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Bezig met laden... Why Not Socialism? (2009)door G. A. Cohen
Books Read in 2019 (1,500) Books I've read (69) Bezig met laden...
Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek. Cohen really is a true believer. At least on a small scale, he really does make good case for socialism. Where it breaks down is really anything applied to a larger scale without a dispute mechanism (i.e. markets). I found his objection to market socialism in particular more telling than objectionable as he seems to really want all participants in a socialist system to be true believers too. At that point, I think he's completely lost the plot as we're now dealing with ideologues as the reason why the system works rather than a self-correcting feature of the system itself (i.e. even capitalism would work if it was "true" capitalism and not corrupted by cronyism and regulatory capture, etc.). ( ) My dad always bought us 3 of each toy, so I never had to share anything and now I’m so possessive over my shit that that first paragraph made me sick. I’m not saying I'm a capitalist; I don’t know enough about life except to assume that there’s no way to make it fair or good. 0 stars because it’s short and simple, mostly easy to understand for dummies like me, but I’m not sure what I got out of it except that socialism seems like a nightmare for introverts. Why is this high school essay available in hardback? It addresses nothing and I've learned nothing, even though I was practically a blank slate going in. How many analytic philosophical journal articles deserve to be sold on their own as a book? None, not even this one. On the other hand, it's a beautiful little object, and Cohen was such a wonderful human being, and so smart, that I'm happy to have contributed something to whoever he decided to leave his copy rights to. This won't convince anyone that socialism is plausible, or even that it's preferable, at least in the short term. But perhaps some college kid somewhere will read it, and it will slowly worm its way into his brain, and he'll become a slightly better person. Maybe. this book was very good on why socialism is feasible and the general principles on which a socialist society should be built, but i thought cohen's vision of what socialism would actually entail was fairly hazy. (i wasn't sure if that was due to my own ignorance of political philosophy, but considering that this book is aimed to beginners i think that's a flaw nonetheless.) This very short essay advocates a brand of socialism which seems extreme to me, almost to the tune of "from each according to his ability...". The author uses the reciprocal interactions of a camping trip as an example of socialist behaviour which he would like to see implemented in society at large. There's not much weight in the actual argument since it's so short, but I think it still answers the question posed in the title. As the author says (on page 57), "the principal problem that faces the socialist ideal is that we do not know how to design the machinery that would make it run". geen besprekingen | voeg een bespreking toe
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 "e Albert Einstein, humanity has "overcome and advanced beyond the predatory stage of human development." Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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Google Books — Bezig met laden... GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)335Social sciences Economics Socialism and related systemsLC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde:
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