Why Not Community? An Exploration of the Value of Community in Cohen's Socialism

Abstract

The work of prominent analytical Marxist, G.A. Cohen, offers a vision of socialism with distributive justice and community at its core. While Cohen's views on distributive justice have been hugely influential, much less has been said about community. This article argues that community plays three distinct roles in Cohen's socialism. One is as an independent value, the second is as a necessary adjacent counterpart to justice, which serves both to restrict and facilitate distributive equality, and the third is as a critique of the liberal contractualist view of humanity. We argue that these are distinct and valuable elements in Cohen's thought, and each must be recognized to understand the range and implications of Cohen's socialism.It is still an unsettled and highly debated question within political philosophy exactly how we are to understand socialism. Socialism can be understood, for example, as a property relation, distribution of power in society, or as an altered, non-exploitative relation between producer and surplus value. Alternatively, perhaps, socialism is Marx's "realm of freedom"

Work, Justice, and Collective Capital Institutions: Revisiting Rudolf Meidner and the Case for Wage‐Earner Funds

“…And that self-conception is destabilising for any egalitarian political project that relies, as egalitarian projects must do, on citizens' sense of solidarity, community, and collective endeavour. 62 If we want a just society, we need to think about the way in which intermediate institutions mould and shape people's self-conception and about how that self-conception either supports or undermines just institutions over time. More specifically, if we want people to see themselves engaged together in a 'cooperative venture for mutual advantage' (to use the well-known Rawlsian phrase), then we need to think about what kinds of institutional structures align well with that sense of collective cooperation: emphasising the cooperative element and not just the idea of mutual advantage.…”