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15 Res Publica 1 (2009)

handle is hein.journals/respub15 and id is 1 raw text is: Res Publica (2009) 15:1-16 DOI 10.1007/s 1158-008-9077-8 Contributive Justice and Meaningful Work Andrew Sayer Published online: 21 January 2009 © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 Abstract The dominant focus of thinking about economic justice is overwhelm- ingly distributive, that is, concerned with what people get in terms of resources and opportunities. It views work mainly negatively, as a burden or cost, or else is neutral about it, rather than seeing it as a source of meaning and fulfilment-a good in its own right. However, what we do in life has at least as much, if not more, influence on whom we become, as does what we get. Thus we have good reason also to be concerned with what Paul Gomberg has termed contributive justice, that is, justice as regards what people are expected and able to contribute in terms of work. Complex, interesting work allows workers not only to develop and exercise their capacities, and gain the satisfaction from achieving the internal goods of a practice, but to gain the external goods of recognition and esteem. As Gomberg's analysis of the concept of contrib- utive justice in relation to equality of opportunity shows, as long as the more satisfying kinds of work are concentrated into a subset of jobs, rather than shared out among all jobs, then many workers will be denied the chance to have meaningful work and the recognition that goes with it. In this paper I examine the contributive justice argument, suggest how it can be further strengthened, arguing, inter alia, that ignoring con- tributive injustice tends to support legitimations of distributive inequality. Keywords Contibutive justice - Equality - Unequal social division of labour Meaningful work Introduction The dominant focus of thinking about inequalities and economic justice is overwhelmingly distributive, that is, it is concerned with what people have or get in A. Sayer (E) Department of Sociology, Lancaster University, Lancaster LAl 4YT, PA, USA e-mail: a.sayer@lancaster.ac.uk I_ Springer

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