Grafting the Marxian idea that private property is coercive onto the liberal imperative of individual liberty, this new thesis from one of America's foremost intellectuals conceives a revised definition of justice that recognizes the harm inflicted by capitalism's hidden coercive structures.
- Maps a new frontier in moral philosophy and political theory
- Distills a new concept of justice that recognizes the iniquities of capitalism
- Synthesis of elements of Marxism and Liberalism will interest readers in both camps
- Direct and jargon-free style opens these complex ideas to a wide readership
List of Abbreviations ix Preface xi 1 Overview of the Argument for
Marxian Liberalism 1 2 Marx and Rawls and Justice 29 2.1 Marx's Theory of
Capitalism and Its Ideology 30 2.2 Rawls's Theory of Justice as Fairness 39
2.3 Rawls on Marx 52 2.4 Marx and Justice 57 2.5 Marxian Liberalism's
Historical Conception of Justice 61 3 The Natural Right to Liberty and the
Need for a Social Contract 67 3.1 A Lockean Argument for the Right to Liberty
70 3.2 Our Rational Moral Competence 78 3.3 From Liberty to Lockean
Contractarianism 88 4 The Ambivalence of Property: Expression of Liberty and
Threat to Liberty 94 4.1 Locke, Nozick, and the Ambivalence of Property 96
4.2 Kant, Narveson, and the Ambivalence of Property 102 4.3 Marx and the
Structural Coerciveness of Property 111 5 The Labor Theory of the Difference
Principle 122 5.1 The Moral Version of the Labor Theory of Value 123 5.2 The
Labor Theory of the Difference Principle 128 5.3 Finding a Just Distribution
133 5.4 Is the Difference Principle Biased? 141 5.5 Answering Narveson and
Cohen on Incentives 147 6 The Marxian-Liberal Original Position 158 6.1
Property and Subjugation 160 6.2 The Limits of Property 163 6.3 The Marxian
Theory of the Conditions of Liberty 168 6.4 Inside the Marxian-Liberal
Original Position 172 6.5 The Difference Principle as a Historical Principle
of Justice 183 7 As Free and as Just as Possible: Capitalism for Marxists,
Communism for Liberals 190 7.1 The Just State 191 7.2 Capitalism for Marxists
195 7.3 The Marxian-Liberal Ideal: Property-Owning Democracy 197 7.4
Communism for Liberals 204 Conclusion: Marx's "Liberalism," Rawls's "Labor
Theory of Justice" 210 Index 221
Jeffrey Reiman is the William Fraser McDowell Professor of Philosophy at American University in Washington, DC. A central figure in numerous political and philosophical debates in America, including those on abortion and criminal justice, he is the author of In Defense of Political Philosophy (1972), Justice and Modern Moral Philosophy (1990), Critical Moral Liberalism: Theory and Practice (1997), The Death Penalty: For and Against (with Louis Pojman, 1998), Abortion and the Ways We Value Human Life (1999), The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison: Ideology, Class, and Criminal Justice , 10 th ed. (with Paul Leighton, 2013), and more than a hundred articles on philosophy and criminal justice.
