Samuel Fleming

Socialism and capitalism seek to answer the same fundamental question, posited first by Aristotle: how should people live together? How best should society conduct itself? Socialist and capitalist approaches respond in entirely distinct ways. Socialist claims are normative, and find their basis in a moralistic understanding of how people ought to live together; they are, fundamentally, assertions about justice. A socialist society, through its shared means of production, espouses those values that constitute justice, namely, equality and freedom. Equality by way of providing equality of opportunity, and freedom through individual preference, as referenced by Cohen. The capitalist modus operandi is economic, with the solution to the calculation problem - the free market - the basis for that response to Aristotle’s question. Given, then, these two drastically different claims, an evaluation of the two is necessitated, and I would argue that, by virtue of the moralistic ideals of justice that are offered by socialism, it presents a better alternative to Aristotle’s question than does capitalism. Cohen asks ‘Why not socialism’? I contend that, perhaps, a better question is: why not justice?