As Free and as Just as Possible: The Theory of Marxian Liberalism

As Free and as Just as Possible presents and defends Marxian Liberalism, a theory of justice that results from combining certain liberal beliefs, chiefly that people have a natural right to liberty understood as a right to be free from unwanted coercion, with certain Marxian beliefs, chiefly that private property is coercive. This combination implies that on liberal grounds , to be justified, private property must be consented to by everyone. A Lockean defense of the right to liberty is presented and, to determine what sort of private property would be consented to by everyone, a decision procedure modeled on Rawls′s "original position" is deployed, with this difference: the knowledge that parties in this original position possess includes certain Marxian beliefs, among them that capitalism is the most powerful engine in history for increasing productivity, and thus for providing people with the material conditions of real freedom. Parties in this Marxian–Liberal original position will agree to private property limited by an egalitarian requirement: namely, a version of Rawls′s difference principle . Marxian Liberalism takes justice to have a timeless form, but historically changing content, and calls for a highly egalitarian capitalism that is as free and as just as historically possible. This major new work performs a genuine philosophical service. While some may deem the combination of Marxism and liberalism exotic or impossible, many others will be glad to see liberalism′s devotion to individual freedom leavened with structures that redress the economic and political inequalities of capitalism, and to see Marx′s insights combined with a commitment to liberty.

List of Abbreviations ix Preface xi 1 Overview of the Argument for Marxian Liberalism 1 2 Marx and Rawls and Justice 29 2.1 Marx’s Theory of Capitalism and Its Ideology 30 2.2 Rawls’s Theory of Justice as Fairness 39 2.3 Rawls on Marx 52 2.4 Marx and Justice 57 2.5 Marxian Liberalism’s Historical Conception of Justice 61 3 The Natural Right to Liberty and the Need for a Social Contract 67 3.1 A Lockean Argument for the Right to Liberty 70 3.2 Our Rational Moral Competence 78 3.3 From Liberty to Lockean Contractarianism 88 4 The Ambivalence of Property: Expression of Liberty and Threat to Liberty 94 4.1 Locke, Nozick, and the Ambivalence of Property 96 4.2 Kant, Narveson, and the Ambivalence of Property 102 4.3 Marx and the Structural Coerciveness of Property 111 5 The Labor Theory of the Difference Principle 122 5.1 The Moral Version of the Labor Theory of Value 123 5.2 The Labor Theory of the Difference Principle 128 5.3 Finding a Just Distribution 133 5.4 Is the Difference Principle Biased? 141 5.5 Answering Narveson and Cohen on Incentives 147 6 The Marxian–Liberal Original Position 158 6.1 Property and Subjugation 160 6.2 The Limits of Property 163 6.3 The Marxian Theory of the Conditions of Liberty 168 6.4 Inside the Marxian–Liberal Original Position 172 6.5 The Difference Principle as a Historical Principle of Justice 183 7 As Free and as Just as Possible: Capitalism for Marxists, Communism for Liberals 190 7.1 The Just State 191 7.2 Capitalism for Marxists 195 7.3 The Marxian–Liberal Ideal: Property–Owning Democracy 197 7.4 Communism for Liberals 204 Conclusion: Marx’s “Liberalism,” Rawls’s “Labor Theory of Justice” 210 Index 221

Jeffrey Reiman is the William Fraser McDowell Professor of Philosophy at American University in Washington, DC. A central figure in numerous political and philosophical debates in America, including those on abortion and criminal justice, he is the author of In Defense of Political Philosophy (1972), Justice and Modern Moral Philosophy (1990), Critical Moral Liberalism: Theory and Practice (1997), The Death Penalty: For and Against (with Louis Pojman, 1998), Abortion and the Ways We Value Human Life (1999), The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison: Ideology, Class, and Criminal Justice , 10th edn. (with Paul Leighton, forthcoming), and more than a hundred articles on philosophy and criminal justice.

“Written in clear and lucid prose, the book will be a valuable resource for students looking for an introduction to Marx and Rawls’s thought on freedom, justice and capitalism. But specialists will also find much of interest here, too, since as we have seen the book is not just an overview of Marx and Rawls’s thought on these issues, but an imaginative attempt to fuse their insights to create a new theory of social justice. Whether or not one is fully convinced by that final synthesis, Reiman deserves credit for attempting to show that, while the idea of combining liberal and socialist has a history, it may still have a future.”  ( Res Publica , 8 October 2013) “This is an important effort to reinvigorate modern liberalism by applying essential insights from a fading Marxism.  Summing Up:  Highly recommended.  General readers, graduate students, and research faculty.”  ( Choice , 1 September 2013)