Journal Article

El modelo de campamento socialista: una defensa

Fernando Lizárraga

2021

Overview

Objective/context: In the camping trip model, Gerald Cohen proposes two principles which would be desirable for socialism: a principle of radical equality of opportunities and community principle. Against this model, the liberal objection condemns its goal monism; the objection about motivations holds that self-interest prevails over practices based on selfless reciprocity; and the anarcho-capitalist objection denounces a fallacious comparison and the idealization of human nature. This article seeks to rebut all three objections, by arguing a) that there is no such goal monism since the principles are not goals and, moreover, they allow much room for self-realization; b) that a self-interested expectation of reciprocity is not a sine qua non precondition to enter the camping-trip and that noninstrumental reciprocity is a device of assurance within the community principle; and c) that the Cohenite model does not presuppose morally perfect persons –since it anticipates regrettable and risky choices–, nor does it commit the fallacy of comparing ideal socialism with real capitalism. Methodology: The argumentation is developed according to the analytic method, in keeping with the standards employed in post-Rawlsian contemporary political theory. Conclusions: The camping-trip model does not fall into goal-monism, nor into a wrong characterization of motivations, nor into the utopianism of conceiving morally perfect subjects. Originality. This defense of the Cohenite model against the three objections reinforces its robustness and permits to understand it as an attempt of reconciling luck egalitarianism with fraternal or relational egalitarianism.

• Publisher: Universidad de los Andes
• Subject: community / equality of opportunities / liberalism / socialism