G. A. Cohen

Equality of What? On Welfare, Goods and Capabilities

In his Tanner Lecture of 1979 called Equality of What? Amartya Sen asked what metric egalitarians should use to establish the extent to which their ideal is realised in a given society. In this study I comment on answers to Sens question in recent philosophical literature. I describe and criticize what a number of authors (and notably Rawls and Sen) of egalitarian persuasion have said about the dimension(s) or respect(s) in which people should be made more equal, when the price in other values of moving towards greater equality is not intolerable.

History, labour, and freedom : themes from Marx

Part 1 Historical materialism - exposition and defence: forces and relations of production base and superstructure being, consciousness and roles historical inevitability and revolutionary agency human nature and social change in the Marxist conception of history. Part 2 Historical materialism - criticism and revision: fettering on an argument for historical materialism reconsidering historical materialism restricted and inclusive historical materialism. Part 3 Capitalism, labour and freedom: the dialectic of labour in Marx the labour theory of value and the concept of exploitation are disadvantaged workers who take hazardous jobs forced to take hazardous jobs? the structure of proletarian unfreedom freedom, justice and capitalism.

The Pareto Argument for Inequality

Some ways of defending inequality against the charge that it is unjust require premises that egalitarians find easy to dismiss—statements, for example, about the contrasting deserts and/or entitlements of unequally placed people. But a defense of inequality suggested by John Rawls and elaborated by Brian Barry (who themselves reject the premises that egalitarians dismiss) has often proved irresistible even to people of egalitarian outlook. The persuasive power of this defense of inequality has helped to drive authentic egalitarianism, of an old-fashioned, uncompromising kind, out of contemporary political philosophy. The present essay is part of an attempt to bring it back in.

Self-Ownership, World Ownership, and Equality: Part II

1. The present paper is a continuation of my “Self-Ownership, World Ownership, and Equality,” which began with a description of the political philosophy of Robert Nozick. I contended in that essay that the foundational claim of Nozicks philosophy is the thesis of self-ownership, which says that each person is the morally rightful owner of his own person and powers, and, consequently, that each is free (morally speaking) to use those powers as he wishes, provided that he does not deploy them aggressively against others. To be sure, he may not harm others, and he may, if necessary, be forced not to harm them, but he should never be forced to help them, as people are in fact forced to help others, according to Nozick, by redistributive taxation. (Nozick recognizes that an unhelping person may qualify as unpleasant or even, under certain conditions, as immoral. The self-ownership thesis says that people should be free to live their lives as they choose, but it does not say that how they choose to live them is beyond criticism.)

Functional explanation, consequence explanation, and Marxism

I argued in Karl Marxs Theory of History that the central claims of historical materialism are functional explanations, and I said that functional explanations are consequence explanations, ones, that is, in which something is explained by its propensity to have a certain kind of effect. I also claimed that the theory of chance variation and natural selection sustains functional explanations, and hence consequence explanations, of organismic equipment. In Section I I defend the thesis that historical materialism offers functional or consequence explanations, and I reject Jon Elsters contention that game theory can, and should, assume a central role in the Marxist theory of society. In Section II I contrast functional and consequence explanation, thereby revising the position of Karl Marxs Theory of History, and I question whether evolutionary biology supports functional explanations. Section III is a critique of Elsters views on functional explanation, and Sections IV and V defend consequence explanat...

Robert Nozick and Wilt Chamberlain: How patterns preserve liberty

AbstractLet us now suppose that I have sold the product of my own labour for money, and have used the money to hire a labourer, i.e., I have bought somebody elses labour-power. Having taken advantage of this labour-power of another, I turn out to be the owner of value which is considerably higher than the value I spent on its purchase. This, from one point of view, is very just, because it has already been recognized, after all that I can use what I have secured by exchange as is best and most advantageous to myself...George Plekhanov, The Development of the Monist View of History, Moscow, 1956, pp. 94–95 (my emphasis). Plekhanov proceeds to associate himself with another point of view, one which is defended in this paper. Persons, who under a vicious order of things have obtained a competent share of social enjoyments, are never in want of arguments to justify to the eye of reason such a state of society; for what may not admit of apology when exhibited in but one point of view? If the same individuals were tomorrow required to cast anew the lots assigning them a place in society, they would find many things to object to.Jean-Baptiste Say, A Treatise on Political Economy, Philadelphia, 1834, p. liii (my emphasis).

Functional Explanation: Reply to Elster

I T H A N K Jon Elster for his generous review, and for his criticisms, not all of which I accept. I shall not respond here to every criticism with which I disagree, but I d o want to comment on what I think are misconceived objections to my chapters on functional explanation. Having done so, 1 shall offer reservations on the extent to which my ‘sometimes uncertain grasp of economic theory’ (p. 122E’) led me into error. I grant that my defence of a functionally construed historical materialism is only partly successful, but I reject the methodological criticisms Elster directs against it. I believe, moreover, that there is no viable alternative construal of the central claims of historical materialism, so that if my defence fails, historical materialism fails. Hence the cost incurred by Marxism, if I am wrong, is considerable. That is no reason for thinking that historical materialism, in the version I favour, is true, but I should like the cost of its falsehood-;f i t is false-to be acknowledged. something which, as I shall explain, Elster is reluctant to do. 1. In Marx’s theory, as 1 present i t , history is the growth of human productive power, and economic structures (sets of production relations) rise and fall according as they enable or impede that growth. Alongside a society’s economic structure there exists a superstructure, of non-production relations, notably legal and political ones. The superstructure typically consolidates and maintains the existing economic structure, and has the character it does because of the functions it fulfils. Historical materialism’s central claims are that

Once more into the breach of self-ownership : Reply to Narveson and Brenkert

In reply to Narveson, I distinguish his ’’no-proviso‘‘ argument from his ’’liberty‘‘ argument, and I show that both fail. I also argue that interference lacks the strategic status he assigns to it, because it cannot be appropriately distinguished, conceptually and morally, from prevention; that natural resources do enjoy the importance he denies they have; that laissez-faire economies lack the superiority he attributes to them; that ownership can indeed be a reflexive relation; that anti-paternalism does not entail libertarianism; and that he misrepresents the doctrines of a number of philosophers, including John Locke, Ronald Dworkin, and myself. In reply to Brenkert, I show that he seriously misconstrues my view of the nature of freedom, and of its relationship to self-ownership. I then refute his criticisms of my treatment of the contrasts between self-ownership, on the one hand, and autonomy and non-slavery, on the other. I also show that his attempt to “exorcize the demon of self-ownership” is multiply flawed.

Marxism and Contemporary Political Philosophy or : Why Nozick Exercises Some Marxists More than he Does any Egalitarian Liberals

Now, we stand outcast and starving, Mid the wonders we have made…. (From ‘Solidarity Forever,’ by Ralph Chaplin)

More on exploitation and the labour theory of value

In ‘The Labour Theory of Value and the Concept of Exploitation’ I distinguished between two ways in which the labour theory of value is formulated, both of which are common. In the popular formulation, the amount of value a commodity has depends on how much labour was spent producing it. In the strict formulation, which is so called because it formulates the labour theory of value proper, the amount of value a commodity has depends on nothing about its history but only on how much labour would (now) be required to produce something just like it. I argued that strict and popular formulations are often wrongly treated as substantially equivalent, and that the practice of conflating them sustains two false impressions: that the labour theory of value is a basis for saying that capitalists exploit workers, and that the labour theory of value is true. The present paper is a reply to Nancy Holmstroms recent attempt, in ‘Marx and Cohen on Exploitation and the Labor Theory of Value’, to refute the theses of the ...