Andy Lamey

Why Not Socialism?, by G.A. Cohen, Princeton University Press, 2009. (An open-access version of this article is available at the link below.) When people are camping it is normal for them to display a spirit of unforced cooperation. It would be out of place, for example, for one person to charge another a fee for the use of a paring knife or a Frisbee. In the small-scale context of a camping trip, Cohen writes, “most people, even most antiegalitarians, accept, indeed, take for granted, norms of equality and reciprocity.” Cohen’s goal is to identify the moral principles that his camping trip example embodies and then to ask two questions about those principles. Would it be desirable to see them realized on a society-wide level? And would it be feasible to realize them on that scale? Cohen finds both of the principles that his camping trip example embodies—strong community and deep equality of opportunity—desirable. But where an old-fashioned socialist agitator would next launch into a discussion of how feasible such principles are, Cohen notes that desirability and feasibility are distinct questions, and that all the evidence to date suggests that a socialist economy is not feasible, at least not yet.