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Whatever Happened to Analytical Marxism?

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Whatever Happened to Analytical Marxism? REVIEWS Whatever happened to analytical Marxism? G.A. Cohen, If Youʼre an Egalitarian, How Come Youʼre So Rich?, Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA and London, 2000. xii + 233 pp., £30.95 hb., 0 674 00152 2. This is a strange and disappointing book. The jokey that Cohen absorbed in the process. The second part and populist title is misleading. In fact the book switches to the analytical philosophy which Cohen contains the Gifford Lectures which Cohen gave in imbibed when he went to college, first to McGill in 1996, but these lack the substance and coherence one Montreal then to Oxford. But autobiography is left expects from such lectures. Indeed, these lectures are behind here; the second part is devoted to a purely a disparate miscellany, some autobiographical some philosophical discussion of Rawlsʼs theory of justice. philosophical, which do not hang together as a whole. There is a tenuous attempt to link these two parts They need to be read ʻsymptomaticallyʼ as the Althus- under the heading of equality. Marxism, claims Cohen, serians used to say, for what they omit as much as for foresees the advent of an equal society as the inevitable what they contain. outcome of the march of history; Rawls sees it as a There is one particularly glaring omission. What- political task; whereas Cohen himself maintains that it ever happened to analytical Marxism? Not so long will come about only if individuals are committed to ago, Cohen was the leading figure of a movement equality in their personal lives and create an egalitar- with that name which promised to bring the self-pro- ian moral ʻethosʼ. However, attention to this theme claimed standards of clarity and rigour of analytical is uneven. The first part barely focuses on it at all. philosophy to Marxism. Following the publication of Rather, it contains an excellent account of ʻtraditionalʼ his Karl Marxʼs Theory of History (1978) – the most Marxism stressing the Hegelian, dialectical theory of important work to emerge from this movement – a history which underlies it – precisely the aspect of group of like-minded thinkers rapidly formed. Apart Marxism rejected by analytical Marxism. from Cohen, prominent members included Jon Elster, Cohen starts from the way in which Marxism, John Roemer and Erik Olin Wright. They were known in Engelsʼs phrase, regards itself as a ʻscientificʼ as as the ʻSeptember groupʼ because they met annually in opposed to a ʻutopianʼ form of socialism. He shows that month, alternatively as the ʻnon-bullshit Marxism how this distinction is based on a Hegelian dialectical groupʼ. All talk of ʻdialecticʼ, together with the other theory of history. For Marxism is first and foremost a mystical trappings of Hegelian metaphysics, was to historical and economic theory which aims to under- be banished. Marxism was going to be ʻrationally stand the workings of the present, capitalist world, reconstructedʼ. rather than to lay down how things ought to be in Soon a stream of books, articles and even a small some ideal future. According to this theory, capitalism secondary literature started to appear. But just as is only a particular and limited stage of historical quickly as it grew that stream seems to have dried up. development. The full working out of the conflicts If this book is anything to go by, even the memory of within it will lead ultimately to its downfall and give it has now been suppressed. Like one of those photo- rise to a new historical stage: socialism. Socialism is graphs of old Bolsheviks from which a purged figure thus born out of the processes of capitalism. Socialist has been airbrushed out, this book has a great gap at political activity should not be regarded as a form the centre where some account of analytical Marxism of social engineering which tries to impose goals ought to be, and, disposed awkwardly around it, are on society from the outside; it functions rather like the components which went towards its formation. a midwife helping with the birth of the new social Even that, however, is enough to make clear what an order. impossible project analytical Marxism set for itself. Cohen calls this the ʻobstetric motifʼ in Marxism The book comprises two quite disparate and – an ugly phrase for what in Marx is a powerful irreconcilable parts. The first begins with an autobio- and poetic metaphor. Cohenʼs use of language is so graphical account of Cohenʼs communist and secular awkward that it is not clear whether this ugliness is Jewish upbringing in Montreal and goes on to give deliberate. In any case, as Cohen well shows, this an account of the ʻtraditionalʼ Marxist philosophy motif is rooted deeply in Hegelʼs philosophy. It is an Radical Philosophy 104 (November/December 2000) 39 integral part of Hegelʼs dialectical method (though choicesʼ. This is an old accusation, but none the more Cohen is shy of that term), where it is applied to logical valid for that. A considerable discussion of it already processes of thought as well as to social and histori- exists, to which Cohenʼs asides add nothing. For cal developments. It also runs right through Marxʼs example, Sartreʼs 1948 play Les mains sales (recently work. It is present even in the canonical ʻPrefaceʼ to revived in London) is all about this issue. Cohen also A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy charges traditional Marxism with ʻcriminal inatten- of 1859, which Cohen claims to be explicating in Karl tionʼ to ʻthe problems of socialist designʼ, as though Marxʼs Theory of History, where Marx asserts: ʻno it believed that socialism would spring forth fully social order ever perishes before all the productive formed at the appointed hour. Again this is a familiar forces for which there is room in it have developed; but questionable charge, reiterated in the briefest and and new, higher relations of production never appear laziest of terms here. There were many things wrong before the material conditions of their existence have with actually existing socialism but absence of plan- matured in the womb of the old society itselfʼ. ning was not one of them. In these chapters Cohen gives an excellent brief In short, the Hegelian historical approach needs summary of these themes in classical Marxism and to be discussed and assessed, but Cohen does not of their Hegelian origins, making central to Marxism do that. On the other hand, he does provide a well- precisely what its analytical offshoot tried to remove. argued critique of the classical Marxist view that the If this is Marxism, then what hope is there for an proletariat will emerge as the agent of revolutionary analytically ʻreconstructedʼ version? This would not historical change to overthrow capitalism and build be so much a non-bullshit Marxism as a non-Marxist socialism. This is one of the best chapters in the Marxism, a self-defeating project if ever there was one. book, even if it is reprinted from another source. Small wonder that it has not prospered. However, it does not fully address the issues raised One cannot help but feel that Cohen could have by the dialectical theory of history, since the idea of written a very good account of the dialectical themes the revolutionary proletariat is only one aspect of this, in Hegel and Marx had he so wished, but this is not even if a fundamental one in Marxism. For the rest, his purpose here. These themes are described, it seems, however, the theory is simply discarded with barely only to be rejected. It would be misleading to say that a comment. they are criticized; they are simply discarded with only At this point the lecture audience was treated (or the briefest of dismissive asides. should that be ʻsubjectedʼ?) to a session of community Thus the Hegelian view that a new social order singing. The reader is let off with a brief explanatory appears only when the conditions for its emergence paragraph and can move on to the next chapter. This are ripe is described as ʻwonderfully convenientʼ marks a radical break. The second part of the book and ʻincredibly optimisticʼ. These are superficial and is completely different in theme, style and content. inadequate criticisms. The Hegelian doctrine may According to Rawls, Cohen explains, a just society perhaps better be regarded as a tautology: the emer- is governed by two main principles of justice. One of gence of a new order ipso facto demonstrates that the these is the ʻdifference principleʼ, according to which conditions for it were present. Nor is that necessarily an unequal distribution of goods is just only if it is an objection to it. On the contrary, this doctrine can necessary to benefit the least well off members of the be seen as laying out the conceptual framework for society. Rawls uses this principle to justify unequal the Hegelian historical approach rather than specify- incentives. The argument is familiar. The ʻmost tal- ing a substantial theory of historical progress. Or entedʼ members of society will produce more only if perhaps it should be acknowledged that the Hegelian they are given incentives and the extra production can approach is often ambiguous between these two ver- be used to benefit the worst off. sions. In any case, if the Hegelian approach is to Rawlsʼs theory involves a sharp distinction between be taken seriously – and Cohen presumably believes the public and private spheres. For he maintains that that it should be, since he devotes half a book to it principles of justice should be applied only to the – then it requires a good deal more discussion than ʻbasic structureʼ of society – that is, its legal structure.
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