As Free and as Just as Possible

Jeffrey Reiman is the William Fraser McDowell Professor of Philosophy at American University in Washington, DC. A central figure in numerous political and philosophical debates in America, including those on abortion and criminal justice, he is the author of In Defense of Political Philosophy (1972), Justice and Modern Moral Philosophy (1990), Critical Moral Liberalism: Theory and Practice (1997), The Death Penalty: For and Against (with Louis Pojman, 1998), Abortion and the Ways We Value Human Life (1999), The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison: Ideology, Class, and Criminal Justice, 10th ed. (with Paul Leighton, 2013), and more than a hundred articles on philosophy and criminal justice.

• List of Abbreviations ix Preface xi1 Overview of the Argument for Marxian Liberalism 12 Marx and Rawls and Justice 292.1 Marx’s Theory of Capitalism and Its Ideology 302.2 Rawls’s Theory of Justice as Fairness 392.3 Rawls on Marx 522.4 Marx and Justice 572.5 Marxian Liberalism’s Historical Conception of Justice 613 The Natural Right to Liberty and the Need for a Social Contract 673.1 A Lockean Argument for the Right to Liberty 703.2 Our Rational Moral Competence 783.3 From Liberty to Lockean Contractarianism 884 The Ambivalence of Property: Expression of Liberty and Threat to Liberty 944.1 Locke, Nozick, and the Ambivalence of Property 964.2 Kant, Narveson, and the Ambivalence of Property 1024.3 Marx and the Structural Coerciveness of Property 1115 The Labor Theory of the Difference Principle 1225.1 The Moral Version of the Labor Theory of Value 1235.2 The Labor Theory of the Difference Principle 1285.3 Finding a Just Distribution 1335.4 Is the Difference Principle Biased? 1415.5 Answering Narveson and Cohen on Incentives 1476 The Marxian-Liberal Original Position 1586.1 Property and Subjugation 1606.2 The Limits of Property 1636.3 The Marxian Theory of the Conditions of Liberty 1686.4 Inside the Marxian-Liberal Original Position 1726.5 The Difference Principle as a Historical Principle of Justice 1837 As Free and as Just as Possible: Capitalism for Marxists, Communism for Liberals 1907.1 The Just State 1917.2 Capitalism for Marxists 1957.3 The Marxian-Liberal Ideal: Property-Owning Democracy 1977.4 Communism for Liberals 204Conclusion: Marx’s “Liberalism,” Rawls’s “Labor Theory of Justice” 210Index 221

“In the preface, Reiman says he hopes the book will be of interest to both the educated layperson and the professional philosopher; in this respect it succeeds admirably.  Written in clear and lucid prose, the book will be a valuable resource for students looking for an introduction to Marx and Rawls’s thought on freedom, justice and capitalism.”  (Res Publica, 1 March 2013)“In this way, Reiman’s exciting book is a new and timely contribution for us today.”  (Marx And Philosophy Review of Books, 2 June 2014)“It is likely that Reiman has good replies to these critical comments. In any case, independently of whether his core argument succeeds or falters, the distinctions, concepts, and arguments Reiman develops in As Free and as Just as Possibleare of great significance. They need to be studied and discussed by all those interested in Marx and justice, the real conditions of freedom, Rawls, and post-capitalism.”  (Social Theory and Practice, 1 October 2013)“As Free and as Just as Possible offers a very accessible introduction to two major political thinkers, John Rawls and Karl Marx, to the relation between their respective theories and the work of John Locke and Immanuel Kant, as well as more recent theories of Jan Narveson and G.A. Cohen.”  (Krisis, 1 December 2013)“Written in clear and lucid prose, the book will be a valuable resource for students looking for an introduction to Marx and Rawls’s thought on freedom, justice and capitalism. But specialists will also find much of interest here, too, since as we have seen the book is not just an overview of Marx and Rawls’s thought on these issues, but an imaginative attempt to fuse their insights to create a new theory of social justice. Whether or not one is fully convinced by that final synthesis, Reiman deserves credit for attempting to show that, while the idea of combining liberal and socialist has a history, it may still have a future.”  (Res Publica, 8 October 2013)“This is an important effort to reinvigorate modern liberalism by applying essential insights from a fading Marxism.  Summing Up:  Highly recommended.  General readers, graduate students, and research faculty.”  (Choice, 1 September 2013)