Ms. Ypi argued very ably, but I find her focus on "power dynamics" out of place. She seems to imply that if western economies outperform others today, perhaps it's owing to the West's use of power historically (I assume we're talking about colonialism). It'd take some doing, I think, to say that the American or German GDP today is coasting on the gains from historical oppression (even if we assume there were net gains).
She goes on to see "power" as a fly in the ointment of democracy. That too is something that could use some explanation, given that power isn't any one thing (given subgroups in a given society may exercise different sorts of power over different domains) and it's not clear to me how the existence of some sort of power necessarily reduces democracy. For whom? In what way? By what mechanism?
Ms. Ypi argued very ably, but I find her focus on "power dynamics" out of place. She seems to imply that if western economies outperform others today, perhaps it's owing to the West's use of power historically (I assume we're talking about colonialism). It'd take some doing, I think, to say that the American or German GDP today is coasting on the gains from historical oppression (even if we assume there were net gains).
She goes on to see "power" as a fly in the ointment of democracy. That too is something that could use some explanation, given that power isn't any one thing (given subgroups in a given society may exercise different sorts of power over different domains) and it's not clear to me how the existence of some sort of power necessarily reduces democracy. For whom? In what way? By what mechanism?