Many people, including many egalitarian political philosophers, professa belief in equality while enjoying high incomes of which they devotevery little to egalitarian purposes. The article critically examinesways of resolving the putative inconsistency in the stance of thesepeople, in particular, that favouring an egalitarian society has noimplications for behaviour in an unequal one; that what''s bad aboutinequality is a social division that philanthropy cannot reduce; thatprivate action cannot ensure that others have good lives; that privateaction can only achieve a ``drop in (...) the ocean''''; that private effortis not called for, since justice is a matter for the state to enforce;that private effort cannot remove the fundamental injustice, whichis inequality of power; and that private effort involves an unreasonablylarge psychological burden. (shrink)

The article studies the implications for historical materialism of the failure of the socialist project in the Soviet Union. The author demonstrates that the said failure broadly confirms central historical materialist theses, which would have been difficult to sustain if the Russian revolution had succeeded in its goal of superseding capitalism and establishing a socialist society.

Now, we stand outcast and starving,Mid the wonders we have made….I belong to a school of thought which has been called analytical Marxism. Some of the partisans of this position, and that includes me, are deeply engaged by questions in moral and political philosophy which have not, in the past, attracted the attention of Marxists. We are concerned with exactly what a commitment to equality requires, and with exactly what sort of obligations productive and talented people have to people who (...) are relatively unproductive, or handicapped, or in special need. We seek a precise definition of what exploitation is, and we want to know exactly why it is wrong. (shrink)

Now, we stand outcast and starving,Mid the wonders we have made….I belong to a school of thought which has been called analytical Marxism. Some of the partisans of this position, and that includes me, are deeply engaged by questions in moral and political philosophy which have not, in the past, attracted the attention of Marxists. We are concerned with exactly what a commitment to equality requires, and with exactly what sort of obligations productive and talented people have to people who (...) are relatively unproductive, or handicapped, or in special need. We seek a precise definition of what exploitation is, and we want to know exactly why it is wrong. (shrink)

Darwinian evolutionary theory marries a genetic account of the origin of species to a selectionist account of their subsequent fate. The Marxian theory of history is analogous: class struggle provides an account of the origins of new regimes of production and selection pressures explain their subsequent history. The theory is technologically determinist, but there are three distinct doctrines ascribing primacy in different ways to the technological forces of production over the social relations of production. Natural Primacy is probably true but (...) of limited relevance to the debate about historical process. Intentional Primacy, as advocated by G. A. Cohen, is untenable. Competitive Primacy is a genuinely evolutionary doctrine that may even be true. (shrink)