Thinking About our Ideals. Why Am I Not a Socialist?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54310/Elpis.2023.2.3Keywords:
Überhaupt, Ideal, Socialism, Capitalism, Community, Care, Autonomy, Dependence, Equality, Mutually Advantageous Transactions, Exploitation, Hierarchical, Hierarchical Division of LabourAbstract
How Is Critical Economic Theory Possible? made a key step in the authors’ departure from Marxism. Those who rediscover the book today are in general motivated by their being attracted to Marxism. The renewing of the attraction of the socialist ideal is understandable. The article explains why one of the co-authors of the book resists the temptation. Social ideals can be criticized based on three different claims. (1) There is no conceivable institutional model that would realize them. (2) If there is such a model, no morally acceptable way leads from the present to its realization. (3) The ideal itself is unappealing, its realization is not desirable. The article argues for the third claim, by examining G. A. Cohen’s Why Not Socialism? In Cohen’s socialism the division of labor is not organized via mutually advantageous transaction but in accordance with the principles of generalized care. It can be shown that such a system creates relations of dependence and deprives the individuals from their autonomy.
