ABSTRACT
Chapter 4, Freedom, governance in socioeconomic status, examines the relationship between socioeconomic status, subordination and domination, freedom and government. It highlights the fundamental facts which govern the course of moral action and the fight for social recognition. On the basis of the modern welfare state, our moral actions are exemplified and symbolized by various conceptions of the welfare state’s economic assistance to the poor and to those who for some reason have stopped being economically productive. However idealistic this moral aid and social insurance may be, it has also shaped new human categories of social exclusion and deviation. The result has been that some people experience social anxiety and being assigned low socioeconomic status, leading to an everlasting fight for social recognition. The chapter shows, by alluding to a philosophical theme, that because of a never-ending contradiction in the social environment, a fulfillment of the absolute self or an absolute consciousness, a dream of philosophy, will forever be utopian, an insight with great relevance to our discussion.
