The time has come for a new settlement for the working people of this country, one built on dignity and fairness.
On the one hand, the right to have ones dignity protected is a demand for democracy that can only be cashed in through membership in a particular political order – with borders.
Having ones dignity protected requires the abolition of dominance through participation in a co-legislative procedure.
One may thus speak of an (underlying) ground norm, of having ones dignity respected in the EU.
There is a right to have ones dignity respected which can only be ensured by being granted a right to participate in law-making [34: 62, 100].
Cosmopolitanism implies the universalization of human dignity – all human beings possess it equally – but the right to have ones dignity respected requires democracy, that is, a bounded territory [cp. 20]).
The moral standard of having ones dignity respected is a higher-ranking principle that does not have the same sort of validity as the constitutional principles we live by; it is constitutive for the concept of basic individual human rights and for political equality.
To have ones dignity striped off, especially undeservingly, is the worst kind of feeling anyone ever has to face.
Homelessness, a descent into drug taking, selling/compromising ones dignity to survive, etc. are other possible themes.
The humiliations of working life under raw capitalism will reappear: abusive supervisors, dirty and unsafe workplaces, being ordered about like a child, daily assaults on one's dignity, impossible demands, speed-ups, wage theft by employers.
