ABSTRACT
In this chapter, Nicholas H. Smith inquires whether work and the social roles attaching to it can embody what he, following Axel Honneth, calls ‘social freedom’. A richly intersubjective conception, social freedom obtains when people can identify with their social roles, cooperate with one another in ways contributing to each other’s self-realization, and have an effective say over the performance of their shared activity. From this emancipatory perspective, work in the contemporary capitalist economy and labour market is distinctly ambiguous, on the one hand promising mutual recognition through participation in cooperative activities, and on the other hand defined by the pursuit of self-interest and individual gain, with workers enjoying little discretion over their working lives. But Smith nonetheless argues that we can view work as a real realm of social freedom once we understand, contra Honneth, the locus of normative attention as less the labour market, which rests on instrumental exchange relations, and more the workplace or firm. The chapter concludes by considering various transformations that might help realize freedom in workplaces, including introducing a universal basic income (UBI).
