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Personal Responsibility For Systemic Inequality, Martha T. Mccluskey Nov 2015

Personal Responsibility For Systemic Inequality, Martha T. Mccluskey

Contributions to Books

Published as Chapter 15 in Research Handbook on Political Economy and Law, Ugo Mattei & John D. Haskell, eds.

Equality has faded as a guiding ideal for legal theory and policy. An updated message of personal responsibility has helped rationalize economic policies fostering increased inequality and insecurity. In this revised message, economic “losers” should take personal responsibility not only for the harmful effects of their individual economic decisions, but also for the harmful effects of systemic failures beyond their individual control or action. In response to the 2008 financial crisis, this re-tooled message of personal responsibility promoted mass austerity in …


Razing The Citizen: Economic Inequality, Gender, And Marriage Tax Reform, Martha T. Mccluskey Jul 2009

Razing The Citizen: Economic Inequality, Gender, And Marriage Tax Reform, Martha T. Mccluskey

Contributions to Books

Published as Chapter 12 in Gender Equality: Dimensions of Women's Equal Citizenship, Linda C. McClain & Joanna L. Grossman, eds.

This chapter links the failure of U.S. social citizenship ideals to a broader weakness in U.S. ideas citizenship. To better advance policies of economic equality, U.S. law and politics needs a stronger vision not just of economic equality, but of gender equality and of democracy in general. Feminist scholars have analyzed how ideas about gender help shape the common assumption that the costs of raising and sustaining capable, productive citizens are largely private family responsibilities. But ideas about gender also …