individual authenticity ( 2002 , 65 ). For Benhabib, the conception of groups
entailed within the latter claim is too unitary to be sensitive to the contra-
dictions and antagonisms within as well as between groups.
Anxieties about ‘‘the problem of reiWcation’’ (Fraser 2000 , 108 ) have led
advocates of a politics of diVerence to argue that groups can best be viewed in
relational rather than substantial terms. Groups should be conceptualized
‘‘not as substances or things or entities or organisms or collective individ-
uals—as the imagery of discrete, concrete, tangible, bounded, and enduring
‘groups’ encourages us to do—but rather in relational, processual, dynamic,
eventful, and disaggregated terms’’ (Brubaker 2004 , 53 ). In this way they hope
to ‘‘retain a description of social group diVerentiation, but withoutWxing or
reifying groups’’ (Young 2000 , 89 – 90 ). The question remains, however, how
this reconceptualization of ‘‘groups’’ impacts on the actual political strategies
advocated in the name of these groups. Barry, for instance, maintains that—
notwithstanding this relational notion of social groups—Young continues to
assume that the possession of a distinctive culture is what deWnes somebody
as a member of a group. In so doing, she misdiagnoses the problem and
therefore develops inappropriate cures.
Indeed, Barry suggests in his ‘‘egalitarian critique of multiculturalism,’’ that
the proposed group-based cures are not only inappropriate, but also counter-
productive, in that they erode the basis for solidarity necessary for a politics
of redistribution (Barry 2001 , 325 – 6 ). All policies aimed at achieving group
recognition can actually achieve, he suggests, is ‘‘a minor reshuZing of the
characteristics of the individuals occupying diVerent locations in an un-
changed structure that creates grossly unequal incomes and opportunities’’
( 2001 , 326 ). He argues that the politics of diVerence is mistaken in its
assertion that equality requires recognition of citizens’ identity-related diVer-
ences ( 2001 , 305 – 17 ), and argues that the problems addressed by diVerence
theorists can all ultimately be reduced to problems of formal economic
inequality ( 2001 , 319 ). Accordingly, traditional liberal legal policies can ad-
dress the problem. Moreover, the preoccupation with diVerence undermines
the solidarity necessary for the politics of redistribution ( 2001 , 325 ).
This last claim links the two broad critiques of the politics of diVerence: the
problem of reiWcation and the problem of displacement. The former, which
relates to the inappropriate preoccupation with groups, is argued to contrib-
ute to the latter, which relates to the declining concern with economic
inequality, both theoretically and practically. In this way, liberal egalitarians
argue that the emergence of a politics of diVerence not only diverts theoretical
equality and difference 481