In Why Not Socialism?, G. A. Cohen argues that socialism is intrinsically desirable, and capitalism is intrinsically repugnant. I'm willing to bet most of you here will not be convinced by his argument. So, I will do my best to outline his position. Please tell me where he makes a mistake. (Note: I do not accept his conclusions, but I bet my objections are different from many of yours.)

Cohen’s book proceeds as follows.  First, he has us imagine a camping trip among friends.  Food and goods are shared freely.  Everyone abides by  (purportedly) socialist principles of community and equality. Everyone does his part. No one takes advantage of anyone else. No one free rides. Everyone contributes. Everyone shares.

After a while, people begin to act like capitalists (as Cohen understands realistic capitalistic behavior). Harry demands extra food because he is especially good at fishing. Sylvia demands payment when she finds a good fishing spot. Leslie demands payment for her special knowledge of how to crack nuts. Harry, Sylvia, and Leslie refuse to share without extra payment. Morgan, whose father left him a well-stocked pond 30 years ago, gloats over having better food than the others. 

Cohen concludes that the camping trip was better when the campers acted like socialists.  When the campers act like capitalists, the trip becomes stifling and repulsive.  

(As Cohen might note, even defenders of the free market often assert such things.  For instance, F. A. Hayek says, “…if we were always to apply the norms of the extended order [i.e., large-scale societies] to our more intimate groupings, we would crush them.”  F. A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), p. 18.)

Cohen then articulates the principles of the socialist camping trip.  (He does not defend these principles at length or attempt to show they are preferable to other competing principles.) The principle of socialist equality of opportunity eliminates all inequalities resulting from undeserved disadvantages or advantages.   This principle allows significant inequalities if such inequalities arise the right way.  However, the campers also abide by a principle of community.  The campers care about one another, and care that they care about one another.  Cohen argues that as a result, the campers will not tolerate certain inequalities that socialist equality of opportunity would otherwise permit.

Cohen then argues that large-scale societies would be morally better if they were socialist.  If we could figure out how to make societies run like the socialist camping trip, we would rejoice.  He says,

I do not think that the cooperation and unselfishness that the trip displays are appropriate only among friends, or within a small community. In the mutual provisioning of a market society, I am essentially indifferent to the fate of the farmer whose food I eat: there is little or no community between us.… But it does seem to me that all people of goodwill would welcome the news that it had become possible to proceed otherwise, perhaps, for example, because some economists had invented clever ways of harnessing and organizing our capacity for generosity to others. (pp. 50–51)

We tolerate capitalism only because we think we must.  Perhaps, given our moral and cognitive failings, capitalism delivers the goods.  But socialism would be the preferred system if only human beings were better.  On Cohen’s view, capitalism promotes the common good by relying upon greed, fear, and people’s limited knowledge.  

Cohen says there are two main questions about socialism.  First, is it intrinsically desirable?  He thinks it clearly is.  Second, is it feasible?  Here he is less certain.  He thinks it might be feasible, but is unsure.  He is not convinced that people are too immoral or too dumb to make socialism work. 

When people claim socialism is infeasible, they cite two different kinds of reasons.  First, they might hold that socialism requires better moral character than people are likely (or perhaps even able) to have.  For instance, the USSR was a disaster in part because its institutions, with near limitless power, created bad incentives and attracted power-hungry people.  (Of course, if people were morally better, they would not respond badly to bad incentives.)  It also failed to motivate people to work hard.  Second, many economists argue that socialism is infeasible because people lack the cognitive capacities it requires to work.  The “Calculation Problem” holds that in large-scale societies, it is impossible to make good economic calculations without market prices.  Market prices convey information about the relative scarcity of a good in light of the effective demand for that good.  Market prices provide a simple vehicle for producers and consumers to adjust their behavior to scarcity and demand.  According to the Calculation Problem, socialist planning cannot work, even if everyone were motivated to make it work, because planners do not have access to real prices or to a workable substitute for prices.  The problem of planning an economy is too hard for a small bureau of planners.  (In contrast, in a capitalistic economy, everyone is a planner.)

 Cohen agrees that if socialism turns out to be infeasible (for either or both of these reasons), then we should not to try to instantiate it.  However, he claims that if socialism were infeasible, this would not make it any less intrinsically desirable.  The intrinsic desirability of a social regime is independent of its feasibility (or cost).  In previous work, Cohen illustrates this point with an analogy.  Suppose I see some grapes, the tastiest grapes ever.  Now, suppose the grapes are out of reach—it is not feasible for me to get them.  If so, it does not make them any less intrinsically desirable. It might mean that I should not attempt to pick the grapes, but their intrinsic value is independent of my ability to pick them.

Or, to borrow (and modify) a metaphor from David Estlund, suppose we go out for a picnic.  On a hill in the distance, we see the perfect picnic spot.  But suppose it is difficult or impossible to get there.  A difficult maze blocks our path.  A mysterious, magical fog surrounds the hill.  This fog turns morally imperfect people into violent murderers, though morally perfect people are unaffected by it. If so, then we should not try to go to the picnic spot.  Yet, none of these obstacles make the picnic spot on the hill any less perfect or desirable.  The picnic spot, in itself, is still better than any spot we will reach.  If we could get to that better spot, without having to suffer the costs of doing so, then we should.

Cohen finishes his argument by claiming that a certain form of market socialism is feasible, or, at least, that we do not know it is infeasible.  Cohen is aware of the Calculation Problem, but is not convinced by it.  He cites Joseph Carens’s work, which attempts to combine socialist distributive principles with the market’s information-gathering power.  Of course, Carens is not the first to propose market socialism as a solution to the Calculation Problem.  (In fact, most of the historical debate over the Calculation Problem concerned not whether central planning would work, but whether market socialism would avoid the problems of central planning.)  Instead, Carens is trying to revive a debate about market socialism and make a better case for it than his intellectual predecessors.  Cohen acknowledges that few people find Carens’s arguments convincing, and Cohen does not try to solve the problems critics see in Carens’s work.  Instead, Cohen’s chapter on feasibility is best seen as a call for others not to lose hope but to attempt to solve the Calculation Problem.  

I don’t find Carens’s response to the Calculation Problem persuasive. So, I’m not interested in chatting about this issue here.

Questions:

If Cohen goes wrong, where does Cohen go wrong and why? Forget about the word “justice”. The question is: Is Cohen right that it is intrinsically desirable to have society function like the camping trip, such that if only we could make it work that we, we’d have very strong reasons to do so? If so, does that mean that capitalism is intrinsically undesirable?