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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
John Roemer’s recent work uses the mathematics of Social Choice Theory to examine the structure of socialist ideals. One striking conclusion is that the social ownership of the means of production entails the strict equalization of ‘utility.’1 The conclusion is surprising. While of course opposing many existing inequalities, socialists (as opposed to their critics) have not traditionally understood socialism to require strict equalization. Marx, for example, is scathing in his criticism of levelling, which he sees as a form of ‘crude’ communism.2
This paper is both exposition and critique. By way of exposition, I show with less than full mathematical rigor what several of Roemer’s axioms of social ownership mean and why they entail the equality of utility.
1 Roemer, John E., Free to Lose: an Introduction to Marxist Economic Philosophy (Boston: Harvard University Press 1988)Google Scholar, ch. 10 and ‘Resources Equality Implies Welfare Equality,’ Quarterly Journal of Economics (November 1986) 751-84
2 Marx, Karl, ‘Private Property and Communism,’ Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, in Tucker, Robert, ed., The Marx-Engels Reader (New York: Norton 1978), 81-4Google Scholar
3 Marx, ‘Critique of the Gotha Program,’ Marx-Engels Reader, 531
4 Free to Lose, Chapter 10. My presentation uses less formal notation than does Roemer’s. The less formal mode requires changes in wording and sometimes terminology.
5 Roemer talks of ‘skill’ rather than ‘productivity,’ but his terminology raises the objection that a ‘skilled’ person may be unproductive (unmotivated, alienated, etc.). Most people think that it is productivity, not skill alone, that merits reward.
6 Mill, John Stuart, Collected Works, vol. 3, Robson, J. M., ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1965), 775Google Scholar
7 Christie, Drew, ‘Recent Calls for Economic Democracy,’ Ethics 95 (October 1984) 112-28CrossRefGoogle Scholar
8 For purposes of this example, I assume that an employee’s level of utility and his wage are the same.
9 Roemer, ‘Resources Equality Implies Welfare Equality,’ 755
10 Ibid.
11 Sen, Amartya, On Ethics and Economics (Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1987), 30 ff.Google Scholar
12 Marx, ‘Critique of the Gotha Program,’ Marx-Engels Reader, 531
13 Roemer, John E., Value, Exploitation and Class (New York: Harwood Academic Publishers 1986), 87-8Google Scholar
14 Ibid.
15 Keller, Bill, ‘Gorbachev Urges Freeing of Farms from Collectives,’ New York Times (14 Oct. 1988) A1,6Google Scholar