Freedom, liberal egalitarianism, and democratic socialism

[Campaign buttons for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez]

Over the past couple of years ‘democratic socialism’ has been on the upswing in, of all places, that most anti-socialist of countries, the United States. This can be seen in, inter alia, the political successes of self-described ‘democratic socialists’ like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the skyrocketing growth in membership of the Democratic Socialists of America. Leaving aside the fact that the actual policy proposals championed by, for instance, Sanders during his 2016 campaign to become the Democratic Party candidate for the American presidency would be right at home in the ‘New Deal liberalism’ of FDR (or most versions of egalitarian liberalism), it is clear that the idea of democratic socialism is no longer beyond the pale in the United States, especially amongst younger citizens.

Corey Robin—professor of political science at Brooklyn College and the City University of New York Graduate Center—has an interesting essay on “The New Socialists” in last Saturday’s New York Times (2018-08-25). Especially intriguing is Robin’s description of what he takes to be the core political ideal and goal of democratic socialism:

What the socialist seeks is freedom. 

Under capitalism, we’re forced to enter the market just to live. The libertarian sees the market as synonymous with freedom. But socialists hear “the market” and think of the anxious parent, desperate not to offend the insurance representative on the phone, lest he decree that the policy she paid for doesn’t cover her child’s appendectomy. Under capitalism, we’re forced to submit to the boss. Terrified of getting on his bad side, we bow and scrape, flatter and flirt, or worse — just to get that raise or make sure we don’t get fired. 

The socialist argument against capitalism isn’t that it makes us poor. It’s that it makes us unfree. When my well-being depends upon your whim, when the basic needs of life compel submission to the market and subjugation at work, we live not in freedom but in domination. Socialists want to end that domination: to establish freedom from rule by the boss, from the need to smile for the sake of a sale, from the obligation to sell for the sake of survival.

The account of ‘freedom’ that Robin describes here is (somewhat ironically) known these days within academic political philosophy as ‘republican’ freedom, that is, roughly, liberty as ‘non-domination.’ (The label ‘republican’ is meant to evoke the conception of ‘free citizens’ within the ancient Roman Republic, not the contemporary American Republican Party; indeed, one would be hard pressed to think of a mainstream political party more hostile to the ideal of non-domination, at least for everyday citizens, than the contemporary GOP.) One is ‘free,’ according to republicans, insofar as one is not subject to the arbitrary will and power of another (such as one’s master, boss, husband, priest, etc.). While some political theorists, such as Philip Pettit, claim that republican freedom is distinct from the kind of ‘negative liberty’ championed by liberals like John Rawls, it always has seemed clear to me (and other scholars) that in fact non-domination is an intrinsic part of the Rawlsian account of free citizens. (Moreover, as I have explained elsewhere, Rawls does not rely upon Isaiah Berlin’s concept of ‘negative liberty’ in his conception of justice.)

Given democratic socialism’s concern with non-domination, then, it should not be a surprise—despite how his theory was interpreted throughout much of the 1970s and 1980s—that John Rawls’s conception of liberal egalitarian justice, ‘justice as fairness,’ can be read as compatible with, and perhaps even requiring, a form of democratic socialism. Rawls’s Justice as Fairness: A Restatement (which came out about 17 years ago, shortly before his death in 2002, but draws upon lecture notes that he had used, and regularly revised, for many years) identifies ‘liberal democratic socialism’ as one of two political-economic systems capable of realizing the principles of justice as fairness. The other kind of regime is ‘property-owning democracy.’ In contrast to liberal democratic socialism and property-owning democracy, Rawls holds that ‘welfare-state capitalism’ (the political-economic system that most of us endure today), ‘laissez-faire capitalism’ (the form of society that lives in the dreams of libertarians), and (Soviet-style) ‘state socialism,’ are all incapable of realizing justice as fairness.

While most of Rawls’s own discussion about these political-economic systems (limited as it is) focuses on property-owning democracy—and that is the system that has generated the most discussion in recent years—the political philosopher William A. Edmunson recently has published an important book that argues that Rawls’s principles of justice in fact favour democratic liberal socialism over property-owning democracy (see this recent article at Jacobin for a quick overview).

Despite my commitment to (a slightly modified version of) Rawls’s conception of justice as fairness, I remain generally agnostic on which particular political-economic system would best realize that conception. I’m even open to the possibility that an egalitarian form of welfare-state capitalism—a form of ‘social democracy’ instead of ‘democratic socialism’—might be capable of realizing the principles of justice as fairness. And it seems possible that a society might include a mix of democratic socialist, property-owning democratic, and welfare-state institutions. One of my main goals over the next couple of years is to sort through what has been written on this topic in order to gain deeper grasp of these issues.

It is exciting that there is a lot of interesting new work is being done on this topic: in addition to Edmundson’s recent book, for instance, there is Alan Thomas’s book on property-owning democracy. Yes, the well of Rawlsiana is quite deep!