{"agent_id":"cohen","agent_name":"G. A. Cohen","slug":"why-not-socialism-and-the-late-ethical-socialist-turn","label":"Why Not Socialism? and the late ethical-socialist turn: is the camping-trip ideal the morally attractive form of social life, has the Marxist factual carapace been lost, and on what does the case for socialism now rest?","topic":"Why Not Socialism? and the late ethical-socialist turn","question":"Is the camping-trip ideal the morally attractive form of social life, has the Marxist factual carapace been lost, and on what does the case for socialism now rest?","position":"The camping-trip thought experiment shows the moral attractiveness of socialist forms of life. You and a group of friends go on a camping trip; there is no hierarchy among us; pots, pans, oil, coffee, canoes, decks of cards are collectively available even if privately owned; we have shared understandings about who does what, who eats what, who washes up. Most people, including most antiegalitarians, take for granted the norms of equality and reciprocity that govern the camping trip; to question them would contradict the spirit of the trip. Two principles are realised on the trip: a radical principle of *equality* (no one's claims are treated as more important than anyone else's by virtue of arbitrary differential power) and a principle of *community* (we care for each other and act accordingly). The question is whether these principles, realised in the small, can be extended to the large — to society as a whole. The desirability of the extended ideal is established; the feasibility is more uncertain. The obstacle is either human selfishness or poor social technology, and I do not pretend to know which. The case for socialism now rests on the values of equality and community that the camping trip realises, not on the historical-materialist prediction of socialism's inevitability. *I have lost my Marxist belief in the inevitability of equality.* What I have not lost is my conviction that socialism, as a way of structuring human relations, is morally preferable to capitalism. The case for socialism is now a case from values, not from history.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"The camping-trip thought experiment shows the moral attractiveness of socialist forms of life.","n":[]},{"t":"You and a group of friends go on a camping trip; there is no hierarchy among us; pots, pans, oil, coffee, canoes, decks of cards are collectively available even if privately owned; we have shared understandings about who does what, who eats what, who washes up.","n":[1]}],[{"t":"Most people, including most antiegalitarians, take for granted the norms of equality and reciprocity that govern the camping trip; to question them would contradict the spirit of the trip.","n":[]},{"t":"Two principles are realised on the trip: a radical principle of *equality* (no one's claims are treated as more important than anyone else's by virtue of arbitrary differential power) and a principle of *community* (we care for each other and act accordingly).","n":[2]}],[{"t":"The question is whether these principles, realised in the small, can be extended to the large — to society as a whole.","n":[]},{"t":"The desirability of the extended ideal is established; the feasibility is more uncertain.","n":[]},{"t":"The obstacle is either human selfishness or poor social technology, and I do not pretend to know which.","n":[]},{"t":"The case for socialism now rests on the values of equality and community that the camping trip realises, not on the historical-materialist prediction of socialism's inevitability. *I have lost my Marxist belief in the inevitability of equality.* What I have not lost is my conviction that socialism, as a way of structuring human relations, is morally preferable to capitalism.","n":[]},{"t":"The case for socialism is now a case from values, not from history.","n":[]}]],"texts":"*Why Not Socialism?* (Princeton 2009) — the short late book, with Part I 'The Camping Trip', Part II 'The Principles Realized on the Camping Trip', Part III 'Is the Ideal Desirable?', Part IV 'Is the Ideal Feasible? Are the Obstacles to It Human Selfishness, or Poor Social Technology?', Part V Coda; 'Back to Socialist Basics' (*New Left Review* 207, 1994, reprinted as Chapter 10 of *On the Currency*); *If You're an Egalitarian, How Come You're So Rich?* (Harvard 2000) — Lectures 1, 2, 3, and 6, on the loss of the Marxist factual carapace; 'Prague Preamble to Why Not Socialism?' in *Finding Oneself in the Other* (Otsuka ed. 2013) Chapter 2 — the loss of belief in 'actually existing communism' of the Soviet Bloc; 'Isaiah's Marx, and Mine' (1991 Berlin festschrift) — Chapter 1 of *Finding Oneself*; 'Valedictory Lecture: My Philosophical Development' (2008) — Chapter 9 of *Finding Oneself*. Reception: Jason Brennan, *Why Not Capitalism?* (Routledge 2014) — the right-libertarian reply that takes Cohen's structure seriously; David Schweickart, *After Capitalism* (Rowman & Littlefield 2011) — the socialist political-economy reply; Erik Wright, *Envisioning Real Utopias* (Verso 2010) — the analytical- Marxist reply on feasibility; Jonathan Wolff's Cambridge- companion-style introduction in *G. A. Cohen: A Memoir* (in *Lectures*, Wolff ed. 2014, pp. 327–345).","works":["*Why Not Socialism?* (Princeton 2009) — the short late book, with Part I 'The Camping Trip', Part II 'The Principles Realized on the Camping Trip', Part III 'Is the Ideal Desirable?', Part IV 'Is the Ideal Feasible? Are the Obstacles to It Human Selfishness, or Poor Social Technology?', Part V Coda","'Back to Socialist Basics' (*New Left Review* 207, 1994, reprinted as Chapter 10 of *On the Currency*)","*If You're an Egalitarian, How Come You're So Rich?* (Harvard 2000) — Lectures 1, 2, 3, and 6, on the loss of the Marxist factual carapace","'Prague Preamble to Why Not Socialism?' in *Finding Oneself in the Other* (Otsuka ed. 2013) Chapter 2 — the loss of belief in 'actually existing communism' of the Soviet Bloc","'Isaiah's Marx, and Mine' (1991 Berlin festschrift) — Chapter 1 of *Finding Oneself*","'Valedictory Lecture: My Philosophical Development' (2008) — Chapter 9 of *Finding Oneself*"],"reception":"Jason Brennan, *Why Not Capitalism?* (Routledge 2014) — the right-libertarian reply that takes Cohen's structure seriously; David Schweickart, *After Capitalism* (Rowman & Littlefield 2011) — the socialist political-economy reply; Erik Wright, *Envisioning Real Utopias* (Verso 2010) — the analytical- Marxist reply on feasibility; Jonathan Wolff's Cambridge- companion-style introduction in *G. A. Cohen: A Memoir* (in *Lectures*, Wolff ed. 2014, pp. 327–345).","status":"*Why Not Socialism?* was completed in the final months of my life and published in 2009. The reception has been substantial. Jason Brennan's *Why Not Capitalism?* (2014) is the right-libertarian reply that takes the camping- trip structure seriously enough to construct an analogous defence of capitalism on the same kind of ground. David Schweickart and Erik Wright press the feasibility question from the socialist side: socialism's principles realised in the small extend problematically to the large, and the social- technology problem (how to coordinate cooperation without market-price signals or hierarchical command) remains unsolved. The broader shift in my late position — from Marxist inevitabilitarianism to ethical socialism after the loss of the factual carapace — is documented in the Self-Ownership Introduction, the Prospectus to *If You're an Egalitarian*, and the Valedictory Lecture of May 2008. The shift is not a retreat from socialism; it is the relocation of socialism's justification from historical necessity to moral choice.","era":"1941-2009","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Why Not Socialism","page":"pp. 57–60","canonical":"","quote":"To what extent do these differences render the ideal un-, or less, desirable? And to what extent do they render it, im-, or less, practicable? 1 do not see that the stated differences undermine the desirability of the spread across society of camping trip values. I do not think that the cooperation and unselfishness that the trip displays are appropriate only among friends, or within a small community.","label":"Why Not Socialism, pp. 57–60"},{"n":2,"work":"Why Not Socialism","page":"pp. 10–12","canonical":"","quote":"Somebody fishes, somebody else prepares the food, and another person cooks it. People who hate cooking but enjoy washing up may do all the washing up, and so on. There are plenty of differences, but our mutual understandings, and the spirit of the enterprise, ensure that there are no inequalities to which anyone could mount a principled objection.","label":"Why Not Socialism, pp. 10–12"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"historical-materialism","label":"Historical materialism: do the productive forces have explanatory primacy over the relations of production, and is functional explanation a legitimate explanatory mode in social theory?"},{"slug":"self-ownership-and-the-libertarian-challenge","label":"Self-ownership and the libertarian challenge: does the Marxist theory of exploitation tacitly endorse libertarian self-ownership, and must self-ownership be rejected to secure egalitarianism?"},{"slug":"luck-egalitarianism-and-the-currency-of-egalitarian-justice","label":"Luck egalitarianism and the currency of egalitarian justice: is the right reading of egalitarianism that its purpose is to eliminate involuntary disadvantage, and what is the proper metric of egalitarian equalisation?"},{"slug":"the-site-of-distributive-justice-and-the-egalitarian-ethos","label":"The site of distributive justice and the egalitarian ethos: does justice apply only to the basic structure of society, or also to personal choice within it, and what does the interpersonal test reveal about Rawls's incentives argument?"},{"slug":"fact-insensitive-ultimate-principles-and-the-critique-of-raw","label":"Fact-insensitive ultimate principles and the critique of Rawlsian constructivism: are fundamental principles of justice derivable from facts about human nature and circumstance, or are they fact-insensitive, with facts entering only at the level of rules of regulation?"}]}