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    Why Not Socialism?
    Why Not Socialism?
    Why Not Socialism?
    Audiobook1 hour

    Why Not Socialism?

    Written by G. A. Cohen

    Narrated by John Lescault

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Is socialism desirable? Is it even possible? In this concise audiobook, 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."

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity Press Audiobooks
    Release dateJul 15, 2010
    ISBN9781509494514
    Why Not Socialism?
    Author

    G. A. Cohen

    G. A. Cohen (1941–2009) was the Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at All Souls College, University of Oxford, from 1985 to 2008. At the time of his death, he held the Quain Chair in Jurisprudence at University College London. His books include Karl Marx's Theory of History and Why Not Socialism? (both Princeton). Michael Otsuka is professor of philosophy at University College London.

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    Reviews for Why Not Socialism?

    4/5

    72 ratings3 reviews

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    • 1/5
      Very shallow, and burdened by unspoken assumptions and logical fallacies. The author fails to address the most interesting aspects of socialism such as its necessarily authoritarian nature. He also appears to think that complex economic trade offs can be easily resolved if people simply decide to be more generous.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 3/5
      This is a bourgeois academic approach to socialism. It suffers from the vices of all philosophers. It is detached from material reality and conditions. It focuses exclusively on armchair logic. It fails to challenge standard bourgeois assumptions. It is steeped in moralism and idealism. It illustrates the superiority of Marxism by contrast. Nobody who reads this will walk away inspired or energized and it will not provide anyone with the tools to fight back against capitalism or build socialism. On the bright side, it is short.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Provides a pretty solid summary of arguments in favor of socialism (both planned and market varieties) and addresses common criticisms of socialism as a theory. It's a pretty short book so it doesn't go into a lot of detail on any particular topic, but I think it can serve as a great primer for why socialism is worth pursuing, even if we may not yet have all the answers to technical questions about how such a society would function. There are definitely other books that expand further on specific topics in this one.