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Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy

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G. A. Cohen on freedom, justice, and capitalism

a
Peter Mew
a
Department of Philosophy,Trinity College , Trinity College , Dublin 2, Ireland
Published online: 29 Aug 2008.

To cite this article: Peter Mew (1986) G. A. Cohen on freedom, justice, and capitalism, Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of
Philosophy, 29:1-4, 305-313, DOI: 10.1080/00201748608602091

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 Inquiry, 29, 305-13

G. A. Cohen on Freedom, Justice, and

Capitalism
Peter Mew
Trinity College, Dublin

This article offers certain criticisms of some of the main arguments and suggestions
put forward by G. A. Cohen in his 1980 Isaac Deutscher Memorial Lecture. As
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against Cohen I argue: (i) that it is strategically irrelevant for committed socialists
or Marxists to argue that capitalism is unjust; (ii) that the political quiescence of
the proletariat has less to do with its sense of justice or other ideological factors
than with non-ideological factors such as its realization that the struggle for
Communism may not be worth it; (iii) that Communism is, anyway, impossible,
and (iv) that the tension in Marx and Cohen between the view that capitalism is
unjust and that capitalist exploitation is necessary for the productive progress
required for the 'ultimate liberation of humanity' cannot be relieved.

I should like in this paper to offer certain criticisms of some of the arguments
and suggestions put forward by G. A. Cohen in his Isaac Deutscher
Memorial Lecture.1
I must first acknowledge that there is much in Cohen's lecture with which
I am in wholehearted agreement. The first part of his lecture consists of a
searching attack upon libertarian and liberal attempts to justify capitalism
on the grounds of freedom, and I believe that this attack is completely
successful: as he says himself, 'To think of capitalism as a realm of freedom
is to overlook half of its nature' (p. 10). He then suggests that libertarians
could avoid inconsistency by defending capitalism, not on the grounds of
freedom, but on the grounds of justice. Indeed, some libertarians do, and
Cohen exhorts Marxists and socialists to accept this challenge openly and
to acknowledge that they are attacking capitalism for being unjust: after
all, 'the view that capitalism is unjust is an elementary Marxist conviction,
albeit one which is sometimes submerged' (p. 15). He believes that an
argument for the view that capitalism is unjust can be provided, but he
deems the relevant argument too long to be presented in his lecture;
instead, he delineates some of its stages. Fortunately, there is enough in
the sketch to allow criticism to gain a meaningful grip. Here is the sketch
in full:

It begins with the idea that capitalism is just if and only if capitalists have the right
to own the means of production they do, for it is their ownership of means of
 306 Peter Mew

production which enables them to make profit out of labour, and if that ownership
is legitimate, then so too is making profit out of labour. The key question, then, is
whether capitalist private property is morally defensible. Now every actual piece of
private property, large or small, either is or is made of something which was once
the private property of no one. If, then, someone claims a right to hold a certain
piece of private property he has, then we must ask, apart from how he in particular
got it, how the thing came to be (anyone's) private property in the first place, and
examine the justice of that transformation. I believe we shall find that the original
transformation is unjust, that, in a sense which I hope to make clear on another
occasion, property is theft, theft of what- morally speaking belongs to us all in
common, (p. 15, my italics)
Given a moral perspective, the opening premiss of the argument and the
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key question which it brings into focus are acceptable, but the italicized
premiss is surely false, at least under its most plausible interpretation.2 To
take an obvious example from the myriad readily available, the crops and
animal offspring produced on a capitalist farm have never been, and are
not made of something which was once the private property of no one:
there are at least some things which are now the private property of
somebody which were always the private property of somebody (sometimes
of the same somebody) and hence the attempt to establish via some kind
of property genealogy that there was a point in history prior to which
everything which is now a piece of private property was the private property
of nobody must founder. For some pieces of private property there has
never been an 'original transformation', and Cohen's diachronic approach
must therefore be abandoned as chimerical.
However, this obviously does not mean that capitalism is just, and it
seems to me that it might be possible to establish its injustice without
recourse to putative historical transformations. To put it very briefly: one
might reasonably argue that capitalism is unjust just in so far as it essentially
constitutes a system which must fail to distribute goods (socio-economic
and others) according to need and hence is in clear breach of the principle
of equality, the very core of one widely held conception of justice. Of
course, such a synchronie approach would have to run the gauntlet of
certain well-known philosophical difficulties concerning the identification
and interpretation of needs, but I can see no obvious reason why it should
not be sustained, and if it can be sustained, then it would render historical
digging into the supposed births of different pieces of private property
otiose.
But there are difficulties in store for anyone who proposes to demon-
strate, whether diachronically or synchronically, that capitalism is unjust.
First, it seems highly probable that 'justice' is an 'essentially contested'3
concept: there appears to be no general consensus as to the nature of justice
either amongst philosophers or amongst non-philosophers. Hence, any
attempt to show that capitalism is unjust cannot rely upon a universally
 Freedom, Justice, and Capitalism 307

shared view of justice as a court of ultimate appeal. In this connection it is

worth considering the wide variety of philosophical reactions that greeted
John Rawls's influential but tedious book, A Theory of Justice.4
Second, a point concerning Cohen's strategy: even if it could be shown
that capitalism is unjust according to some favoured conception of justice,
it is unclear that such a demonstration would have much purchase. Perhaps
philosophers are peculiarly and professionally prone to having too much
faith in the power of rational argument, but a Marxist philosopher in
particular should be sceptical of such faith, especially when the issue is one
concerning the power of ideology. In my experience, supporters of the
capitalist system are not generally shattered or transformed on those rare
occasions when they are forced to acknowledge that their moral defences
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of capitalism are falsifications. An ideology may be useful as a way of

disguising actual power relations, but it would be wishful thinking to
suppose that those who gain from its general acceptance will alter course
when its pretensions are exploded: disguised power is more likely to turn
into naked power than to disappear in a wake of shame and repentance.
Doubts about the effectiveness of engaging with capitalists and their
adherents on moral grounds must surely be further strengthened by a
recognition of the real levers of historical change. (It seems likely that it is
precisely this recognition that explains Marxists' general reluctance to
attack capitalism for being an unjust system.) One does not have to be an
expert historian to realize that few (if any) significant historical changes,
especially those of the kind most interesting to Marxists, i.e. changes in the
relations of production, have occurred as a result of some individual or
class acting out of a sense of justice. Historical changes of the kind that
interest Marxists occur as a result of class struggle the participants of which
act from self-interest, or, more precisely, from what they conceive to be
their self-interest. It is true that these conceived self-interests are mediated
in some degree by conceptions which are not obviously rooted in self-
interest at all: moral and ideological conceptions may be an integral part
of the self-conception of an individual or class. Thus it is rare to find
an oppressing class which does not attempt (wittingly or unwittingly) to
legitimate its exploitative role by an appeal to its Tightness, and it is rare
to find an oppressed class which does not attribute justice to its struggle
for the realization of its self-interests. However, as I have suggested, there
is no evidence that an oppressing class, shorn of its moral pretensions,
would relinquish its oppressing role, or that an oppressed class would give
up its struggle if it came to see it as a naked clash of self-interests. In the
light of this, we may therefore reasonably surmise that the issue of justice
is strategically irrelevant. It is also worth stressing here that although Marx
does indeed describe capitalism as unjust, he lays far greater emphasis
upon the importance of the proletariat's coming to realize its own class-
 308 Peter Mew

interests and hence to transform itself from a 'class-in-itself to a 'class-for-

itself. It is that realization and the determination to act upon it which is
the hoped-for lever of change, and not a proletarian realization that its
position is a result of an injustice endemic in capitalist relations of produc-
tion. Communism is to be the precipitate not of moral ardour but of
activated self-interest. I should like to offer a criticism of this sanguine,
non-moral prediction, but before I do so, I want to confront a possible
defence of Cohen's interest in justice.
It could be argued that there is an identity between justice and the
proletariat's realized self-interests: thus, it might be argued, Communism
is at once the realization of the proletariat's self-interests and the only just
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social formation. If so, then the issue of justice cannot be regarded as

strategically irrelevant.
I have^no doubt that this would be a very persuasive argument and that
a considerable amount of evidence could be adduced to show that Marx
and Engels subscribed either to it or to something very like it - after all,
Communism, underdescribed though it is, just is their vision of a just
society. However, I believe that the argument blurs a vital distinction.
The distinction may be brought out in the following way. Let us suppose
that the just society (Communism) is indeed the only social formation that
will realize the proletariat's self-interests, and let us suppose further that,
as Marx predicted, the proletariat will eventually struggle, and struggle
successfully, to establish that just society. We may then ask what it is,
according to Marx, that motivates that struggle, self-interest or a sense of
justice? I think that Marx's unhesitating answer would have been: self-
interest. If so, questions of proletarian self-interest are more basic than
questions of justice from a Marxian perspective, and the view that the
proletarian struggle is a struggle for justice must, from that perspective, be
seen as misleading just to the extent that it obscures the real provenance
of the struggle under a haze of honorific, and ultimately idle moralizing.
Nonetheless, the issue of justice might be introduced in another, closely
connected way, and this brings me to the promised criticism of Marx's
prediction that the proletariat having become fully conscious of its self-
interests, will overthrow capitalism and usher in Communism. Anyone who
espouses such a prediction must, if honest, confront a massive obstacle:
the apparent political quiescence of the proletariat; the fact that, so far in
Western capitalist societies, it shows no sign of becoming a cohesive,
revolutionary force. It is not that it generally does not act out of its
conceived self-interests, but rather that it does not conceive its self-interests
in terms of overthrowing the capitalist mode of production. Now some
Marxists, and perhaps Cohen too, would attribute this quiescence to the
power of capitalist ideology which comprises inter alia the claim that
capitalism is a just system, or, more sophisticatedly, that, whatever its
 Freedom, Justice, and Capitalism 309

faults, the capitalist mode of production is as just a system as you can

expect in this world.
I remain unconvinced of the power of this ideology. There is a general
Marxist tendency both to overestimate its power and to ignore or play
down a constellation of other factors which, taken together, are, I believe,
far more powerful, and which have, once again, very little to do with
conceptions of justice. It would take too long to defend this judgment in
detail, and what follows will be a fairly schematic collection of suggestions.

(i) The proletariat is not a homogeneous class in respect of income, status,

power or required skill and responsibility. Differences within the class
generate different conceptions of self-identity and self-interest which tend
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to produce political fragmentation rather than political cohesion. Every

sign suggests that developing capitalism increases proletarian class fission
and intra-class enmity.
(ii) Capitalism, it must be admitted, is continually falling into crisis and it
could be argued that it will eventually collapse into a crisis so severe and
prolonged that the conditions sufficient to create proletarian class cohesion
will emerge. I see no clear evidence to support this prediction. Nor is it clear
that a severe and prolonged crisis would necessarily unite the fragmented
sections of the proletariat under a common, fully realized Communistic
cause. One could as well (and as badly) argue that such a crisis would usher
in a period of internecine barbarism.
(iii) History reveals that no man lives as long as a mode of production.
From that, and from many other perspectives, man must be seen as a short-
lived animal, and it can hardly be denied that consciousness of time exerts
a significant influence on conceived self-interest. In this connection, it needs
to be stressed that Marxist commentators on Western capitalism are not
generally prepared to say that Communism, or even the putative transition
to it, will occur in our lifetime: the proletariat is thus being asked, or
expected, to struggle for a goal which, in all probability, it would not live
to see - only a madman, or perhaps a saint, would engage in such heroics
of selfless supererogation. It is a principle of rational self-interest that one
should only struggle for goals which there is a good chance of realizing:
small wonder then that the proletariat struggles primarily for higher wages
and better working conditions within capitalism.
(iv) It should be clear that a condition of the proletariat's becoming a
revolutionary class is that it should believe that Communism is both possible
and desirable. It seems to me that such a belief would be irrational and
that the proletariat quite probably realizes this. The belief would be
irrational, I think, for the following reasons. Nominally Communist states
 310 Peter Mew

are not generally regarded as attractive in the West. Marxists would

generally admit that their unattractiveness is not wholly or even largely
attributable to the ideological filter constituted by the Western media. Most
of what is unattractive about nominally Communist states is not the product
of ideological distortion. Of course, some, perhaps most, Marxists would
argue that nominally Communist states are not Communist at all and, by
way of supporting their negative judgments, they point primarily to the
inequalities of income and status and to the concentration of political power
in the hands of a bureaucratic élite. However, whilst being very prepared
to provide a nice critique of nominally Communist states they are not
generally prepared to give a detailed account or appraisal of the notion of
Communism itself - that notion is perpetually relegated to the status of a
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vaguely realized background. In support of their reluctance to provide a

detailed positive account of Communism (to engage in what they often
scathingly refer to as the mechanical production of blueprints) they enlist
Marx himself: after all, he was the one who refused to write 'recipes for
the cookshops of the future'. Whatever one may think of the validity of this
refusal, it is hardly likely to galvanize the proletariat into revolutionary
attitudes. If it is irrational for me to struggle for a goal that may never
occur in my lifetime, it is equally irrational for me to struggle for a goal
that is hardly visible - like the so-called peace of God, it passeth all
understanding. If I am in gaol and am contemplating a break-out I need,
on pain of irrationality, to be pretty sure that what I would be breaking
out to would be better than my present incarceration. I need also to be
reasonably sure that the suffering involved in the break-out would not be
significantly greater than that involved in staying put. It is not merely that
Marxists offer no convincing reassurances on these two interconnected
points: they generally duck even the attempt. It is not only clear that it is
not clear exactly what Communism is, it is also not clear that what seems
clearly to be at least one element of Communism is possible, given the
nature of contemporary industrial societies. A Communist society is sup-
posed to be characterized by a form of participatory democracy, at least if
one takes Marx's approving comments on the Paris Commune in The Civil
War in France seriously. However, even if we suppose that every citizen
would be imbued with Communistic principles, the very size and complexity
of industrial society would be such as to preclude equality in decision-
making. Political power would necessarily assume a pyramid shape and
those at the apex would of necessity frequently have to go it alone since
those at the base would simply not have the time to be meeting and deciding
on every issue that might arise. Furthermore, so long as inequalities of
knowledge and expertise persist, as I believe they are inevitably bound to
do, efficiency demands that at least some decisions would have to be left
to knowledgeable minorities. It takes a misty romanticism to obscure these
 Freedom, Justice, and Capitalism 311

very simple facts, and consciousness of them would certainly be such as to

rationally deter any thinking proletarian from espousing Communism. If
self-sufficient societies of no more than a hundred or so like-minded citizens
of more or less equal capacities and knowledge are impossible in the future,
so also is Communism.5
I turn finally to a consideration of Cohen's brief admission that both in
his own and in Marx's writings there is a tension between two beliefs: (1)
that capitalism is unjust and (2) that capitalist exploitation was necessary
for the productive progress required for the ultimate liberation of humanity.
Cohen acknowledges that he 'cannot fully relieve the tension here' but he
does proffer four 'logically independent propositions which, brought into
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proper relationship with one another, would' he thinks 'do so' (p. 16). The
four propositions are:

(i) All exploitation, including that which contributes to liberation, is unjust, (ii)
Liberation requires productive progress, and productive progress requires exploi-
tation, (iii) Whether or not productive progress was inevitable, exploitation was.
That is, exploitation was not only inevitable for productive progress, but unavoid-
able tout court. Justice without productive progress was not an historically feasible
option, because justice was not an historically feasible option. And finally (iv)
ruling classes always exploit subordinate classes to a greater extent than productive
progress would require, (p. 16)

I do not here want to question the truth of these propositions, but I do

think that it is clear that, however they are explicated, they cannot 'fully
relieve' the tension. Even if injustice was inevitable, and even if ruling
classes do exploit subordinate classes more than is necessary for productive
progress, Cohen and Marx are still committed to arguing that some (pre-
sumably high) degree of injustice is required for productive progress.6 At
best, this slightly relieves the tension: it does not remove it.
But why, in the first place, should Cohen regard his position as being in
tension? After all, there is a utilitarian argument to the effect that good
ends do justify bad means when the benefits comprising the ends are greater
than those lost by implementation of the means. Furthermore, since Cohen
presumably thinks Communism the greatest possible socio-political good,
why shouldn't he think that any bad means which is necessary to achieve
it is thereby fully justified? Perhaps the reason that Cohen shrinks from
such tough-minded utilitarianism is the following.
The good utilitarian is bound to accept the principle that good ends do
justify bad means when the benefits comprising the ends are greater than
those lost by implementation of the means if either of the following
conditions hold: (i) that there will be more happy people when the ends
have been realized than there would have been had those ends not been
realized, or (ii) that a certain number of people will be happier when the
 312 Peter Mew

ends have been realized than an equal number of people would have been
had the ends not been realized. Of course, not everyone would take up
that ethical position; indeed, its unacceptability to many might ground a
good argument against the validity of utilitarianism. However that may be,
it seems to me that the general principle cited would only be accepted as
clearly valid on condition that the subject of the good ends is the same as
the subject of the bad ends, i.e. when the sufferings and the benefits accrue
to the same sentient being(s). But this situation does not obtain in the
present instance, and Cohen may feel, at some perhaps unacknowledged
level, that this makes his view of the supposed progress towards ultimate
liberation repugnant. So it must seem to many. For the individuals who
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have suffered the injustices of capitalism there could surely have been little
succour in the thought (had it crossed their minds) that their sufferings (or
something closely resembling them) were necessary for the future liberation
of humanity - that liberation manifestly does not include them.
Cohen's millenarian view of history closely resembles certain aspects of
religious world-views. Heaven (Communism) is to come, not now, but after
life, and the greatest love one man can show for another is to lay down his
life (suffer injustices) for him. The air of religion clings stubbornly to this
aspect of Cohen's Marxism: his perspective would turn Communism into
the opium of the exploited.
Of course it will be clear by now that I do not believe in the inevitability
of Communism. Furthermore, I have given some grounds for thinking that
the sheer size and complexity of capitalist development renders Com-
munism impossible. A fortiori I do not believe that capitalist injustices (of
whatever severity) are required in order to achieve it.
However, if I did believe (a) that Communism is both desirable and
inevitable, and (b) that capitalist injustices were both inevitable and nec-
essary for the ultimate realization of Communism, it does not follow that
I should believe, on pain of inconsistency, that Communism would make
all that suffering worth it.

NOTES

1 'Freedom, Justice and Capitalism', the 1980 Isaac Deutscher Memorial Lecture, given on
24 November at the London School of Economics and printed in New Left Review 126
(1981), pp. 3 ff. Unprefixed page references are to this publication.
2 I think it safe to assume here that Cohen is not implicitly invoking the First Law of
Thermodynamics.
3 For a full explanation of this concept see W. B. Gallic, 'Essentially-contested Concepts',
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society LVI (1955-6).
4 See in particular Norman Daniels (ed.), Reading Rawls: Critical Studies of A Theory of
Justice (Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1975).
5 I find it baffling that hardly any of the Marxists I have read attaches any great importance
to these seemingly intractable problems of size, complexity, and expertise. Even more
baffling is the fact that when the importance of the problems is recognized, as it is, for
 Freedom, Justice, and Capitalism 313

example, by.C. B. Macpherson in Ms The Life and Times of Liberal Democracy (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1977), pp. 94 ff., it is pushed to one side as though it really did
not count at all.
6 Furthermore, they are presumably also committed to the stronger view that such a degree
of injustice would have been desirable because it was required for productive progress.

Received 25 January 1985

Peter Mew, Department of Philosophy, Trinity College, University of Dublin, Dublin 2,

Ireland.
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