Jerry Cohen's Why Not Socialism? Some Thoughts

Author: Roemer, John

Source: The Journal of Ethics, Volume 14, Numbers 3-4, December 2010 , pp. 255-262(8)

Publisher: Springer

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Abstract:

In his book Why Not Socialism?, G.A. Cohen described several kinds of inequality that would be acceptable under socialism, yet nonetheless harmful to community. I describe another kind of inequality with this property, deriving from the legitimate transmission of preferences and values from parents to children. In the same book, Cohen proposes that the designing of a socialist allocation mechanism is a key problem for socialist theory. I maintain this is less of a problem than he believes. Finally, some thoughts on the “law of motion of socialist ethos” are offered.

Keywords: G.A. Cohen; Mechanism design; Socialism; Socialist equality of opportunity

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10892-010-9083-x

Affiliations: 1: Department of Political Science, Yale University, New Haven, CN, 06520, USA, Email: john.roemer@yale.edu

Publication date: 2010-12-01