Exclusion

Power and the Excluded

Each of the three discourses sketched can be presented as a statement about the excluded that is both diagnostic and evaluative:

• 1.
  The excluded have opted out.
• 2.
  The excluded have been left out.
• 3.
  The excluded have been kept out.

The third statement, which is generally expressed by the political Left, has the most to say in connecting exclusion specifically to power. This is because the Left has tended to derive an understanding of power from a Marxist conception of ideology, of state, and of social relations. However, when examined as a discourse, each statement can be seen to adopt a distinct position on power relations.

• 1.
  The core argument is that the excluded belong to an underclass that has become disconnected from, and may even actively oppose, social norms and the rule of law. Whether because of lack of ability or willingness to exercise responsibility and self-discipline, the underclass poses a threat to social order. Assuming a moral decline, of which the underclass is merely the most visible manifestation, the discourse articulates a negative-sum view of power relations, identifying the egalitarian aspirations of state welfare and affirmative action programs as primary causes. The central thesis is that far from eradicating poverty and inequality in the structure of opportunities, mechanisms of redistribution actually socialize the poor and the less capable into habits of dependency, which in turn erodes social power while fostering conditions that are conducive to criminality.
• 2.
  The core argument is that the excluded are the unfortunate and unintended victims of modernization, which is to say that they have been disadvantaged or marginalized by changes that have occurred in the context of late modernity. As a sociological thesis of unintended effects, this is a discourse of renewal and reform that finds its clearest formulation in the post-left-right third way politics. The central thesis is that we are on the cusp of a new age, with a new economy that can benefit everyone if, and only if, each and all recognize that they have responsibilities as well as rights. The discourse articulates a positive-sum view of power relations that links individual empowerment to social empowerment, devolving responsibility to the individual, transforming the citizen into a consumer of public and private services, and encouraging self-help and mutual assistance in the form of familial and community relations.
• 3.
  The core argument is that the excluded are a new servant class subjected to a global economy that operates in the interests of the dominant [Page 226]consumer classes, nations, and global regions. The discourse articulates a zero-sum view of power relations, and it identifies the “new” poor as migrant communities, ethnic minorities, solo mothers, and other marginalized groups who depend on sweatshop labor and low-paid service sector work. Furthermore, against the idea that the underclass is a collection of criminal and feckless individuals, it is argued that the impoverished conditions once associated with the third world are now found in the ghettos of first world countries, with the new poor blamed for their poverty, or at the very least made responsible for it, through neoliberal reforms that are making welfare entitlements tentative and conditional on participation in training programs and make-work schemes.

Although each of these discourses provides a specific account of power and exclusion, they all converge on the more general problem of order.

...