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The Need to Become Fashionable

This chapter evaluates the capability approach both in its ability to justify the traditional account of labour law and in its usefulness in furthering a newer conceptual articulation of regulation of work (labour law). The chapter undertakes this evaluation through an exploration of labour law scholars’ engagement with the capability approach. While labour law scholars’ engagement with the capability approach is varied, several of them offer a narrow interpretation of the approach. That interpersonal variations mandate different levels of resources and circumstances for individuals to attain similar functioning ability is one of the fundamental insights of the capability approach. Seen in the context of legal entitlements of heterogeneous workers—from Uber drivers to domestic workers—this insight signifies that substantive entitlements of workers need to be context-specific and diverse so that each different category of workers could expand their overall capability to a roughly equal level. It is the capability approach that is able to offer a coherent idea of legal regulation integrating heterogeneous legal entitlements under one conceptual whole. The chapter contends that while it is possible to justify the traditional account of labour law by employing the capability approach, full potential of the approach will be realized in engaging it in normative (re)conceptualization of regulation of work.