Jeffrey Reiman, As Free and as Just as Possible: The Theory of Marxian Liberalism.
Stoian, Valentin
Jeffrey Reiman, As Free and as Just as Possible: The Theory of
Marxian Liberalism (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012)
Jeffrey Reiman, professor at the American University in Washington
D.C. became known in the mid-1980s for his polemic with John Roemer and
for his "force-based" conception of exploitation. He defended
this view in several works. (1) His latest book, As Free and As Just as
Possible, takes up his previous notion of structural force and
incorporates it in a full-fledged theory of justice entitled Marxian
Liberalism. Reiman's main aim in the book is to expound and defend
a theory which bridges the gap between socialists and liberals. He
builds an eclectic conception which combines elements from Marx, from
Rawls and from the latest wave of literature on Rawlsian just
institutions (the property-owning democracy). The book is divided in
seven chapters, each dedicated to one aspect of the argument.
While the first chapter presents Reiman's overview of the
whole argument, the second summarizes certain concepts from Rawls and
from Marx. Reiman selects and recapitulates ideas such as Marx's
theory of ideology (a very abridged form), Rawls' theory of Justice
as Fairness and Rawls' critique of Marx. Finally, Reiman only
alludes to the philosophical controversy over whether Marx has a
conception of justice.
The third chapter begins laying the groundwork for the theory.
Reiman establishes as his first premise the claim that people have a
natural interest in liberty, due to their equality and independence.
Reiman takes this account from Locke's conception of the state of
nature. In Rawls' philosophy (which on this point of view is more
akin to Rousseau's), individuals come to the original position
without any pre-political interests. In the deliberations of the
original position, everything is "up for grabs." Unlike in
Rawls, in Reiman's Marxian Liberalism, liberty is a pre-political
interest. Parties come already at the deliberations which establish the
social contract already endowed with this natural interest.
The fourth and fifth chapters are dedicated to presenting and
arguing for Reiman's conceptional linchpin: the concept of
structural coercion through private property. In the fourth chapter
Reiman argues that private property is coercive, in the sense that it
offers some the opportunity to coerce others into doing their bidding.
In Reiman's theory, private property is coercive for those who do
not own it. Non-owners are forced to work for the owners on terms
offered by the latter. Reiman believes this is an appropriate
interpretation of Marx's theory of exploitation.
The fifth chapter builds on the fourth and analyzes Rawls'
difference principle through the lens of Marx's labor theory of
value. Reiman interprets economic exchanges in a society as a form of
entitlement each person has to each other's labor. This allows him
to offer a "labor theory of the difference principle", in
which society limits the amount of labor time the talented individuals
can demand of the less endowed in exchange for higher productivity.
Reiman calls this the fungibility of material and social subjugation.
Social subjugation occurs when people trade unequal amounts of labor
while material subjugation is caused by a lack of access to material
resources. In Reiman's view, they can be interchanged. Rawls'
difference principle is, in Reiman's view, the solution to the
problem of limiting unequal exchanges of labor to the minimum necessary
required to elicit the highest material productivity and, therefore, the
least material subjugation
In the sixth and seventh chapters, Reiman brings the disparate
elements together and presents his theory of Marxian Liberalism. Reiman
constructs a "Marxian-Liberal original position" in which
parties are aware of both the natural interest in liberty and of the
coerciveness of private property. In this situation, parties aim to
minimize social and material subjugation. This is done by agreeing to
Rawls' difference principle as the limit of inequalities. In
Reiman's view, parties in this original position would agree to
three principles: one of equal liberties guaranteed at their fair value,
one which limits material inequalities by the "difference principle
understood in terms of the moral version of the labor theory of
value" and a last principle prohibiting coercion beyond that
necessary for implementing the two previous principles (p.182). Finally,
according to Reiman, the three principles would be consistent with a
regime of property owning democracy, but with the proviso of a right to
workplace democracy.
Despite Reiman's best intentions, his project is flawed for
several reasons. Firstly, his eclectic theory combines elements from
philosophers with widely different worldviews (Locke, Rawls and Marx).
Selecting elements from incompatible writers can only have deleterious
consequences for a theory. For example, to make the Marxian and the
Lockean aspects consistent, Reiman claims that Marx believes that people
have a strong interest in liberty and absence of coercion. He goes as
far as to argue that Marx's theory of ideology means that
ideological conceptions conceal (only) the coerciveness of capitalism.
This conveniently excludes other aspects of the Marxist criticism of
capitalism such as the inequality of exchange between worker and
capitalist. Moreover, Reiman argues that negative rights are a
fundamental part of Marx. Unfortunately, this glides over Marx'
criticism of negative rights far too easily.
Secondly, the force-based conception of exploitation and capitalism
which underscores all of Reiman's work is radically incomplete
without a theory of moral ownership. What is morally wrong in
capitalism, one might ask? The fact that the system of ownership allows
capitalists to coerce workers or the fact that what capitalists coerce
out of workers morally belongs to the latter? One might employ force to
take back something that is rightfully his. If one threatens a thief
with a gun and demands nothing more than to receive back what the thief
has stolen, is he committing an injustice? Unless an independent
principle establishes how something is morally owned, there is nothing
in force itself to ground injustice.
Reiman comes extremely close to condoning a theory of limited
self-ownership, without, however, accepting this final step. He argues
that, when all systems of property are subjected to moral evaluation,
the basic unit of comparison is labor exhausted. Reiman offers a thought
experiment which shows that he believes in self-ownership at least over
the energy expended in one's work, if not one's talents. He
beckons the reader to imagine three situations. In one, person A
enslaves B and C, who are of similar talents and makes B work twice as
much as C. In the second, A makes B work the same amount of time, but
twice as intense as C. Finally, in the third, B is twice as talented as
C and is made to work the same amount of time at the same intensity.
Reiman leads us to conclude that B is wronged twice as badly as C in the
first two situations, while only similarly bad in the third.
The volume is mostly aimed at professional philosophers with a good
knowledge of the theories of Rawls, Locke and Marx, and Reiman's
previous work. The book represents an attempt to fuse elements from
these authors together in a single theory. Unfortunately for Reiman, the
attempt is bound to fail due to the incompatibility of the wider world
views these writers share.
Bibliography:
Nielsen, Kai and Robert Ware (eds.) Analyzing Marxism: New Essays
On Analytical Marxism, Canadian Journal of Philosophy. Supplementary
Volume, Calgary: Alberta: University of Calgary Press, 1989.
Reiman, Jeffrey H. 'Exploitation, Force, and the Moral
Assessment of Capitalism: Thoughts on Roemer and Cohen" Philosophy
& Public Affairs, Vol. 16, No. 1 (1987): 3-41.
Reiman, Jeffrey H. "Why worry about how exploitation is
defined?: Reply to John Roemer", Social Theory and Practice 16 (1)
(1990): 101-113.
(1) Jeffrey H Reiman, 'Exploitation, Force, and the Moral
Assessment of Capitalism: Thoughts on Roemer and Cohen" Philosophy
& Public Affairs, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Winter, 1987), Jeffrey H Reiman
"Why worry about how exploitation is defined?: Reply to John
Roemer", Social Theory and Practice 16 (1):101-113 (1990), Kai
Nielsen, and Robert Ware (eds.) Analyzing Marxism : New Essays On
Analytical Marxism, Canadian Journal of Philosophy. Supplementary
Volume, (Calgary: Alberta: University of Calgary Press, 1989).
Valentin Stoian
Central European University
