Rethinking Redistribution

In “From Redistribution to Recognition?” Nancy Fraser formulates a theory aiming at defending only those versions of identity politics that can be coherently combined with socialist politics. Many commentators have criticized the analytical distinction between economic and cultural injustice underpinning this theory. I argue, however, that it is Fraser’s inability to uphold this distinction that makes her argument problematic, and that a clearer analytical distinction between the categories class and identity, makes possible both a more theoretically satisfying critique of the “postsocialist” condition and the formulation of a radical politics that addresses economic as well as cultural injustices.