Keywords
Roy Edgley
Norman Geras
Utopian socialism
Ethical Socialism
How to Cite
Abstract
One of the principal legacies of analytical Marxism has been a moralization of Marxism, for some of the most influential analytical Marxists came to endorse the view that the Marxist condemnation of capitalism and defense of socialism ultimately derive from normative ethical considerations. If we accept this new interpretation of Marx and Marxism, with its emphasis on the moral foundations of Marxist doctrine, we are forced to reconsider the relationship between Marxism and another socialist tradition for which moral commitments are also fundamental, namely ethical socialism. If our reconsideration of this relationship avoids common misconceptions about ethical socialism (such as the idea that it implies reformism, or that it is identical to “utopian socialism”), we find that the dichotomy between ethical socialism and Marxist socialism proves untenable, at least in the terms in which it has usually been formulated.
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