Why Not Socialism, is the final, essay-length book from GA Cohen, an important Marxist philosopher who died earlier this year. Its size and design suggest that it is a book intended to be carried in a pocket, perhaps on a camping-trip such as the one with which the book opens. The camping trip which Cohen describes functions as a microcosm of a socialist society: chores are divided up according to ability, whilst any benefits, e.g. food caught or found, are shared equally. Cohen argues that just as this is the best way to run a camping trip, it also the best way to run a society.

To demonstrate this point, Cohen goes on to describe a camping trip organised in the same way as Western society, i.e. capitalism. Predictably it is an unattractive vision. The question then is: why is such an appealing system so reviled on the larger scale of social organisation? Cohen’s conclusion is that we are simply not yet ready. For it to work, enough people need to both belief in its desirability and act in the ways required to make this belief a reality. A simple enough suggestion, but one that currently seems insurmountable. For Cohen, one of the main principals of Socialism is equality of opportunity. It is on this point that I think the problems of Socialism hinge. Whilst on a camping trip the opportunities to which all are equally entitled are relatively small, in the larger and more varied groups in which we actually live such opportunities are far greater. It seems inevitable that there will always be those willing and able to exploit such opportunities, moving us in a very short time back to a diverse, unequal society.

Cohen’s style in this book is mostly conversational, with some enjoyably light asides, as when he concludes his discussion of camping with the revelation that he is not outdoorsy “or, at any rate … not outdoorsy overnight-without-a-mattress-wise.” However, at times it becomes a little dense or breathless: “My commitment to socialist community does not require me to be a sucker who serves you regardless of whether (if you are able to do so) you are going to serve me, but I nevertheless find value in both parts of the conjunction – I serve you and you serve me – and in that conjunction itself: I do not regard the first part – I serve you – as simply a means to my real end, which is that you serve me.” This, surely, is a sentence crying out for an extra full-stop.

Cohen certainly makes some interesting points, and in a remarkably short space covers many of the pertinent points in this ongoing argument. But while this book may convince you that socialism is, in theory, desirable, it is unlikely to convince you that it is practical or even possible.

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