The Socialism:Cohen And Marx

When it comes to Cohen’s theories,most scholars focus on Cohen’s defense of historical materialism and Cohen’s debate with Rawls and Nozick after his turn to political philosophy.However,these theories are all based on Cohen’s reflection of socialism.Therefore,Cohen’s socialist theory is in the center of his thoughts.However,most of the studies on Cohen’s socialist theory were confined to Cohen’s consideration of social equality,thus dwarfing Cohen’s socialist theory.They have not comprehensively and dialectically examined Cohen’s socialist theory.Cohen’s socialist theory is by no means merely concerned with social equality.Instead,it has gone from a moral justification of socialism to query the realistic path of socialism,and then try to rebuild a realistic way to fit the development of the times,this topic that is not yet discussed in detail.Therefore,the first three chapters of this thesis attempt to sort out Cohen’s socialist theory through three aspects: "moral maintenance","critical deconstruction" and "theoretical construction." They aim at revealing Cohen’s heavy siege in liberalism and how he took Nozick’s extreme liberalist attack of socialism as the target of criticism.They discuss how Cohen realize the "moral maintenance of socialism," from "Chamberlain argumentation" to "qualification theory" and then to "self-ownership" at all levels of criticism.These chapters also investigate Cohen’s doubts on the historical inevitability of socialism in the changes of the times and further on the "critical deconstruction" of the theoretical premise of socialism-dialectics,historical materialism,labor theory of value and revolutionary subjects.Finally,these chapters discuss how Cohen put western political philosophy,Christian spirit and Marx’s philosophy together with the analytical method and toward to the road of "theoretical construction" on socialism.More importantly,the past research on the relationship between Cohen’s socialism and Marx’s socialism is only superficially discussed,without digging deeply into the value of Cohen’s socialist theory.This calls for more research on Cohen’s socialist theory.We must learn from the true meaning of Marx’s socialism and communism,and then look at Cohen’s socialist theory,analyze the relationship between Cohen’s socialism and Marx’s socialism,think about Cohen’s socialism toward Marx and reflect on how Cohen inherited and developed Marx’s socialism.At the same time,we have to reflect on whether Cohen had misunderstood Marx’s socialism in the process of exploring socialism.If so,how should we critique and clarify? These issues are very important.From Cohen’s succession and development to Marxism,the first and most important thing is that Cohen firmly adheres to the concept of socialism surrounded by liberalism.In his debate with Nozick and Rawls,the moral justification of moralism proves that socialism is freedom,equality and justice,which deserves our commendation.Secondly,to Cohen’s inheritance and development of social construction programs,Cohen’s reconstruction of socialism shows that Cohen wants to maintain a tension between Marxist philosophy and western political philosophy,then attempts to explore the determination of a road of socialism that is compatible with the development of the times from the dual perspective of Marxist philosophy and western political philosophy.A dialogue is carried out between western political philosophy,Christian spirit and Marxist philosophy.It undoubtedly promoted the development of Marxism.When Cohen saw the design predicament of the social construction plan,he put forward the second choice of market socialism.The analysis of the socialist market system provided many references for us to build a socialist market economic system.Cohen’s pursuit of social construction in the changing times is a combination of his theory and practice.However,in the process of defending,questioning and seeking the socialism that keeps pace with the times,Cohen have some misunderstandings of Marxism.On the one hand,these misunderstandings reflect that Cohen’s exploration of the Marx’s social construction program actually points to Marx’s communist society.On the other hand,it is a misunderstanding that Cohen deconstruct the premise of Marx’s socialism.Marx’s dialectics,historical materialism,labor theory of value and revolutionary subject theory are very important to socialism and cannot be totally negated.Therefore,on the one hand,we must affirm Cohen’s "succession and development" to Marxism;on the other hand,we must "critique and clarify" Cohen’s misunderstanding and misjudgment of Marxism.This is not only conducive to deepening the study of Cohen’s academic thinking,but also to the understanding of Marxism.