On Ke Heng 's Thought Of Equality And Its Contemporary Value

Cohen is one of the contemporary western representatives of Analytical Marxism, and histheoretical research generally used analytical philosophy methods. In his early research, hekeeped a watchful eye on the defend of materialistic. However, with the change of theinternational political situation, which includes Full of Communism and collapse of the SovietUnion and socialist movements around the world sank into a low tide, Marxism run up againstunprecedented crisis. In this era condition, Cohen pin his hopes on Classic Marxist monographs.With the deepening research, Cohen thought that the two conditions of socialist political andeconomical equal lacks of realization condition.These condition includes the continuousdevelopment of productive forces and the increasing of the proletariat. The continuous decreaseof social resource and the worsening of environment are hiding the development of socialproductive forces. What’s more, the proletariats as the leader of socialism are not reaching thevast majority of society.In this historical background, under the influence of the discussion of liberalism andegalitarianism, Cohen turned his research emphasis to political norms and moral equality. Cohencalled the method of Marx to social equal as Marxism technical anesthetic, which is a negativemethod to evade justice. On the basis of inheriting critically Marx’s egalitarianism, Cohenproposed a concept of Voluntary Equality and indicated that it is possible to equal distribution inthe low level of productive forces. For the problem of the discussion between the freedom andequal about which is the first status,Cohen as an Left-wing activists expound that there is noconflict between the equal and the freedom that is what the libertarian said in his bookcalled<Self-ownership, Freedom,and Equality>.In his thought, the key of equal is the humannature. He looked the equal space as the camping trip and advocated equal and share principle topromote the socialist equality of opportunity come true, besides he also proposed equal access toadvantage, which is maximum equality to eliminate the limit that is caused by talent or inherentdisadvantages. Once it comes true, the social differences reflect only is hobby and choice. Cohenalso criticized the Modern liberal equality:①For Nozick’s self-ownership, Cohen criticized formthree aspects: firstly, the criticize is Nozick’s Chamberlains argumentation, which is theargument that Cohen has doubting her adheres to the concept of faith; secondly, the criticize isthe way of access to justices and the discussion about private property and freedom; Finally isthe principle of self-ownership of all criticism, which is emphasis criticized by Cohen.②Thecriticize focus on Rawls’s difference principle. In his view, Rawls’s difference principle is a kind of defense of the capitalist social gap between rich and poor of bourgeoisie and proletariat. Theprinciple emphasizes the form equality than the substantive equality and only applies to thechoice of social law enforcement system and ignored the people’s daily behavior choice.Through criticized Nozick’s self-ownership and Rawls’s difference principle, Cohen formedhis own special egalitarianism. These thoughts not only broaden the research filed of AnalyticalMarxism, but also deepened the study of the Western Marxism equality. By revealing theinequality on the personal choice, he described the new capitalist society of inequality.Forhuman selfish critical, he analyses the reason of contemporary capitalism social inequality. All ofthese powerfully revealed the essence of contemporary capitalist social inequality. Throughadvocating social justice system and proposing the voluntary equality, he depicted the idealblueprint of social equality. Equality is the meaning of China’s harmonious society construction.By analyzing Cohen’s socialist equality will help correctly understanding of the contemporaryChinese social inequality: inequality phenomenon in contemporary China is temporary andproperly solves these inequalities is the top priority. Though the guidance of Cohen’segalitarianism thoughts, insisting the people-oriented, improving the tax system of the state andimproving people understands of socialist construction long-term, we will necessarily go to equalChina’s harmonious society.