Marxism, Self-Ownership and Abundance

Abstract

G.A. Cohen and John Rawls share the view that Marx endorsed the libertarian principle of self-ownership and that he was too confident in limitless abundance as a solution to the distributive defects of socialism. Moreover, they hold that full-fledged Marxian communism is, in some sense, beyond justice. Against all this, we shall see that Marx rejects self-ownership in normative terms, that the prediction of material plenty is not strictly Marxian, and that the double assessment of communism —as both just and beyond justice— is not fully consistent.