Waterstones Why Not Socialism
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Price: £8.99
Brand: Waterstones
Description: Is socialism desirable? Is it even possible? In this concise book, one of the world's leading political philosophers presents with clarity and wit a compelling moral case for socialism and argues that the obstacles in its way are exaggerated. There are times, G. A. Cohen notes, when we all behave like socialists. On a camping trip, for example, campers wouldn't dream of charging each other to use a soccer ball or for fish that they happened to catch. Campers do not give merely to get, but relate to each other in a spirit of equality and community. Would such socialist norms be desirable across society as a whole? Why not? Whole societies may differ from camping trips, but it is still attractive when people treat each other with the equal regard that such trips exhibit. But, however desirable it may be, many claim that socialism is impossible. Cohen writes that the biggest obstacle to socialism isn't, as often argued, intractable human selfishness--it's rather the lack of obvious means to harness the human generosity that is there. Lacking those means, we rely on the market. But there are many ways of confining the sway of the market: there are desirable changes that can move us toward a socialist society in which, to quote Albert Einstein, humanity has overcome and advanced beyond the predatory stage of human development. Waterstones Why Not Socialism - shop the best deal online on thebookbug.co.uk
Category: Books
Merchant: Waterstones
Product ID: 9780691143613
Delivery cost: 2.99
ISBN: 9780691143613
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Author: Anonymous
Rating: 5
Review: This is a manifesto as to the desirability and feasibility of a socialist ethic of equality and community, and is rather successful and clear-minded in these terms: through argument from intuition - of what we might value in a camping trip - it captures the ecumenical aspirations of socialists, and while convinced of the desirability of the instantiation of these ethical precepts in our society, Cohen is lucid of the serious obstacles as to the feasibility of any such instantiation. There exist feasible accounts of market socialism among Cohen's fellow so-called analytic Marxists, but such is a half-way house imperfectly rendering equality and community; a social design and technology capable of fully capturing those precepts is presently (and only presently) withstanding. One must admire this candid but lingeringly optimistic concession. The crisp force of Cohen's exposition is, without doubt, a marvel in its own right, and embodies the best virtues of analytic philosophy. It endows what is effectively a pocket manifesto with disarming weight and, for this brevity and elegance, makes accessible a commonly rarefied discussion. This book exceeds the shoes and warrants the historical stature of the work to which its title alludes: Albert Einstein's 1949 Monthly Review essay `Why Socialism?' It should be celebrated.
Author: Oskari
Rating: 1
Review: This is an incredible book - incredibly illogical and dishonest. The basic argument is that people are capable of altruism and generosity - therefore we should adopt socialism. The fundamental basis of the argument is voluntary generosity in small communities. The author shows how people behave voluntarily "like socialists" when they share things on camping trips and the like. But somehow he seems incapable of seeing the difference between voluntary generosity in a small community such as friendship and family, and coerced sharing of everything under political authority. The argument is emotionally appealing but intellectually absurd. The book is also deeply dishonest, because the author pretends that socialism has never been tried, as if it were just a nice theory that was never put into practice. Cohn does not even attempt to show that Soviet Union, DDR, Communist China, North Korea, Cuba, and many other disastrous and inhumane "experiments" did not conform to his own vision of socialism. He simply does not mention them at all. Was the book really written in 2009? Did the author live through the 20th century? This stuff is not uplifting, it is disgusting.
