Liberals go wrong in ignoring Marxism’s core insights about class. But the liberal political philosophy of John Rawls has something to offer Marxists as well.
Here’s my piping hot Rawls take for you: I’m sure that Rawls sincerely wished to expand the amount of justice in society, but as far as I know, his theory of justice didn’t achieve that in any way. By the time he published it, all the significant features of the welfare state were already in place, thanks to the twin pressures of the labour movement and competition with the Soviet Union.
What his theory does do is to provide a kind of “How the Camel Got his Hump” story for the welfare state that already exists. Liberalism cannot tolerate the fact that society reflects the ongoing outcomes of class warfare. Rawls's theory of justice allows a liberal technocrat to retroactively justify the existence of welfare liberalism to themselves, and to willfully mystify the material forces that brought it about.
So I'm skeptical about Rawls's value to a new socialist movement. Does it make sense to try to develop a new socialist morality before the movement for it exists, or is that putting the cart before the horse?
Thanks Stephen! I think you're right that Rawls's theory has been, basically, politically impotent. There are many reasons for that, including the fact that Rawls and most of his students were not political activists, and that Rawls did not offer a theory of change or the kind of diagnostic analysis of capitalism that Marxists try to give.
But I think it's not right to characterize Rawls's theory of justice as providing a just-so justification of the welfare state. His argument for the most part didn't purport to give a historical explanation of the welfare state or other actually existing social institutions, but to provide a moral framework for assessing whether a society was just. And his theory, even in its less radical renderings, clearly implied that the mid-century welfare-state societies *were not* just, in large part because they still allowed for extreme inequalities of wealth, income, and political power.
So I also don't think that Rawls can be fairly criticized for giving succor to liberal technocrats. They might use his theory in this way, but it would involve a pretty bad misreading/misappropriation. Just as I don't think we should dismiss Marxism on the basis of (many!) people twisting it to justify their bad views or political practice, I don't think liberal technocrats' abuse of his theory should be held against him.
I'm curious to hear more on your last point, issues of Rawls interpretation aside. I've argued a few times here (and Chibber makes this point in the interview I cite here) that we need a moral framework to help us define what our end goal (socialism) actually is, in specifics. I don't think a clear definition of that goal will emerge spontaneously with the advance of class struggle, and coming to that definition will involve grappling with thorny moral questions that the Marxist tradition doesn't give us ready-made answers to.
I’ve been really enjoying your series on morality! And I can’t wait to see what you have up your sleeve in later entries, but I'm skeptical that you'll find a basis for socialist morality that’s truly “objective”. Certainly all moral systems are normative — I don’t know if it even counts as morality if the adherent doesn’t wish for it to apply to everyone. But the cultural immanence of any moral law is simply a fact that we can’t wish away. Unless you succeed in locating the Ark of the Covenant, all you’re left with are layer upon layer of rhetorical moves which are equally open to dispute.
(A Brazilian friend recently complained that certain Amazonian tribes are permitted to expose unwanted newborns. But I think that moral relativism is a moral requirement in this case: it’s abhorrent to imagine a modern society that endorses infanticide, but we cannot force our own values on those tribes without simply doing colonialism.)
I do think that material interest is the primary reason for people to accept or reject a moral system, but I agree with you that it’s insufficient on its own — especially in current conditions, which are unsatisfactory in many ways but not bad enough for many people to feel the need to bet on a radical alternative. And we don’t want to be in the position of hoping for conditions to grow significantly worse.
I apologize if I misrepresent your argument, but it seems to me that in searching for an anti-relativist morality, you’re looking for a position that is immune to doubt. But such a foundation does not and cannot exist. (I don’t think that the political toothlessness of Rawls’s normative theory is an incidental feature: I think it’s essential to that style of argument. It’s a great illustration of an idea, but it’s not persuasive.)
I think a more promising answer lies in growing and strengthening our organizations. If morality derives from the values of a community, then to build a new morality we need to begin by building that community. The sense of certainty and purpose that you’re looking for will not be provided by an objective truth, but by the reinforcing mechanism of a community of adherents. That’s why I’m interested in the secret societies of the Enlightenment: they provided a cultural space for a self-selecting group who were attracted to liberal ideas to develop their shared sense of liberal values.
Which is not discount the value of moral philosophy. In fact, if you told me that I'm simply advocating moral philosophy by other means, then I wouldn’t fight about it. But it would be a philosophy based not on chasing the mirage of objectivity, but on the shared faith of a community of common values.
If I may humor myself, perhaps we are in a state of Schrodinger’s Karl, where Marx is dead and alive at the same time and his quantum wave function collapses when we find out
I would guess that one million people in the U.S. have been studying Marx over the past ten years. For all his strength as a modern-day updater of pragmatism, I doubt more than 50,000 have been studying Rawls, especially if not assigned to do so.
Yes, if measured in terms of actual readership / influence outside academic philosophers, Marxism certainly has more claiming to be living that Rawlsianism!
I can confirm this. I know a ton of people studying Marxism, but I rarely ever hear Rawls mentioned at all. Heath is an isolated academic though, so it makes sense he can't see reality outside the academy.
Marx would be happy to hear that he has inspired so many students. I remember his famous saying: "The point is not to change the world but to interpret in various ways."
I think this article is great at pointing out how misguided discussions about how "Marxists/Rawlsians got it wrong" are. Our commitment to democracy (small D) can't depend on the work of only one particular theorist. Like you mentioned, Marx brought the class and historical analysis to show how capitalism is undermining democracy. But, our commitment to democracy ultimately depends on our moral principles and framework. That vision is not something that only Marx can or should shape for us. We have a lot more to gain by just seeing Marxism as a pillar that can be supported through the work of other moral and political philosophers.
Why is Rawls still arguing for stuff that was allegedly established in the bourgeois revolutions of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries? Because bourgeois society can’t deliver. End of story.
You misunderstand the critique. It's not that Rawls doesn't present a plan; it's that any political philosophy needs to ground itself in what humans are, not what it wants them to be. The "veil of ignorance" will only be adopted by those for whom it's in their benefit to do so, with a very broad definition of benefit. Constructing a political system requires understanding humans as they are, not as we wish them to be. Otherwise the results are catastrophic, whether through corrupt actors or by mass criminal deviance. Both corruption and mass criminality are actually existing political environments, while a society of people using a "veil of ignorance" violates everything we know about sociology, psychology, and economic theory.
Here’s my piping hot Rawls take for you: I’m sure that Rawls sincerely wished to expand the amount of justice in society, but as far as I know, his theory of justice didn’t achieve that in any way. By the time he published it, all the significant features of the welfare state were already in place, thanks to the twin pressures of the labour movement and competition with the Soviet Union.
What his theory does do is to provide a kind of “How the Camel Got his Hump” story for the welfare state that already exists. Liberalism cannot tolerate the fact that society reflects the ongoing outcomes of class warfare. Rawls's theory of justice allows a liberal technocrat to retroactively justify the existence of welfare liberalism to themselves, and to willfully mystify the material forces that brought it about.
So I'm skeptical about Rawls's value to a new socialist movement. Does it make sense to try to develop a new socialist morality before the movement for it exists, or is that putting the cart before the horse?
Thanks Stephen! I think you're right that Rawls's theory has been, basically, politically impotent. There are many reasons for that, including the fact that Rawls and most of his students were not political activists, and that Rawls did not offer a theory of change or the kind of diagnostic analysis of capitalism that Marxists try to give.
But I think it's not right to characterize Rawls's theory of justice as providing a just-so justification of the welfare state. His argument for the most part didn't purport to give a historical explanation of the welfare state or other actually existing social institutions, but to provide a moral framework for assessing whether a society was just. And his theory, even in its less radical renderings, clearly implied that the mid-century welfare-state societies *were not* just, in large part because they still allowed for extreme inequalities of wealth, income, and political power.
So I also don't think that Rawls can be fairly criticized for giving succor to liberal technocrats. They might use his theory in this way, but it would involve a pretty bad misreading/misappropriation. Just as I don't think we should dismiss Marxism on the basis of (many!) people twisting it to justify their bad views or political practice, I don't think liberal technocrats' abuse of his theory should be held against him.
I'm curious to hear more on your last point, issues of Rawls interpretation aside. I've argued a few times here (and Chibber makes this point in the interview I cite here) that we need a moral framework to help us define what our end goal (socialism) actually is, in specifics. I don't think a clear definition of that goal will emerge spontaneously with the advance of class struggle, and coming to that definition will involve grappling with thorny moral questions that the Marxist tradition doesn't give us ready-made answers to.
I’ve been really enjoying your series on morality! And I can’t wait to see what you have up your sleeve in later entries, but I'm skeptical that you'll find a basis for socialist morality that’s truly “objective”. Certainly all moral systems are normative — I don’t know if it even counts as morality if the adherent doesn’t wish for it to apply to everyone. But the cultural immanence of any moral law is simply a fact that we can’t wish away. Unless you succeed in locating the Ark of the Covenant, all you’re left with are layer upon layer of rhetorical moves which are equally open to dispute.
(A Brazilian friend recently complained that certain Amazonian tribes are permitted to expose unwanted newborns. But I think that moral relativism is a moral requirement in this case: it’s abhorrent to imagine a modern society that endorses infanticide, but we cannot force our own values on those tribes without simply doing colonialism.)
I do think that material interest is the primary reason for people to accept or reject a moral system, but I agree with you that it’s insufficient on its own — especially in current conditions, which are unsatisfactory in many ways but not bad enough for many people to feel the need to bet on a radical alternative. And we don’t want to be in the position of hoping for conditions to grow significantly worse.
I apologize if I misrepresent your argument, but it seems to me that in searching for an anti-relativist morality, you’re looking for a position that is immune to doubt. But such a foundation does not and cannot exist. (I don’t think that the political toothlessness of Rawls’s normative theory is an incidental feature: I think it’s essential to that style of argument. It’s a great illustration of an idea, but it’s not persuasive.)
I think a more promising answer lies in growing and strengthening our organizations. If morality derives from the values of a community, then to build a new morality we need to begin by building that community. The sense of certainty and purpose that you’re looking for will not be provided by an objective truth, but by the reinforcing mechanism of a community of adherents. That’s why I’m interested in the secret societies of the Enlightenment: they provided a cultural space for a self-selecting group who were attracted to liberal ideas to develop their shared sense of liberal values.
Which is not discount the value of moral philosophy. In fact, if you told me that I'm simply advocating moral philosophy by other means, then I wouldn’t fight about it. But it would be a philosophy based not on chasing the mirage of objectivity, but on the shared faith of a community of common values.
If I may humor myself, perhaps we are in a state of Schrodinger’s Karl, where Marx is dead and alive at the same time and his quantum wave function collapses when we find out
I would guess that one million people in the U.S. have been studying Marx over the past ten years. For all his strength as a modern-day updater of pragmatism, I doubt more than 50,000 have been studying Rawls, especially if not assigned to do so.
Yes, if measured in terms of actual readership / influence outside academic philosophers, Marxism certainly has more claiming to be living that Rawlsianism!
I can confirm this. I know a ton of people studying Marxism, but I rarely ever hear Rawls mentioned at all. Heath is an isolated academic though, so it makes sense he can't see reality outside the academy.
Marx would be happy to hear that he has inspired so many students. I remember his famous saying: "The point is not to change the world but to interpret in various ways."
I think this article is great at pointing out how misguided discussions about how "Marxists/Rawlsians got it wrong" are. Our commitment to democracy (small D) can't depend on the work of only one particular theorist. Like you mentioned, Marx brought the class and historical analysis to show how capitalism is undermining democracy. But, our commitment to democracy ultimately depends on our moral principles and framework. That vision is not something that only Marx can or should shape for us. We have a lot more to gain by just seeing Marxism as a pillar that can be supported through the work of other moral and political philosophers.
Why is Rawls still arguing for stuff that was allegedly established in the bourgeois revolutions of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries? Because bourgeois society can’t deliver. End of story.
You misunderstand the critique. It's not that Rawls doesn't present a plan; it's that any political philosophy needs to ground itself in what humans are, not what it wants them to be. The "veil of ignorance" will only be adopted by those for whom it's in their benefit to do so, with a very broad definition of benefit. Constructing a political system requires understanding humans as they are, not as we wish them to be. Otherwise the results are catastrophic, whether through corrupt actors or by mass criminal deviance. Both corruption and mass criminality are actually existing political environments, while a society of people using a "veil of ignorance" violates everything we know about sociology, psychology, and economic theory.