Give a Man a Fish: Reflections on the New Politics of Distribution
James Ferguson is Susan S. and William H. Hindle Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences and Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Stanford University. He is the author of
The Social Life of Cash Payments: Money, Markets, and the Mutualities of Poverty
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Published:March 2015
This chapter builds on the arguments of the previous chapter by tracing the conceptual dualism that continues to plague thinking about market and society and the pernicious effect of such dualism on understanding distributive processes and distributive politics. It traces a persistent conceptual error found on the political Left (confusing money and markets with capitalism) and explores an alternative framework for understanding “cash payment” and the socialities with which it is associated. New thinking emerging in the domain of social policy provides both an object of analysis and a sophisticated inspiration for new ways of thinking about how cash payments and markets may be linked with things like sociality and solidarity.
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