The challenge in reading Rawls is figuring out why it's so important
August 30, 2024 12:25 AM Subscribe
So what happened to all this ferment and excitement, all of the high-powered theory being done under the banner of Western Marxism? It’s the damndest thing, but all of those smart, important Marxists and neo-Marxists, doing all that high-powered work, became liberals. Every single one of the theorists at the core of the analytic Marxism movement – not just Cohen, but Philippe van Parijs, John Roemer, Allen Buchanan, and Jon Elster – as well as inheritors of the Frankfurt School like Habermas, wound up embracing some variant of the view that came to be known as “liberal egalitarianism.” Of course, this was not a capitulation to the old-fashioned “classical liberalism” of the 19th century, it was rather a defection to the style of modern liberalism that found its canonical expression in the work of John Rawls. from John Rawls and the death of Western Marxism by Joseph Heath
Crooked Timber writers respond: Chris Bertram, Eric Schliesser.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 1:21 AM on August 30 [7 favorites]
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 1:21 AM on August 30 [7 favorites]
Most of this work was being done under the banner of “analytical Marxism” (aka “no-bullshit Marxism”), following the publication of Gerald Cohen’s Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defence (and his subsequent elevation to the Chichele Professorship in Social and Political Philosophy at Oxford).
“Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence is a 1978 book...and has been criticised as a form of technological determinism.” [wiki]
psst- cool kids are reading Capital in the 21st Century, previously
posted by HearHere at 1:43 AM on August 30 [3 favorites]
“Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence is a 1978 book...and has been criticised as a form of technological determinism.” [wiki]
psst- cool kids are reading Capital in the 21st Century, previously
posted by HearHere at 1:43 AM on August 30 [3 favorites]
There still seem to be influential figures who identify themselves as Marxists, like Slavoj Žižek and Yanis Varoufakis, but the big picture of a decline within academia does seem to be correct.
I didn't think there were that many Rawlsians around though. Nobody seems very interested in equity/efficiency trade-offs these days. The right tend to see inequality as a good in itself, rewarding the superior humans of the entrepeneur/manager class and virtuously punishing the idle poor: they don't feel the need to justify inequality as necessary for economic efficiency. Liberals tend to be ordoliberals if they actually think about it at all: they want the government to preserve some degree of equality so that capitalism can function by having some people left who can afford to buy stuff.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 3:40 AM on August 30 [5 favorites]
I didn't think there were that many Rawlsians around though. Nobody seems very interested in equity/efficiency trade-offs these days. The right tend to see inequality as a good in itself, rewarding the superior humans of the entrepeneur/manager class and virtuously punishing the idle poor: they don't feel the need to justify inequality as necessary for economic efficiency. Liberals tend to be ordoliberals if they actually think about it at all: they want the government to preserve some degree of equality so that capitalism can function by having some people left who can afford to buy stuff.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 3:40 AM on August 30 [5 favorites]
I kept thinking of Freddie deBoer's recent piece on Rawls while reading this--only to find that Heath references it in his piece, which is funny, because deBoer provides the counterargument for Heath's whole point. Basically, if the switch to Rawls is so great and fantastic and incisive...why does the world still suck so bad? Here are all these marxists switching to Rawls, and they are absolutely unable to provide a solution to the problem of the rich ruling everything. Because no matter what, that's still the problem. Whether you phrase it as exploitation or inequality, whether you seek its roots in accidents of history or the legal codes that create markets, you've still got to deal with the fact that rich people exist, and that they accrue political power as a function of wealth. The fact we have outsourced immiseration doesn't mean that workers were not immiserated. We just put the poverty elsewhere, out of sight.
posted by mittens at 5:49 AM on August 30 [11 favorites]
posted by mittens at 5:49 AM on August 30 [11 favorites]
cool kids are reading Capital in the 21st Century
Or, rather, they will starting September 17.
posted by mittens at 6:50 AM on August 30 [1 favorite]
Or, rather, they will starting September 17.
posted by mittens at 6:50 AM on August 30 [1 favorite]
I'm no political philosopher, but it seems to me that Marx's critiques of wage pressure and how capitalism tends toward monopoly are still quite valid. Yeah, the "science" of predictive history is nonsense, but his work seems quite useful even i can understand not wanting to call yourself a Marxist.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 7:08 AM on August 30 [11 favorites]
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 7:08 AM on August 30 [11 favorites]
I was one of those easy-to-look-down-on-by-Real-Philosophers cultural litcrit Marxists, so I don't qualify as a proper thinker. But the amusing thing is how much more prevalent Marxist theory has become since I was fighting a very lonely dialectical corner in my late 90s bit of early academia. I left that world years ago, but I don't see any drop in the need for or relevance of Marxist criticisms of capital or culture. I'm not sure the narrow boundaries, blurred generalisations or the smugness of the main article have persuaded me otherwise
But we've already lived through the end of history, haven't we? Look how wrong I must be.
posted by onebuttonmonkey at 7:19 AM on August 30 [10 favorites]
But we've already lived through the end of history, haven't we? Look how wrong I must be.
posted by onebuttonmonkey at 7:19 AM on August 30 [10 favorites]
Here are all these marxists switching to Rawls, and they are absolutely unable to provide a solution to the problem of the rich ruling everything
It’s been decades since I read any Rawls, but I don’t remember his project being “how to fix”. Rather it was, how can you tell whether a fix will make things worse?
I’ve found “does it make the worst-off better off?” a very productive question in many practical situations.
posted by clew at 7:42 AM on August 30 [6 favorites]
It’s been decades since I read any Rawls, but I don’t remember his project being “how to fix”. Rather it was, how can you tell whether a fix will make things worse?
I’ve found “does it make the worst-off better off?” a very productive question in many practical situations.
posted by clew at 7:42 AM on August 30 [6 favorites]
Rawls enlisted in the U.S. Army in February 1943. During World War II, Rawls served as an infantryman in the Pacific, where he served a tour of duty in New Guinea and was awarded a Bronze Star; and the Philippines, where he endured intensive trench warfare and witnessed traumatizing scenes of violence and bloodshed.[17] It was there that he lost his Christian faith and became an atheist.[15][18][19]
Most people hear these kinds of stories and assume it reflects on some aspect of human suffering and blaming God. This conveniently leaves out the disillusionment of witnessing true-believers becoming casually genocidal when given the opportunity. And speaking of dogma, Rawls is famous for a thought experiment that avoids it, and a social framework that logically disassumes it. "Public reason requires that the moral or political rules that regulate our common life be, in some sense, justifiable or acceptable to all those persons over whom the rules purport to have authority." In other words, a political liberalism where "government should be neutral between competing conceptions of the good."
Following the surrender of Japan, Rawls became part of General MacArthur's occupying army[13] and was promoted to sergeant. But he became disillusioned with the military when he saw the aftermath of the atomic blast in Hiroshima. Rawls then disobeyed an order to discipline a fellow soldier, "believing no punishment was justified," and was "demoted back to a private." Disenchanted, he left the military in January 1946.[17]
(sigh)/respect
posted by Brian B. at 8:45 AM on August 30 [5 favorites]
Most people hear these kinds of stories and assume it reflects on some aspect of human suffering and blaming God. This conveniently leaves out the disillusionment of witnessing true-believers becoming casually genocidal when given the opportunity. And speaking of dogma, Rawls is famous for a thought experiment that avoids it, and a social framework that logically disassumes it. "Public reason requires that the moral or political rules that regulate our common life be, in some sense, justifiable or acceptable to all those persons over whom the rules purport to have authority." In other words, a political liberalism where "government should be neutral between competing conceptions of the good."
Following the surrender of Japan, Rawls became part of General MacArthur's occupying army[13] and was promoted to sergeant. But he became disillusioned with the military when he saw the aftermath of the atomic blast in Hiroshima. Rawls then disobeyed an order to discipline a fellow soldier, "believing no punishment was justified," and was "demoted back to a private." Disenchanted, he left the military in January 1946.[17]
(sigh)/respect
posted by Brian B. at 8:45 AM on August 30 [5 favorites]
> Here are all these marxists switching to Rawls, and they are absolutely unable to provide a solution to the problem of the rich ruling everything. Because no matter what, that's still the problem.
Well when you put it that way, nobody has ever accomplished a single God-damned thing that was worthwhile, not in the last 10,000 years or so.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 9:33 AM on August 30 [5 favorites]
Well when you put it that way, nobody has ever accomplished a single God-damned thing that was worthwhile, not in the last 10,000 years or so.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 9:33 AM on August 30 [5 favorites]
It is both on-brand and very internet-savvy of Joseph Heath to conflate the decline of his preferred flavor of academic Marxism with "the death of Western Marxism."
posted by Gerald Bostock at 9:50 AM on August 30 [2 favorites]
posted by Gerald Bostock at 9:50 AM on August 30 [2 favorites]
This must be in the water because Chris Hayes just did an episode on Rawls on Why is This Happening, his podcast. The guest was Daniel Chapman from the London School of Economics.
posted by MagnificentVacuum at 9:50 AM on August 30 [2 favorites]
posted by MagnificentVacuum at 9:50 AM on August 30 [2 favorites]
> but if the alternative is the style of aggressive, in-your-face stupidity found in Jacobin magazine
I endorse this implied critique.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 10:03 AM on August 30 [2 favorites]
I endorse this implied critique.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 10:03 AM on August 30 [2 favorites]
I'm not quite at the point where I believe the exact opposite of everything that Joseph Heath says, but I take him with a big fuckin grain of salt.
posted by ovvl at 10:10 AM on August 30 [3 favorites]
posted by ovvl at 10:10 AM on August 30 [3 favorites]
does it make the worst-off better off?
“Rawls responded at first that, while we must acknowledge our moral duties towards the disabled, we should postpone the question of our obligations towards them until we have worked out a robust and convincing theory of justice” [oxford]
...
posted by HearHere at 10:33 AM on August 30 [3 favorites]
“Rawls responded at first that, while we must acknowledge our moral duties towards the disabled, we should postpone the question of our obligations towards them until we have worked out a robust and convincing theory of justice” [oxford]
...
posted by HearHere at 10:33 AM on August 30 [3 favorites]
Reading through tfa and the linked articles in comments, I’m struck by how the starting point of able bodied men rather than disabled people or children or pregnant people hobbles our thinking in this space.
posted by congen at 11:33 AM on August 30 [3 favorites]
posted by congen at 11:33 AM on August 30 [3 favorites]
> I'm not quite at the point where I believe the exact opposite of everything that Joseph Heath says, but I take him with a big fuckin grain of salt.
Over at Crooked Timber there are some reactions by Heath's professional colleagues. One of them contains this paragraph
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 12:36 PM on August 30 [2 favorites]
Over at Crooked Timber there are some reactions by Heath's professional colleagues. One of them contains this paragraph
Before I get to my criticism of Heath — and I don’t need to remind regular readers I am no Marxist – Heath’s essay is a rare case of auto-biographical history of philosophy in which Heath gets something important right despite the polemical and boundary-policing efforts — note his repeated use of ‘bullshit.’ Usually, such retrospective first-person narratives are only instructive as polemics and boundary-policing (and a window into the anguished grievances of the author).But that's immediately preceded by a pointer to this with the injunction "Do read the first few paragraphs... so you get a sense of my view of the significance of Heath." And if you read those few paragraphs, you will see that apparently Heath the professional philosopher comes across very differently than Heath the substack provocateur.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 12:36 PM on August 30 [2 favorites]
nobody has ever accomplished a single God-damned thing that was worthwhile, not in the last 10,000 years or so.
How can I subscribe to your newsletter?
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:53 PM on August 30 [3 favorites]
How can I subscribe to your newsletter?
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:53 PM on August 30 [3 favorites]
A socialist response by Ben Burgis: "Did Rawls Kill Analytical Marxism? Joseph Heath says so in his essay, 'John Rawls and the death of Western Marxism.' But the core of his argument makes very little sense."
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 10:15 AM on September 1 [3 favorites]
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 10:15 AM on September 1 [3 favorites]
That debunks it pretty thoroughly!
posted by TheophileEscargot at 12:22 PM on September 1 [1 favorite]
posted by TheophileEscargot at 12:22 PM on September 1 [1 favorite]
"Did Rawls Kill Analytical Marxism?
No. Rawls was likely their second choice, as someone untainted with Marx.
The biggest internal disruption in the Group’s early history consisted in the dramatic departure, in 1993, of Elster (the original convener) and the political scientist Adam Przeworski (who had joined in the second year). Its causes remain uncertain. The “leavers” expressed criticisms of the evolving intellectual character of the group, and Przeworski suggested that insofar as its original purpose was the critical evaluation of Marxism, that task had been completed, and that “[w]e ultimately found that not much of Marxism is left and there really wasn’t much more to learn” (2007: 490). Indeed, Elster would subsequently characterise analytical Marxism as a rare case of “intellectual autophagy”, which had succeeded in revealing that “non-bullshit Marxism” was largely “an empty set” (2011: 163). Marx’s only remaining contribution of value was now said to concern, not his substantive views, but “his normative conception of the good life as one of active and joint self-realization” (2011: 163). In contrast, some “remainers” viewed these departures as reflecting external factors, especially the complex impact of the demise of the Soviet Union on a certain generation of leftists. “Complex”, not least, in that its demise was seen as involving both the removal of a hideous regime and the loss of a non-capitalist space (G. Cohen 2009b: 352).
posted by Brian B. at 7:37 PM on September 1 [1 favorite]
No. Rawls was likely their second choice, as someone untainted with Marx.
The biggest internal disruption in the Group’s early history consisted in the dramatic departure, in 1993, of Elster (the original convener) and the political scientist Adam Przeworski (who had joined in the second year). Its causes remain uncertain. The “leavers” expressed criticisms of the evolving intellectual character of the group, and Przeworski suggested that insofar as its original purpose was the critical evaluation of Marxism, that task had been completed, and that “[w]e ultimately found that not much of Marxism is left and there really wasn’t much more to learn” (2007: 490). Indeed, Elster would subsequently characterise analytical Marxism as a rare case of “intellectual autophagy”, which had succeeded in revealing that “non-bullshit Marxism” was largely “an empty set” (2011: 163). Marx’s only remaining contribution of value was now said to concern, not his substantive views, but “his normative conception of the good life as one of active and joint self-realization” (2011: 163). In contrast, some “remainers” viewed these departures as reflecting external factors, especially the complex impact of the demise of the Soviet Union on a certain generation of leftists. “Complex”, not least, in that its demise was seen as involving both the removal of a hideous regime and the loss of a non-capitalist space (G. Cohen 2009b: 352).
posted by Brian B. at 7:37 PM on September 1 [1 favorite]
Another socialist response, by Vivek Chibber
Marxism is, at its core, not a moral philosophy, but a theory of politics and a political economy. As long as liberalism fails to produce that, it can never supplant Marxism or make Marxism redundant.posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 7:38 AM on September 14
Marxism is, at its core, not a moral philosophy, but a theory of politics and a political economy. As long as liberalism fails to produce that, it can never supplant Marxism or make Marxism redundant.
This misses the point of validity. Marxism is anti-political for the majority if one party rules, and is when economic activity is both defined and measured by and for the party's interests. Democracy is a free market for public decision, and taxing profit for the public good makes it a political economy and a moral philosophy of liberalism, based on the equal rights of voting. It requires the consent of the governed in order to prevent immoral tyranny, where “moral” is the conception of right or just behavior by one's conscience, never by following to any dogma or tyrant. Scandinavia proudly achieves this and is not based on Marxism, but is a mixed economy of public and private interest. If Nordic success irks Marxists then their real problem is being wrong. Marx predicted the failure of a free market based on diminishing returns of profit, but a Marxist economist in Japan proved this theory wrong in the early 1970's. But that never stopped prophecies from losing adherents. The cognitive dissonance of spreading a debunked “truth” to salvage an emotional investment is a predictable phenomenon.
Marxists might ask themselves a Rawlsian question. If when most industrialized citizens reject command economies and do better without it, how is anyone but Marx the misguided one? A Marxist revolution is prevented where most people vote against elitism and self-righteous demagoguery. But such sentiment is bad faith in Marx, and believing in Marx is the point. Dominance of any belief system doesn't require a god, and none actually represent one. Instead they use their cult of authority to judge everyone's social value. Social devaluation anywhere in history usually involved extreme torture and strange confessions. Authoritarian structures use surveillance and terror not to become feared and hated, but to demand obedience and flattery for their elitist narcissism. As for anti-capitalism, anyone familiar with prohibitions knows they fail to eliminate distribution and Marxist regimes all had their black markets for everyday sundry items to avoid waiting in lines or lists. It wasn't a mixed economy, but a mixed morality of contradictions.
posted by Brian B. at 9:40 AM on September 15
This misses the point of validity. Marxism is anti-political for the majority if one party rules, and is when economic activity is both defined and measured by and for the party's interests. Democracy is a free market for public decision, and taxing profit for the public good makes it a political economy and a moral philosophy of liberalism, based on the equal rights of voting. It requires the consent of the governed in order to prevent immoral tyranny, where “moral” is the conception of right or just behavior by one's conscience, never by following to any dogma or tyrant. Scandinavia proudly achieves this and is not based on Marxism, but is a mixed economy of public and private interest. If Nordic success irks Marxists then their real problem is being wrong. Marx predicted the failure of a free market based on diminishing returns of profit, but a Marxist economist in Japan proved this theory wrong in the early 1970's. But that never stopped prophecies from losing adherents. The cognitive dissonance of spreading a debunked “truth” to salvage an emotional investment is a predictable phenomenon.
Marxists might ask themselves a Rawlsian question. If when most industrialized citizens reject command economies and do better without it, how is anyone but Marx the misguided one? A Marxist revolution is prevented where most people vote against elitism and self-righteous demagoguery. But such sentiment is bad faith in Marx, and believing in Marx is the point. Dominance of any belief system doesn't require a god, and none actually represent one. Instead they use their cult of authority to judge everyone's social value. Social devaluation anywhere in history usually involved extreme torture and strange confessions. Authoritarian structures use surveillance and terror not to become feared and hated, but to demand obedience and flattery for their elitist narcissism. As for anti-capitalism, anyone familiar with prohibitions knows they fail to eliminate distribution and Marxist regimes all had their black markets for everyday sundry items to avoid waiting in lines or lists. It wasn't a mixed economy, but a mixed morality of contradictions.
posted by Brian B. at 9:40 AM on September 15
Brian B, did you read the article? Chibber allows command economies are probably not feasible. ("we understand now, after a hundred years of experiments, there are versions of socialism that may not be sustainable — and one such version, I think, is central planning"). More broadly I think you're making a bunch of unwarranted and erroneous assumptions about what Marxists today believe. By the way, the Scandinavian model was pioneered by the SAP, a party whose intellectuals were quite heavily influenced by Marxism. The theorem you're referring to is Okishio's, but, regardless if he is right or not, I think it would be a grave error to say the validity of Marxism stands or falls purely on the issue of the falling rate of profit alone.
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 4:05 AM on September 16 [1 favorite]
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 4:05 AM on September 16 [1 favorite]
Nobody really rejects command economies, because most of us live within them. When my work laptop dies, I don't go out into my job's free market and make bids on a new laptop; I just tell the tech guys, and they have a certain number of replacement laptops in their budget, and they send me one. Walmart's not relying on some sort of internal auction to determine which stores can have how many of the new cash registers; it plans and budgets which store will get them when. The US military has never said, ah well, guess we should've bid 30 cents higher for those missiles, now Canada has snapped them all up.
I dunno, I'm a fan of the idea of central planning, I just think the experiment was run much too soon.
posted by mittens at 6:03 AM on September 16 [2 favorites]
I dunno, I'm a fan of the idea of central planning, I just think the experiment was run much too soon.
posted by mittens at 6:03 AM on September 16 [2 favorites]
Noisy Pink Bubbles, I was addressing the fallacy of the pull quote. The lazy swipe at liberalism not only missed the point of liberalism already supplanting Marxism, but asserted that Marxism was something it is not, a political economy, which is what liberalism actually is. The fact that the author undercuts their argument later does not lend more credibility. As to beliefs, your word, it doesn't matter what a cafeteria selection of Marxism one might choose, anymore than what a survivor of the Titanic chooses to believe about the overall service and quality of their passage to New York. It rests on believers to assert what it is they are holding from Marx. The original posted article was arguing that it amounted to almost nothing intellectually. That's saying a lot, because one thing impoverished but entitled intellectuals were known for in the modernist period was their rush to Marxism based on the promise and belief that they could rule society top-down better than others. That hubris was dispelled rather quickly based on those "experiments" but the will-to-rule remains strong among those who aren't so humble about their ability to provide.
posted by Brian B. at 9:29 AM on September 16 [1 favorite]
posted by Brian B. at 9:29 AM on September 16 [1 favorite]
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No, not the metaphorical kind. There is only one way to find out which massively egotistical Canadian academic has the right idea on Marx, and that's clearly trial by combat.
And I want Žižek doing the blow by blow commentary for spits and giggles.
posted by flabdablet at 12:45 AM on August 30 [6 favorites]