Comment Contents Arfken on Vasquez ..............................475 Hamby and Grych on Rotheram-Borus et al. ..................................................476 Rotheram-Borus et al. reply ................477 Pomerantz on Johnson et al. ................478 Johnson et al. reply ..............................479 DOI: 10.1037/a0033596 Social Justice and the Politics of Recognition Michael Arfken University of Prince Edward Island In the wake of multiculturalism, it has become commonplace to treat social jus- tice first and foremost as an issue of identity. The thought is that within mod- ern society, members of particular social, cultural, and ethnic groups often experi- ence themselves as marginalized by a dominant social order (Honneth, 1995; Taylor, 1994). Such marginalization con- stitutes a grave injustice that must be addressed if we are to establish a more equitable society. It is clear from Vasquez’s (July–August 2012) recent ar- ticle that this emphasis on identity is shared by the American Psychological Association (APA). Indeed, Vasquez pointed to numerous initiatives and task forces that the APA has established to address the marginalization and subordi- nation of various groups. There is little doubt that the concerns addressed by these initiatives and task forces are im- portant and play a central role in the development of a just society. For Vasquez (2012), social justice aims “to decrease human suffering and to promote human values of equality and jus- tice” (p. 337). And to the extent that social justice emerges against the background of the politics of recognition, equality tends to be treated principally as an identity issue. From this perspective, the principle injus- tice is the failure to provide equal recogni- tion, respect, and protection of different social, cultural, and ethnic identities. Equality demands that marginalized and subordinated groups be given appropriate recognition in order to achieve parity with traditionally dominant groups. Differences must be protected and even celebrated to achieve the type of equality that is the hallmark of a socially just society. Given the value of pluralism, which largely de- fines modern society, the politics of recog- nition certainly highlights a necessary com- ponent of social justice. Yet it is also clear that the nearly exclusive focus on issues of identity obscures a vital dimension of so- cial justice. One could argue that the ascen- dance of the capitalist mode of production has produced unparalleled disparities in the distribution of wealth and resources— dis- parities that inevitably work against the cause of social justice. When we turn our attention to the economic structure of society, it becomes clear that equality can only become a real- ity when the structures and institutions that separate the rich from the poor lose their force—that is, when the notion of class becomes radically unintelligible. That means that when it comes to the distribu- tion of wealth and resources, it is the de- struction rather than the protection or cel- ebration of difference that paves the way for social justice (Fraser, 2003; Michaels, 2006). Yet such an insight remains out of reach as long as our understanding of social justice emerges exclusively against the background of the politics of recognition (Arfken, 2012). It is therefore notable that Vasquez’s (2012) only reference to the economic dimensions of social injustice are some brief remarks about socioeconomic status, scarcity of resources, and the will- ingness of some practitioners to provide psychological services “for little or no fi- nancial reimbursement” (p. 338). It is also unfortunate that economic exploitation does not appear on Vasquez’s list of soci- etal obstacles to social justice. Moreover, nearly every task force, initiative, or psy- chologist that Vasquez mentioned as an example of APA’s commitment to social justice approaches economic exploitation in terms of recognition rather than redistri- bution. For example, while the APA Task Force on Socioeconomic Status (2007) noted that the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few has reached epic pro- portions, the analysis and recommenda- tions that follow treat classism rather than class as the principle injustice. This stems in large part from the view that social class and classism are functionally equivalent to race and racism. As such, the goal of social justice becomes giving a voice and cele- brating the unique perspectives of those who find themselves in poverty rather than challenging an economic structure that makes anything like poverty (and its con- sequences) possible. Further evidence for the transformation of redistributive issues into recognition or identity issues can be found in the effort to deploy the notion of multicultural competence to address eco- nomic disparities or the suggestion that im- proving interclass relations will make pov- erty a thing of the past. By modeling class exploitation on the model of racial and ethnic prejudice, these notions give the im- pression that the economic dimensions of social justice are being given serious atten- tion. Yet it remains unclear how the elim- ination of the very notion of class itself can follow from such well-intentioned exer- cises. It is also important to note that the overwhelming emphasis in these discus- sions is on the way that those in poverty can be given greater access to resour- ces—particularly psychological services. While it is understandable that APA would see this as a central concern, when viewed in the context of social justice it is unclear whether these efforts work to destabilize the class structure of society or if they are actually instrumental for reproducing and expanding that structure. In other words, if capitalism is the root cause of many of our social problems, efforts that focus exclusively on mitigat- ing the effects of economic stratification may inadvertently play a structural role in sustaining capitalism itself. This makes it crucial to interrogate the rela- tionship between modern psychology and the welfare state. Although Vasquez (2012) noted that “social realities are important deter- minants of distress” (p. 337) she failed to appreciate the extent to which our social relations emerge against the background of specific political and economic struc- tures. The cost of this oversight is the This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. 475 September 2013 ● American Psychologist © 2013 American Psychological Association 0003-066X/13/$12.00 Vol. 68, No. 6, 475– 480