File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1997/marxism-thaxis.9710, message 164


Date: Sat, 18 Oct 1997 17:31:44 -0400
Subject: M-TH: Re: G.A. Cohen Interview in Philosophers' Web Magazine 
From: farmelantj-AT-juno.com (James Farmelant)




Concerning G.A. Cohen's interview in the Philosophers'  Web
Magazine I would say it clearly reflects the trajectory that has
characterized
the evolution other major Analytical Marxists in recent years--from
"rational class struggle to ethical socialism"--as Marcus Roberts
describes it in his book  *Analytical Marxism: A Critique*  (London:
Verso, 1996).  Cohen like Roemer, Elster, and Van Parjis has moved
from focusing on historical materialism--which was the subject of his
first book  *Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence*  to a concern
with the ethical justification of socialism which is the focus of his
most
recent book  *Self-Ownership, Freedom and Equality*  (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1995).  In that latter book Cohen discusses
the ethical justification of socialism over capitalism within the context
of liberal analytical political philosophy as represented by the work of
John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin, and Robert Nozick.  In fact Cohen in that
book goes to great pains to rebut the arguments that Nozick laid down
on behalf of laissez-faire capitalism in his *Anarchy, State and Utopia*
and to defend a concept of social justice as 'equality of opportunity
of welfare' that is derived from an 'immanent critique' of Dworkin.

In the Philosophers' Web Magazine interview it is evident that Cohen's
critique of capitalism focuses mainly on issues of income distribution.
While this puts Cohen well within the mainstream of left-liberal
political philosophy (ie. Rawls and Dworkin) it also places him far from
Classical Marxism.  Marx in his *Critique of the Gotha Program* 
criticized
socialist critiques of capitalism that focused too much on distributional
issues.   As Marx put it:

	Quite apart from the analysis so far given, it was in general
	a mistake to make a fuss about so-called distribution and 
	put the principle stress on it.

	Any distribution whatever of the means of consumption is only
	a consequence of the distribution of the conditions of production
	themselves.  The latter distribution, however, is a feature of
	the mode of production itself.  The capitalist mode of
production,
	for example, rests on the fact that the material conditions of
	production are in the hands of non-workers in the form of
	property in capital and land, while the masses are only
	owners of the personal condition of production, of labor
	power.  If the elements of production are so distributed, then
	the present-day distribution of the means of consumption 
	results automatically.  If the material conditions of production
	are the co-operative property of the workers themselves,
	then there likewise results a distribution of the means of
	consumption different from the present one.  Vulgar
	socialism (and from it in turn a section of the democracy)
	has taken over from the bourgeois economists the
	consideration and treatment of distribution as independent
	of the mode of production and hence the presentation
	of socialism as turning principally on distribution.  After
	the real relation has long been made clear, why retrogress
	again?

Marx and Engels' critiques of capitalism as expounded in works
ranging from the *1844 Manuscripts*  to *Capital*  placed the focus
of critique on the nature of production under capitalism rather
than on distribution as such.  They criticized the dehumanizing nature
of the division of labor as it exists under capitalism and they looked
forward to its eventual abolition under communism.  However, it is
precisely these issues that seem to get short shrift in the literature
of liberal justice.  To the extant that writers like Cohen or Roemer
base their critiques of capitalism on this literature this deficiency
carries over into their work as well.

                                    James F.

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