About the author
Canadian-British political philosopher (1941–2009), Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at Oxford and a founder of 'analytical Marxism.' Raised in a communist family in Montreal, Cohen brought the tools of analytic philosophy to Marxism and egalitarianism; his sustained engagement with Nozick and Rawls made him one of the leading political philosophers of his generation.
Synopsis
Cohen scrutinizes the thesis of self-ownership at the heart of right-libertarianism, arguing that even if we grant it, it does not entail the unequal distribution of worldly resources Nozick infers, since the world is not initially owned. He explores left-libertarian attempts to combine self-ownership with equality, the relation between freedom and money, and ultimately questions whether the appeal of self-ownership survives scrutiny — defending equality of condition against the libertarian conception of freedom.
Core passage idea
Paraphrase · Modern copyrighted workCohen argues that the libertarian principle of self-ownership, even if granted, does not justify the vast inequalities drawn from it — because the external world was never anyone's to own in the first place.
By separating self-ownership from ownership of the world, Cohen breaks the libertarian inference from 'I own myself' to 'I owe nothing to others,' clearing ground for egalitarian justice. It is analytical Marxism's sharpest engagement with its strongest opponent.
To avoid a bubble
Pair directly with Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia, the libertarian case Cohen dissects, and with libertarians who hold that self-ownership and the freedom to keep what one's talents produce are non-negotiable.
Reading note
Demanding analytic philosophy; read it directly against Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia as the central equality-versus-libertarian-freedom debate. Cohen's Why Not Socialism? is the accessible companion.
Best paired with
Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia; John Rawls, A Theory of Justice.