Young's book on social justice was written in the late 1980s. The 30+ years since it was written means reading this today adds a fascinating historical perspective. In a surprising number of ways the book is shockingly relevant in a world of #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, and rising xenophobia, racism, and nationalism. On the one hand that makes Young seem especially prescient. On the other hand, it makes you realize that people have been arguing about these same issues for over three decades...with not as much progress as one might like.

I argue that instead of focusing on distribution, a conception of justice should begin with the concepts of domination and oppression.

This is a fascinating book that covers a lot of ground but her key argument that modern conceptions of justice -- both theoretical conceptions in political philosophy and in practical conceptions of law and the courts -- rely on conceptions of impartiality and individualism that are some combination of impossible to achieve and wrong anyway.

I argue that the ideal of impartiality in moral theory expresses a logic of identity that seeks to reduce differences to unity.

Even 30 years after publication, her arguments swim strongly against the American mainstream. I didn't always agree with them but I found them thought-provoking. Her focus is on institutions and structures, not individual agents. On group identity. On oppression rather than fairness. On differences rather than a single national identity. This comes out clearest in her argument for affirmative action where says essentially "who cares about what is 'fair', fairness is overrated; affirmation action should be about oppression".

Which then segues into an extended section against meritocracy before concluding with an argument against small-towns and in favor of big cities. (I told you the book was wide-ranging!)

In a political struggle where oppressed groups insist on the positive value of their specific culture and experience, it becomes increasingly difficult for dominant groups to parade their norms as neutral and universal

I really enjoyed the second half of this book, even when I wasn't entirely convinced by her arguments I usually found them good enough to make me stop and question my prior beliefs, often coming away more doubtful of my previous beliefs.

So why only three-stars? Why not four-stars? I hinted that I really enjoyed the second half of the book...but the first half is a different story entirely.

Much of the early book was very slow going for me -- and most of the reason for the 3-star rating. A combination of two things made it hard to read. On the one hand, many of her arguments have entered the mainstream and don't really need to be established anymore. But a bigger issue I had was simply that her style of argument isn't very "newbie friendly". She will often make a claim and then simply reference a source without giving any indication of what the source's argument for that claim is. In many cases she seems to assume you already understand what she's talking about. Here's an example from a passage where she assumes you not only know Jurgen Habermas's writings but are at least somewhat familiar with critical reactions to it.

His [Habermas's] model of language itself, moreover, relies heavily on a paradigm of discursive argumentation, deemphasizing the metaphorical, rhetorical, playful, embodied aspects of speech that are an important aspect of its communicative effect (see Young, 1987; cf. Keane, 1984, pp. 169-72).

Reading passages like that leaves you unenlightened and unconvinced and made the first several chapters a reading slog. Rather than force yourself through those early chapters (especially the introduction, ugh) I recommend you skip them or just skim them at a high level. There are still intriguing nuggets in there -- Young talks about intersectionality and microaggressions a decade or more before either term was coined! -- but I'm not sure the few nuggets in the early chapters are worth the struggle of a detailed reading.