struggles over the meaning and value of diVerent human activities. Modern
capitalism, he suggests, replaces the old principle for the distribution of
esteem—according to one’s membership in an estate—with the new principle
of ‘‘individual achievement within the structure of the industrially organized
division of labor’’ (Honneth 2003 b, 140 ); but because this achievement
principle depends upon some background understanding of what counts as
valuable work, ‘‘distribution struggles under capitalism’’ typically involve
eVorts to transform the prevailing interpretation of ‘‘achievement’’—for
instance, in ‘‘the feminist struggle to socially valorize ‘female’ housework’’
and reproductive labor (Honneth 2003 b, 154 ).
Do these more radical critiques constitute a compelling critique of Fraser’s
‘‘perspectival dualism?’’ One response Fraser might make—most straightfor-
wardly applicable to Yar’s challenge—is that such eVorts to resolve redistri-
bution into recognition do not satisfactorily account for the real if incomplete
diVerentiation of modern political economy from more encompassing ethical
frameworks: the distinguishing feature of capitalism is ‘‘its creation of a
quasi-objective, anonymous, impersonal market order,’’ which, while ‘‘cul-
turally embedded,’’ is not ‘‘directly governed by cultural schemas of evalu-
ation’’ (Fraser 2003 a, 214 ). Honneth, of course, does oVer an account of the
distinctiveness of capitalism: he reads its development as a diVerentiation of
theWeld of recognition itself into three dimensions, governed by the distinct
principles of love, law, and achievement, rather than as a diVerentiation of
norm-dependent from norm-free modes of social integration (Honneth
2003 a, 253 – 6 ). Here, however, Fraser has a second response available. While
some struggles over distribution under capitalism may aim at transforming
prevailing interpretations of the achievement principle, this is by no means
thetypicalform of redistributive politics: ‘‘struggles against neoliberal glob-
alization,’’ for instance, ‘‘aim to end systemic maldistribution that is rooted
not in ideologies about achievement, but in the system imperatives and
governance structures of globalizing capitalism,’’ and which is ‘‘no less para-
digmatic of contemporary capitalism than the sort fueled by the nonrecogni-
tion of women’s carework’’ (Fraser 2003 a, 215 ).
Still, I think Honneth and Yar are right to suggest that redistribution—and,
more broadly, the operation of political economy—cannot be understood
without some reference to the notion of recognition. The question is: ‘‘rec-
ognition’’ in what sense? To theWrst orienting question I suggested earlier—is
recognition a discrete good or a general medium of social life?—critics like
Honneth and Yar oVer an equivocal response: although they treat recognition
460 patchen markell