Sehgal, Rajeev Kumar; (2001) Alienation, freedom and communism. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

G.A. Cohen poses the following three questions for Socialists. First, what do we want? What, in general, and even not so general terms, is the form of socialist society we seek? Second, why do we want it? What exactly is wrong with capitalism, and what is right about socialism? Third, how can we achieve it? What are the implications for practice of the fact that the working class in advanced capitalist society is not now what it once was, or what it was once thought to be? In this thesis I provide some Marxist answers to these questions. I detail and defend the philosophy of Alienation Marxism. The thesis is divided into three main parts. In part one I argue that Marx's most fundamental critique of capitalism is to be found in his early writings on the alienation. In part two I defend a Marxist account of freedom as self-realisation which, I argue, forms the positive counterpart to Marx's negative (critical) writings on capitalism. In part three I relate arguments found in Marx's later writings on history, economics and freedom to the goal of overcoming alienation, and I set out the economic, institutional and sociological development of a communism that progressively extends freedom as self-realisation to all.

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