The Politics of Empowerment

Empowerment is presented as a widely embraced remedy for social and economic issues, with extensive scholarly support across various disciplines. Weissberg critiques this pervasive belief, highlighting that advocates from diverse political backgrounds, including Marxists, feminists, and conservatives, share an optimistic yet unproven assumption: that taking control of one's life will lead to improvement. The narrative suggests that empowerment is seen as a solution to a range of problems, from individual struggles to broader societal decline.