ABSTRACT

In this chapter, the author attempts to show that G. A. Cohen has not overthrown the prima facie case for laissez-faire capitalism on grounds of freedom. His attempt to do so depends on challenging the justice of capitalist property arrangements. Cohen subjects to close examination the libertarian arguments advanced by Robert Nozick in Anarchy, State, and Utopia and finds them lacking. Cohen finds much intuitive force in the principle of selfownership, and it is here that one grasps what lies behind his challenge to the assumption of unowned property. Cohen, challenge the principle that property is initially unowned. Contrary to Cohen, then, the libertarian does not beg the question by assuming without argument that collective property rights do not exist. Furthermore, Cohen's construal of the libertarian argument for property acquisition prevents him from considering what seems to the author as a strong form of the argument.