About the author
Canadian-born political philosopher (1941–2009), Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at Oxford and a founder of 'Analytical Marxism,' which applied the tools of analytic philosophy to Marxist and egalitarian ideas. Raised in a communist Jewish family in Montreal, Cohen became one of the most rigorous and witty defenders of equality in the English-speaking world.
Synopsis
In under a hundred pages, Cohen distinguishes the desirability of socialist principles — radical equality of opportunity and a principle of community — from their feasibility. He grants that we may not know how to organise a large modern economy on these principles without markets, but insists this is a problem of social technology, not of values: the camping-trip ideal is one most people share, and the burden is on the market's defenders to show it cannot be realised.
Core passage idea
Paraphrase · Modern copyrighted workCohen argues that the equality and community we readily accept among friends on a camping trip are morally attractive in general — so the question socialism faces is one of feasibility, not desirability.
By separating 'is it good?' from 'can we do it?', Cohen reframes the whole debate. He concedes the practical difficulty while denying that it settles the moral question, putting defenders of capitalism on the back foot: they must argue not merely that markets work, but that the values markets override were never worth having.
To avoid a bubble
Pair with Hayek and Nozick for the case that markets and private property are not just efficient but the only arrangement compatible with freedom and dispersed knowledge — and that Cohen's camping trip does not scale to a society of strangers.
Reading note
Short enough to read in an hour and ideal as a first text on socialism's moral case. Read it directly against Nozick (whom Cohen spent a career answering) to feel the libertarian–egalitarian disagreement at its sharpest.
Best paired with
Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia; Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto.