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Kant on Citizenship and Poverty

Expected online publication date:  05 January 2026

Nicholas Vrousalis
Affiliation:
Erasmus University Rotterdam

Summary

According to Kant, citizenship amounts to freedom (Freiheit), equality (Gleichheit), and civil self-sufficiency (Selbständigkeit). This Element provides a unifying interpretation of these three elements. Vrousalis argues that Kant affirms the idea of interdependent independence: in the just society, citizens have independent use of their interdependent rightful powers. Kant therefore thinks of the modern state as a system of cooperative production, in which reciprocal entitlements to one another's labour carry a justificatory burden. The empirical form of that ideal is a republic of economically independent commodity producers. It follows that citizenship and poverty, for Kant, are inextricably connected. Vrousalis explains how Kant's arguments anticipate Hegel's discussion of the division of labour, Marx's account of alienated labour, and Rawls' defence of a well-ordered society. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

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Type
Element
Information
Online ISBN: 9781009671323
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This content is Open Access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/cclicenses/

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Kant on Citizenship and Poverty
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Kant on Citizenship and Poverty
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