SECOND EXAM

PHILO 198

The Socialist Ideal

Marx and Engels
Summary:
 The abolition of bourgeois property and bourgeois family structure is a necessary first requirement
for building a society that accords with the political ideal of equality.
 Initially, the distribution of social goods must conform to “from each according to his ability, to
each according to his contribution”.
 When the highest stage of communism has been reached, distribution of social goods will conform
to “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need”.

Communist Principles:
1. Communists do not form a separate party opposed to other working-class parties.
2. Communists have no interests apart from those of the working-class’s.
3. Communists do not set up any sectarian principles of their own that shape the proletarian
movement.
4. Communists are distinguished from other parties such that:
a. In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and
bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all
nationality
b. They always represent the interests of the movement as a whole, even through the various
stages of development the proletariat’s struggle against the bourgeoisie have to pass.
Communist Basic Goals:
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents to land to public purposes.
2. Heavy progressive or graduated income tax
3. Abolition of all right to inheritance
4. Confiscation of property of emigrants and rebels
5. Centralization of credit through a national bank with State capital and exclusive monopoly
6. Centralization of means of communication in the State
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into
cultivation of waste- lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a
common plan.
8. Equal liability to all labor. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction
between town and country, by a more equitable distribution of the population over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labour in its present
form. Combination of education with industrial production.
Fundamental Goal: Equitable Distribution
 Instruments of labor are converted to common property. Because they are common property, total
labor is cooperatively regulated. The proceeds of this labor, therefore, belong undiminished to all
members of society equally. Distribution of the means of consumption at any time is only a
consequence of the distribution of the conditions of production themselves. The latter distribution
however, is a feature of the more of production itself.
Justice under Socialism
Edward Nell and Onora o’Neill
Summary:

A. Socialist Approach: B. Capitalist Approach

“From each according to his “From each according to his
ability, to each according to his choice, given his assets, to each
needs” according to his contribution.”

C. Utopian Approach
“From each according to his D. Feudalist Approach:
choice, to each according to his “From each according to one
need” status, to each according to one
status”

“ From each according to his ability, to each according to his contribution.”

• Each worker receives back the value of the amount he contributed to society in one form or
another.
• According to Marx, this is a form of bourgeois right that “tacitly recognizes unequal individual
endowments, and thus privileges in respect of productive capacity”
• It relies on a bureaucratically determined weighing that takes into account such factors as the
difficulty, duration, qualification level, and risk involved in job.
• Assets are managed by the central government; hence one would expect instability and full
employment guaranteed.

Socialist Approach to Distributing Benefits and Burdens:

“From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”
Problem:
1. Even if all contribute according to their abilities, there is no guarantee all needs can be met.
The principle gives us no guidance for distributing goods when some needs must go unmet.
2. If all contribute according to their abilities, there may be a material surplus after all needs are
met. The principle give us no guidance for distributing such a surplus.
3. The principle gives no suggestion as to why each man would contribute according to his
ability.
Socialist Approach vs Capitalist Approach
SOCIALIST APPROACH CAPITALIST APPROACH
 “From each according to his ability, to each
according to his needs.”
“abilities” and “needs” refer to persons
requirement: everyone uses talents that have been
developed in them; the payment of workers is
contingent upon their needs
“From each according to his choice, given his
assets, to each according to his contribution.”
“choice” and “contribution” refer to the
management of impersonal property, the given
assets.
individuals may be endowed with more or less
capital, or with bare labor power. They choose in
the light of these assets how and how much to
work, and how to invest their capital. They are paid
in proportion to this.

Radical Egalitarianism
Kai Nielsen
Summary:
Goals of Radical Egalitarianism
1. Equality of Basic Conditions.
a. "[E]veryone, as far as possible, should have equal life prospects." And, we should aim to
satisfy everyone’s wants. And, we should try "to achieve a condition where the necessary
burdens of the society are equally shared." [88]
2. If We Can’t Distribute Resources Equally?
a. "[W]e should first, where considerations of desert are not at issue, distribute according to
stringency of need, second, according to the strength of unmanipulated preferences and
third, and finally, by lottery." [88]
3. Hierarchy of Needs.
a. "An egalitarian starts with basic needs, . . . , and moves out to other needs and finally to
wants as the productive power of the society increases." [89]
Aim of Radical Egalitarianism: Seek the satisfaction of the greatest compossible set of
needs where the conditions for compossibility are:
a) that everyone’s needs be considered,
b) that everyone’s needs be equally considered and where two sets of needs cannot both be satisfied,
the more stringent set of needs shall first be satisfied.
Radical Egalitarian Principles of Justice
1. Equal Rights & Opportunity:
a. Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive total system of equal basic
liberties and opportunities.
2. Egalitarian Distribution:
a. Income and wealth is to be divided so that each person will have a right to an equal share,
after provisions are made . . .
i. . . . for common social values,
ii. . . . for capital overhead to preserve the society’s productive capacity,
iii. . . . for differing unmanipulated needs and preferences,
iv. . . . for giving weight to the just entitlements of individuals.

Equality as a right, equality as a goal.

a. Equal life prospects
b. Equal resource access
 a. An equality of access to equal resources over each person's life as a whole, though this
should be qualified by people's varying needs.
c. Equal autonomy condition
a. Aim for a condition of autonomy (the fuller and the more rational the better) for everyone
and at a condition where everyone alike, to the fullest extent possible, has his/her need
and wants satisfied.
d. Equal on wants
a. Where we have conflicting wants , the fair thing to do will vary with the circumstances.
e. Equal on necessary burdens
a. Achieve equality of condition on where the necessary burdens of the society are equally
shared, where to do so is reasonable, and where each person has an equal voice in
deciding what these burdens shall be.
f. Equal basic liberties

How much equality is enough?

 Too much equality would be to treat everyone identically, ignoring their differing needs.
 Too little equality would be to limit equality of condition to achieving equal legal and political
rights, equal civil liberties, to equality of opportunity and to a redistribution of gross disparities in
wealth sufficient to keep social peace.
 Enough equality: All people equally, as much as possible, shall be provided with choices
compatible with everyone else doing likewise.
o Prioritization of Needs
 Egalitarians starts with basic needs, at least with what are taken in the cultural
environment in which a given person lives, then moves on to other needs. As the
productive power of the society increases, egalitarians address wants.

Justification for Restrictions of Rights

1. Restrictions strengthen rather than weaken our total system of liberty.
2. Actual liberties that are curtailed are inessential liberties whose restriction enhances human well-
being and indeed makes for a firmer entrenchment of basic liberties and for their extension
globally.
3. Restriction of some liberty is necessary to attain more liberty and a more equally distributed
pattern of liberty.
4. No restriction on the use of talents. What is being prevented is the amassing of wealth (most
particularly productive wealth) which would enable them to dominate the untalented and the
handicapped and to control the social life of which they are both a part)

How Liberty Upsets the Pattern

Robert Nozick
Summary
• "Liberty upsets patterns"
• People who are free to bargain and trade will use that freedom in ways that, over time, will
make some people better off than others, even if they start from a position of perfect
equality. (The example of Wilt Chamberlain's basketball wealth is supposed to illustrate
the kind of thing that would 'naturally' happen.) So any effort to maintain any particular
pattern of distribution will require constant or periodic interference with people's free
 choices. Nozick thinks that liberty is such a fundamental right that such interference is
wrong.

Contractual Basis for a Just Society

Immanuel Kant
Summary:
 The political culture in society is pluralism. In a pluralistic society, people subscribe to different
comprehensive doctrines. But no one doctrine can be accepted by all citizens. Oftentimes, there is
only one law, so how do we decide? Why is it important to have a Unified Law?
o Legitimacy
 the legitimate use of coercive political power
 how can it be legitimate for a democratic people to coerce all citizens to follow one
law, when people have different comprehensive doctrines they subscribe to?
 The use of political power must fulfill a criterion of reciprocity: citizens
must reasonably believe that all citizens can reasonably accept the
enforcement of a particular set of basic laws. Those coerced by law must
be able to endorse the society's fundamental political arrangements
freely, not because they are dominated or manipulated or kept
uninformed.
o Stability
 most citizens willingly obey the law, no social order can be stable for long.
 Why would a citizen willingly follow a law imposed on her by a collective body
whose beliefs are not similar to her own?
 It is important to account for a person’s own reasons for following the law.
 Public reason calls that it is the moral duty of a citizen to make political decisions on fundamental
issues based on values that are available to everyone -- The public values that citizens must be able
to appeal to are the values of a political conception of justice: those related to the freedom and
equality of citizens and the fairness of ongoing social cooperation.
 Reflective Equilibrium
o A deliberative process wherein we reflect on and revise our beliefs in order to arrive to an
overlapping consensus. In an overlapping consensus, each citizen supports a political
conception of justice for reasons internal to her own comprehensive doctrine; all
reasonable comprehensive doctrines support not just this particular right, but a complete
political conception of justice, each from within its own point of view.
 Supreme Court as Exemplar of Public Reason