Charles Larmore, “Liberal and Republican Conceptions of Freedom,” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 6, no. 1 (2003): 96–119. Thomas Simpson, “The Impossibility of Republican Freedom,” Philosophy & Public Affairs 45, no. 1 (Winter 2017): 27–53. Michael J. Thompson, “Reconstructing Republican Freedom: A Critique of the Neo-republican Concept of Freedom as Non-domination,” Philosophy and Social Criticism 39, no. 3 (2013): 277–298. For an analysis of Arendt as a republican thinker see: Margie Lloyd, “In Tocqueville’s Shadow: Hannah Arendt’s Liberal Republicanism,” The Review of Politics 57, no. 1 (Winter 1995): 31–59.

Ibid., 45.

Ibid., 47.

Ibid., 103.

Ibid., 50.

Ibid., 52.

Ibid., 162.

Ibid., 82.

Ibid., 99.

Ibid., 103.

Ibid., 175.

Weil, “Human Personality,” 16.

Ibid., 17.

Ibid., 28.

Karl Marx, “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844,” in The Marx-Engels Reader, ed. Robert C. Tucker (New York: W.W. Norton, 1978), 89.

Radzins, “Weil on Labor,” 295.

Ibid., 94.

Ibid., 297.

Weil, “Human Personality,” 28.