Why not socialism?
Why Not Socialism? If you are considering buying this book be sure to read the "Product Description" so that you know the size of what you are getting for your money: it is not just "concise," it is tiny, no more than about 10,000 words. As an alternative, you may want to check...
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| 100 | 1 | |a Cohen, G. A. |9 29400 | |
| 245 | 1 | |a Why not socialism? |c G. A. Cohen |h imp | |
| 264 | |a Oxford |b Princeton university Press, Princeton and Oxford |c 2009 | ||
| 300 | |a 83 páginas: |c 16 cm | ||
| 520 | 3 | |a Why Not Socialism? If you are considering buying this book be sure to read the "Product Description" so that you know the size of what you are getting for your money: it is not just "concise," it is tiny, no more than about 10,000 words. As an alternative, you may want to check your library for an earlier version, which appeared in Democratic Equality: What Went Wrong?, edited by Edward Broadbent (2001). If you are not already familiar with Cohen (or even if you are) you may want to view the obituary that appeared in the Guardian (August 10, 2009), which provides an excellent overview of his life and thought: [...] In this little essay Cohen pursues a helpful allegory, that of a group on a camping trip, to probe reciprocity and exchange motivations and principles. He illustrates how three forms of the principle of equality plus the principle of community might apply to the campers' behavior. He advocates "communal reciprocity," a principle that involves giving or sharing not because of what one can get in return, but because the recipient needs what is given. Think of it as a counter-balance to the role of selfishness in the classic allegorical work on economic motivations, Mandeville's The Fable of the Bees. Further details of Cohen's argument are ably summarized in the Gintis review, so I will not repeat them. I will say, though, that Gintis seems too harsh on Cohen on a couple of points. First, Cohen is more accepting of markets than Gintis suggests -- Cohen allows that markets perform a valuable information function and he rejects central planning for that reason (it is perhaps unfortunate that he uses the term "predation" to characterize market motivations). Second, Cohen likely would have agreed with most of what Gintis says about the heterogeneity of human motivations. Cohen was not one-sided: "Both selfish and generous propensities reside, after all, in (almost?) everyone," he wrote. As Gintis stresses, one of the major problems Cohen is up against is that it is not clear how the conditions of a camping trip, where the participants generally are expected to follow his equality and community principles, can realistically be brought to scale for an entire society. Cohen himself recognizes that it may not be feasible. It is worth pointing out, however, that there are obviously already many societal mechanisms that tap people's communal motivations (charities, volunteer work, underpaid service corps, and so on) and that as Cohen infers, many of us (probably the majority) do not think they are such a bad thing. The other major problem Cohen faces is that we expect our economy to be as productive (efficient) as possible, and while many may be willing to trade-off a bit of efficiency to gain equality or community, there are limits. Cohen was a political philosopher, not an economist, so he offers little to directly address that problem here (other than to reference John Roemer). Short as it is, maybe even largely because it is so brief (no problem to finish it), Why Not Socialism? is worth reading. But if you buy it perhaps you will want to share it with others, thus applying both the community principle (if you expect nothing in return) and the principle of economic efficiency (reducing the cost per reader). | |
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