tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7985429043801017839.post8243726995486371262..comments2023-10-27T07:50:27.411+01:00Comments on Next Left: Jerry CohenTom Hampsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05917325958130851128noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7985429043801017839.post-85291667935195161312009-08-16T00:08:45.000+01:002009-08-16T00:08:45.000+01:00"As regards contemporary political philosophy..."As regards contemporary political philosophy being too remote from contemporary politics, I think there is something to this complaint."<br /><br />I too think there is something in this complaint, but I also remember Adam Swift saying "OK, but what about Sen?"<br /><br />I think Adam was referring specifically to Sen's "capabilities approach" in the equality debate, but I've subsequently thought that it can be taken much further. For Sen is a nobel prize-winning economist as well as a moral philosopher. He arguably shapes, informs and moves debates to a greater extent than any of his colleagues within the academy.<br /><br />Indeed, as we've recently seen, even people like James Purnell have started pilfering Sen for ideas.<br /><br />I also suspect that - as you say, Stuart, in your comments about On Liberty - that the effects of some texts simply take longer to be felt. Sen (for example) may have made his mark on the "real world" very quickly, but this doesn't mean that over time Rawls, Dworkin and Cohen won't turn out to have seismic, Millian-esque impacts.<br /><br />I guess only time will tell. Though I'd like it to be Cohen who comes through, if any of them do.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07674635860236574021noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7985429043801017839.post-54249724075947082612009-08-12T22:38:26.382+01:002009-08-12T22:38:26.382+01:00One particularly important result of Jerry's w...<i>One particularly important result of Jerry's work was his demolition - and that is the appropriate word - of standard right-wing arguments linking 'freedom' with respect for the existing distribution of private property.</i><br /><br />I think very highly of Cohen's work generally, but I have to say that this argument did not do much for me. Leif Wenar's response(http://wenar.info/media/Wenar_Meanings_of_Freedom.pdf) captures a lot of what made it unconvincing, IMO.Danhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05221119542219255940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7985429043801017839.post-55724850900170448162009-08-12T13:11:58.879+01:002009-08-12T13:11:58.879+01:00I can see similarities between Friedrich Engles...I can see similarities between Friedrich Engles's scientific socialism and libertarian socialism and democratic republicanism. They all agree that the best way to create individual autonomy will be mainly through multi-layer democratic structures and that inequalities of capital create inequalities of individual freedom.<br /><br />The advocacy of multi-layer democratic structures in the state and the economy actually inspired the idea of worker's councils and soviets in the early stages of the soviet union.<br /><br />I think multi-layer democracy is one of the defining features of the entire left, new and old (apart from the old Stalinist camp)._______https://www.blogger.com/profile/12750073111707564700noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7985429043801017839.post-3362191694864883282009-08-12T12:33:39.289+01:002009-08-12T12:33:39.289+01:00Peter Hain see's libertarian socialism as a fo...Peter Hain see's libertarian socialism as a form of heavily decentralized democratic socialism. Many other libertarian socialists advocate heavily devolved democratic structures in the government (and often the economy also) with the central state acting merely as a republic enforcing legal rights, elections and funding devolved administrations. <br /><br />Surprisingly, many Americans (including republicans like Ron Paul) support single payer healthcare as long as it is run at a state level and not a federal level. Perhaps libertarian socialist thinking or democratic republican thinking exists in America, but is often misunderstood as right wing free market capitalist, right libertarian, individualist thinking._______https://www.blogger.com/profile/12750073111707564700noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7985429043801017839.post-87203033833113530912009-08-12T12:16:46.971+01:002009-08-12T12:16:46.971+01:00Mike: thanks for the question.
I think democratic...Mike: thanks for the question. <br />I think democratic republicanism does have a lot in common with libertarian socialism - both want to end the tyranny of capital, so to speak, without creating a new tyranny of the supposedly benign socialist state.Stuart Whitehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05090728365798166746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7985429043801017839.post-9040930453176189052009-08-11T22:53:34.536+01:002009-08-11T22:53:34.536+01:00Stuart, would you say democratic republicanism and...Stuart, would you say democratic republicanism and libertarian socialism have a lot in common and similar goals of abolishing political, economic, and social hierarchies?_______https://www.blogger.com/profile/12750073111707564700noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7985429043801017839.post-65409445904895997412009-08-10T19:32:05.024+01:002009-08-10T19:32:05.024+01:00Sunder: my view is that there is a need both for p...Sunder: my view is that there is a need both for political philosophy/theory that engages with contemporary issues and problems, and with an eye to feasibility constraints, and a role for political philosophy that focuses on the articulation of ultimate values. The former needs the latter if it is to remain conscious of when and how it is advocating compromises of various kinds. The risk otherwise is that the 'engaged' political theorist becomes too much the hostage of a conventional wisdom that reflects the power of a dominant (anti-egalitarian) ideology. <br /><br />I think something like this was also Jerry's view. He saw his best contribution as lying on the side of clarifying ultimate values, leaving the more engaged work to others. But he didn't disparage that work, or deny its importance. It just wasn't what he, personally, found preoccupying.<br /><br />In defence of his own preoccupation, he would often refer to J.S. Mill's On Liberty. This book, Jerry argued, was completely 'unrealistic' by the standards of its day. No political party was going to act on its proposals. But by clarifying something of fundamental importance it has had a long-run, slow-burning and considerable impact on the political culture. When the decriminalization of homosexual sex acts came onto the agenda in the 1960s, it was Mill's arguments that were used to make the case (by Herbert Hart in his debate with Patrick Devlin over the role of the law in enforcing morality).<br /><br />As regards contemporary political philosophy being too remote from contemporary politics, I think there is something to this complaint. There is a need for work that applies the ultimate values to contemporary debates, and with an eye on feasibility constraints, as well as the clarification of ultimate values. <br /><br />That said, I think there has been a definite shift since the early 1990s towards work of this engaged kind. Its reflected, for example, in Philippe Van Parijs's work on basic income; Bruce Ackerman and Anne Alstott's work on universal capital grants; and Erik Olin Wright 'Real Utopias' project which I blogged about recently. And some of this work has influenced policy. Ackerman and Alstott's work on basic capital, for example, was one of the intellectual influences behind the Child Trust Fund. Archon Fung and Erik Wright's work on 'empowered participatory governance', which has featured as a part of the Real Utopias project, has also stimulated interest amongst policy-makers. <br /><br />So I think the gap between theory and practice is being bridged, though doubtless there is a lot more work of this kind that needs to be done. I guess what I want to claim, however, is that this kind of 'real utopian' work depends to some extent on some other work of a purely utopian nature, work that clarifies ultimate values. This is what gives it is direction and, so to speak, its clout.Stuart Whitehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05090728365798166746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7985429043801017839.post-71605488139035196602009-08-10T15:26:17.190+01:002009-08-10T15:26:17.190+01:00Stuart,
Thank you for this informative appreciati...Stuart,<br /><br />Thank you for this informative appreciation. The personal qualities of Jerry Cohen have shone through many of the tributes to him which I have seen, and it is good to have an account of what you think endures and matters in his work.<br /><br />I saw him speak several times when, as an undergraduate at Oxford sometime in the second or third year, myself and my two other slightly overkeen PPE flatmates would sneak in at the back of a postgrad seminar he was doing with Ronald Dworkin. I don't know how much of this that I followed when it came to the applied pedanticness, but it was, that term, right up there with Match of the Day, as intellectual jousting of the highest order. Cohen's sense of humour was certainly part of that.<br /><br />Perhaps because I was at university between 92-95, Marxism did not loom particularly large for me (though as that is also the historic norm for much of the British left, perhaps it is not so unusual) so I can't pretend to any expertise on that front. But, from an outside social democratic/Fabian perspective, it is surely a good thing that Cohen's "defence" ultimately seems to have led him (as I undestand it, and your account suggests) to detach his socialist ethic from Marx's theory of historic materialism, certainly as a prediction or theory of inevitable developments.<br /><br />Indeed, without that move (and I appreciate that this may be a naive reading), one struggles to see what the role or point of political activity and advocacy is. Once this move is made, politics matters.<br /><br />While I agree with your overall point that there is a value of differentiating arguments of principle and ultimate values from political strategy and tactics about how to make change happen, I am somewhat sceptical of the implication that a significant problem has been that modern political philosophy has been too pragmatic or applied. To some extent, I think the opposite might be more plausibly asserted (though I think we agree that there is value in both these separate types of argument and advocacy). <br /><br />One can certainly make the charge that politics itself has become too pragmatic/realist and that this risks being directionless. Most people think that. I am not challenging that part of the argument. But I wonder if the issue may also be that political philosophy has perhaps too often (and with significant exceptions, certainly) been somewhat too detached to make much difference in challenging this, and reasserting a role for political ideas. This may be asking rather too much, but it may be worth asking ...Sunder Katwalahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06671411534003530927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7985429043801017839.post-46294251948067770252009-08-10T09:44:22.036+01:002009-08-10T09:44:22.036+01:00If anyone's interested in Jerry Cohen's id...If anyone's interested in Jerry Cohen's ideas, particularly how he saw the relationship between ultimate values and short term politics that Stuart discusses, his 1994 New Left Review article Back to Socialist Basics is available on Eric Olin Wrights website at www.ssc.wisc.edu/~wright/SOC621/cohbac.pdfJonathan Rutherfordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10893012275098066712noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7985429043801017839.post-58651084736026515992009-08-08T16:43:15.643+01:002009-08-08T16:43:15.643+01:00Forlonehope: one of the things that Jerry taught w...Forlonehope: one of the things that Jerry taught was the art of making pertinent distinctions. So far as your comment is concerned, the distinction is a pretty easy one to make: seeking critically for what (if anything) is valid and worth retaining from Marxism is not the same as being a 'Soviet apologist'. I leave it to you to work out whether decency requires that you withdraw your remark.Stuart Whitehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05090728365798166746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7985429043801017839.post-14365277252545757632009-08-08T16:35:35.593+01:002009-08-08T16:35:35.593+01:00Yet another soviet apologist who is the moral equi...Yet another soviet apologist who is the moral equivalent of Nazi sympathisers and holocaust deniers. Hang your heads in shame!Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13196592908360647734noreply@blogger.com