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G. A. Cohen

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The Communist Kid from Montreal Who Challenged Everyone

Here's a philosopher who refused to let anyone off the hook—including himself.

Gerald Allan Cohen grew up in 1940s Montreal in a household where communism wasn't just political theory. It was the family religion. His mother was a card-carrying member of the Canadian Communist Party for years. His father held the same beliefs but never bothered with the paperwork. They were, as Cohen himself put it, "militantly anti-religious" Jews—the kind of family where Marx's writings sat where the Torah might have been in other homes.

This background shaped everything that followed. Cohen would become one of the twentieth century's most influential political philosophers, holding prestigious chairs at both University College London and Oxford's All Souls College. But he never lost that working-class Montreal edge—the willingness to say the uncomfortable thing, to push an argument past polite limits, to ask the question that everyone else was too well-mannered to raise.

From Morris Winchevsky School to Oxford's Dreaming Spires

Cohen's education traced an unlikely arc. He started at the Morris Winchevsky School—named after a Yiddish socialist poet—in Montreal's Jewish immigrant community. Then came Strathcona Academy and Outremont High School. Nothing about this background suggested he'd end up at Oxford.

But talent has a way of finding its path. Cohen completed his undergraduate work at McGill University, earning a degree in philosophy and political science. Then he crossed the Atlantic to Oxford, where he studied under Gilbert Ryle, one of the most important philosophers of mind in the twentieth century. He also learned from Isaiah Berlin, the great historian of ideas who wrote beautifully about freedom and its multiple meanings.

These influences matter. Ryle taught Cohen the value of precise, careful analysis—breaking arguments down to their component parts and examining each piece separately. Berlin showed him that political philosophy wasn't just abstract theorizing. It was about real human stakes: liberty, equality, the shape of a life worth living.

What Is Analytical Marxism?

Here's where Cohen made his first major contribution to philosophy. He helped invent something called analytical Marxism.

To understand what this means, you need to know a bit about two very different intellectual traditions. On one side, you had Marxism—the political and economic theory developed by Karl Marx in the nineteenth century. Marxism offered a sweeping historical narrative: societies evolve through stages driven by economic forces, class conflict shapes history, and capitalism would eventually give way to socialism and then communism.

On the other side, you had analytical philosophy—the dominant style of philosophy in Britain and America. Analytical philosophers prized clarity, logical rigor, and careful attention to the precise meaning of words. They were often suspicious of grand historical narratives and preferred to examine specific, well-defined problems.

These two traditions had barely spoken to each other. Marxists often dismissed analytical philosophy as bourgeois logic-chopping that ignored real-world power dynamics. Analytical philosophers often dismissed Marxism as woolly, unscientific, and immune to clear argumentation.

Cohen brought them together.

In 1978, he published "Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence." The title tells you his goal: he wanted to defend Marx's theory of how history works using the precise tools of analytical philosophy. This wasn't the usual Marxist approach of quoting sacred texts and making rhetorical appeals to class solidarity. Cohen wanted to know: Is Marx's historical theory actually true? Can it be stated clearly enough to be tested?

His interpretation emphasized what critics called technological determinism. That's the view that the driving force of history is technological development. New technologies create new ways of producing things, which create new economic relationships, which eventually create new political structures and ideas. The steam engine didn't just change manufacturing—it changed everything about society, from family structures to political ideologies.

Not everyone agreed with Cohen's interpretation. Some Marxists thought he'd stripped the theory of its revolutionary spirit. Some analytical philosophers remained skeptical that Marx's theory could be made rigorous enough to satisfy their standards. But almost everyone agreed that Cohen had changed the conversation. You couldn't discuss Marx seriously in Anglo-American philosophy anymore without engaging with his work.

The September Group

Cohen wasn't working alone. He was a founding member of something called the September Group, a gathering of like-minded scholars who met each September to discuss Marxism using analytical methods. The group included economists, philosophers, and political theorists from both sides of the Atlantic.

What made the September Group unusual was its willingness to subject sacred Marxist concepts to harsh critical scrutiny. Nothing was off limits. If a traditional Marxist claim turned out to be incoherent or empirically false, they'd say so. They were Marxists, but they weren't true believers. They wanted to know what was actually defensible in Marx's work and what needed to be revised or abandoned.

This approach produced a remarkable body of scholarship. It also produced controversy. Orthodox Marxists accused them of selling out to bourgeois philosophy. Some analytical philosophers wondered why they bothered defending any version of Marxism at all. The September Group occupied the uncomfortable middle ground of those who refuse to join any team completely.

The Problem of Self-Ownership

As Cohen's career progressed, his focus shifted. He moved from defending Marx's historical theory to grappling with fundamental questions of political morality. What does equality actually require? How should a just society distribute resources? What rights do individuals have over themselves and their labor?

This brought him into direct conflict with two of the most influential political philosophers of the twentieth century: John Rawls and Robert Nozick.

Rawls had argued for what he called "justice as fairness." He imagined people choosing the principles of a just society from behind a "veil of ignorance"—not knowing their own talents, social position, or even their conception of the good life. Rawls concluded that rational people in this situation would choose principles that allowed some inequality but only if it benefited the worst-off members of society.

Nozick took a completely different approach. He started with the principle of self-ownership—the idea that you own yourself, including your body, your labor, and the fruits of your labor. From this starting point, Nozick argued for a minimal state that protected property rights but didn't redistribute wealth. Taxation for redistribution was, on his view, equivalent to forced labor. The state was essentially treating you as if it owned part of you.

Cohen found something deeply troubling in Nozick's argument. The principle of self-ownership sounded appealing—of course you own yourself! But Cohen showed how this principle, when worked out consistently, led to conclusions that almost no one would accept.

Consider this scenario. Suppose someone is incredibly talented and uses that talent to acquire enormous wealth. Suppose someone else is born with severe disabilities and cannot work at all. The principle of self-ownership, strictly applied, says the wealthy person has no obligation to help the disabled person. Any forced redistribution violates the wealthy person's self-ownership. The disabled person might starve, but that's not the wealthy person's problem—they didn't cause the disability.

Most people find this conclusion monstrous. Cohen's point was that if you accept self-ownership as an absolute principle, you're stuck with it. The only way out is to admit that self-ownership isn't the whole story—that other values, like equality or solidarity, can sometimes override property rights.

If You're an Egalitarian, How Come You're So Rich?

This brings us to the most personal and provocative phase of Cohen's work. In 1996, he delivered the Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh—one of the most prestigious lecture series in philosophy. His title was a pointed question: "If You're an Egalitarian, How Come You're So Rich?"

The question was partly autobiographical. Cohen had become a well-paid Oxford professor. He lived comfortably. He wasn't giving away most of his income to the poor. How could he justify this while arguing for egalitarian principles?

But the question was also aimed at a broader audience—at everyone who claims to believe in equality while living lives that seem to contradict that belief. Rawls had argued that inequality was acceptable if it benefited the worst-off. But Cohen pointed out that this justification depended on people demanding high pay for their talents. A surgeon might refuse to work without high compensation, making inequality "necessary" to attract medical talent. But the surgeon's demand itself was what created the necessity.

Cohen was asking: don't egalitarian principles apply to personal choices, not just political institutions? If you genuinely believe in equality, shouldn't that affect how you live, what salary you demand, how much you give away?

This argument made many people uncomfortable—including people who broadly agreed with Cohen's politics. It's one thing to vote for redistribution. It's another to examine whether your own lifestyle contradicts your professed values.

The Flamboyant Debater

Cohen's philosophical style matched his willingness to ask uncomfortable questions. His best friend, the philosopher Gerald Dworkin, described him this way: "Nothing was too inappropriate, private, bizarre, or embarrassing to be suddenly brought into the conversation."

This wasn't mere provocation for its own sake. Cohen believed that philosophy required honesty—complete, sometimes brutal honesty. If an argument led to an embarrassing conclusion, you couldn't just change the subject. You had to follow the logic wherever it went. And if that meant revealing something uncomfortable about yourself or your interlocutor, so be it.

This made Cohen's lectures and seminars unforgettable. Students reported that he would suddenly veer from abstract argumentation to intensely personal examples. He might illustrate a point about equality by describing his own feelings of envy. He might challenge a student's position by asking how they'd feel if the situation affected their own family.

Philosophy, for Cohen, was never just a game of logical moves. It was about real life—about how we should live and what we owe each other.

A Surprising Conservatism

Here's an apparent paradox. Cohen spent his career defending socialism and attacking capitalism. Yet in his personal life, he was deeply conservative about technology.

He called this stance "technological conservatism." He personally refused to use email—his wife Michèle answered all his electronic correspondence. He was skeptical of the assumption that new technologies automatically make life better. He valued continuity, tradition, and the preservation of practices that had proven their worth over time.

This wasn't inconsistency. Cohen distinguished between economic structures and cultural practices. You could believe that capitalism needed to be replaced with something more just while also believing that certain traditional ways of life had value worth preserving. Socialism wasn't about making everything new and efficient. It was about organizing economic life more fairly. What people did with that freedom—including preserving old practices they loved—was up to them.

The Legacy of a Troublemaker

Cohen died in August 2009, at age sixty-eight, from a stroke. He left behind an extraordinary body of work and an even more extraordinary group of former students.

Those students—Christopher Bertram, Simon Caney, Will Kymlicka, Michael Otsuka, Jonathan Wolff, and many others—became major political philosophers in their own right. They didn't all agree with Cohen. They didn't all follow his methods. But they had all been shaped by his example: the willingness to take arguments seriously, to follow them wherever they led, to refuse the comfortable evasions that make philosophy easier but less honest.

Cohen's final book, published just before his death, was titled "Why Not Socialism?" It's a slim volume—more of an extended essay than a book. In it, Cohen imagines a camping trip where friends share resources freely, contribute according to their abilities, and don't keep careful accounts of who gave what. He suggests that if this form of life is appealing in small groups—and most people find it appealing—we should ask why it can't be extended to society as a whole.

The answer isn't obvious. Maybe it's that socialism can't work at scale. Maybe it's that people won't behave well without market incentives. But Cohen's point was that we should at least ask the question instead of assuming that capitalism is the only possible way to organize economic life.

What We Can Learn from Cohen

Cohen's work offers several lessons for thinking about politics and philosophy today.

First, precision matters. You can be passionate about justice while also being careful about what your arguments actually establish. Sloppy thinking serves no cause well.

Second, consistency matters. If your principles imply something you don't like, you can't just ignore the implication. You have to either accept it or revise your principles.

Third, personal responsibility matters. It's not enough to advocate for political change. You have to ask whether your own life reflects your professed values.

Finally, uncomfortable questions matter. Philosophy that never makes anyone squirm probably isn't doing its job. The most important questions are often the ones we'd prefer not to answer.

Cohen was a troublemaker. He asked the questions that made people uncomfortable—including himself. In a field that can easily become a game of intellectual one-upmanship, he never lost sight of what was at stake: how we should live together, what we owe each other, and whether the world we've inherited is the only one possible.

The communist kid from Montreal never stopped asking these questions. And thanks to his work, neither can we.