Jane Addams on Inequality and Political

161 Pages·3.215 MB·English

by  Wynne Walker Moskop

JANE ADDAMS ON INEQUALITY AND
POLITICAL FRIENDSHIP
Inthisbook,WynneWalkerMoskopaddressesthepracticalandtheoreticalproblem
ofhowunequalpoliticalfriendshipsevolvetowardarrangementsthepartiesconsider
reciprocal and just, a problem neglected by scholars of democracy who associate
reciprocityandjusticeonlywithequalparties.JaneAddamsinsistedthatHullHouse
wasnotacharitywithphilanthropicaspirations;ratherithadtobring“twoclasses”
toasharedpurposeandmoreegalitarianrelation.Theproblemwas,andstillis,how?
Drawing on several bodies of scholarship—including Addams’s writings, sec-
ondary works about her collaborations, literature on Aristotelian political friend-
ship, and feminist scholarship on the global migration of care workers—Moskop
shows the importance of Addams’s practices to the continuing relevance of
unequal economic relations for shaping political friendship.
Contributing to a lively conversation about Addams’s work as a pragmatist
thinker and social reformer that began three decades ago, Jane Addams on
InequalityandPoliticalFriendshipisaninvaluableresourcetostudentsofdemocratic
theory, feminist political theory and philosophy, and American pragmatism. It
illuminates the importance of overlooked conditions for friendship and justice in
unequal relations, given people’s ongoing subordination because of race, class,
gender, and citizenship status in the U.S. and transnationally.
Wynne Walker Moskop is Associate Professor of Political Science and affiliate
AssociateProfessorofWomen’sandGenderStudiesatSaintLouisUniversity.Moskop
teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on American political thought, feminist
theory,contemporaryideologies,andthehistoryofpoliticalthought.Herarticlesand
reviews have appeared in a range of journals, including American Political Thought,
American Quarterly, the Journal of Political Psychology, American Studies, Political Theory,
AmericanPoliticalScienceReview,theQuarterlyJournalofIdeology,andTheJournalofPolitics.

JANE ADDAMS ON
INEQUALITY AND
POLITICAL FRIENDSHIP
Wynne Walker Moskop
Firstpublished2020
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Title:JaneAddamsoninequalityandpoliticalfriendship/WynneWalker
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Description:NewYork,NY:Routledge,2019.|Includesbibliographical
referencesandindex.
Identifiers:LCCN2019005439(print)|LCCN2019007804(ebook)|
ISBN9780203731154(Master)|ISBN9781351399333(Adobe)|
ISBN9781351399319(Mobi)|ISBN9781351399326(ePub3)|
ISBN9781138303348(hardback)|ISBN9781138303355(pbk.)|
ISBN9780203731154(e-book)
Subjects:LCSH:Addams,Jane,1860–1935--Politicalandsocialviews.|
Equality--UnitedStates.|Friendship--Politicalaspects.
Classification:LCCHV28.A35(ebook)|LCCHV28.A35M672019(print)|
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TypesetinBembo
byTaylor&FrancisBooks
In memory of my parents, who gave me a love for ideas
and conversation, and an appreciation for differences
among people. For me, these find deep satisfaction in the
feminist pragmatist narratives of Jane Addams.
And
In memory of two of my family who shared Addams’s
Progressive Era activism, great aunt Helen W. Tippy, a
resident of Hull House and labor lawyer, and great
grandfather Worth M. Tippy, a Methodist minister and
leader in the Protestant social gospel movement.
And
To my family and friends who continue to add immea-
surably to my life and my store of perspectives.

CONTENTS
Preface ix
Acknowledgements xi
1 Introduction: Political Friendship and Justice among Unequals 1
2 Addams’s Friendship Practices 19
3 Economic Foundations of Pragmatist Political Friendships 37
4 Economic Foundations of War and Peace 72
5 Possibilities for Transnational Political Friendship 99
6 Conclusion: A Feminist Pragmatist Approach to Political
Friendship 128
Index 145

PREFACE
Jane Addams is a largely untapped resource for democratic political theory. She is
deservedly famous as a social reformer, a founder of the settlement house move-
ment in the U.S., a founder of social work, a suffrage and peace activist, and a
winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. Her achievements qualify her as a pre-eminent
practitioner of political friendship. Since Aristotle, political friendship has been
understood as a collaboration among parties who share a common purpose, on
terms that all parties consider reciprocal and just. But, from my perspective as a
political theorist, Addams was more than a practitioner. She wrote five books
about her experiences at Hull House and in the women’s international peace
movement. These books, and many articles and speeches, detail her collabora-
tions, and possibilities for better collaborations, across boundaries of class, ethni-
city,race,gender,andnation.Hernarrativesaboutthoseexperiencesrevealheras
a pre-eminent theorist of political friendship. Her major contribution to demo-
cratic political thought and practice is to look for justice and reciprocity where
modern democratic thinkers have not looked: in relations between parties who
are unequal.
Modern democratic thinkers since the seventeenth century have understood
justice and reciprocity to apply only to equal relations, usually relations among
democratic citizens. The problem with this modern version of justice, as feminist
care thinkers have observed, is that it provides no moral guidance for parties in
unequal dependency relations. Addams responds to this problem by working out
what justice and reciprocity require in unequal relations between those at the top
of systemic economic hierarchies and those at the bottom. I wrote this book
because I have been so taken by the problem and by Addams’s response.
Allofusaredeeplyinvolvedinunequalrelationsatdifferentstagesinourlives;
such relations shape our families, our work, and our associations in the larger