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Throughout the Trump era it was a frequent theme of liberal commentary that their political party represented a clear American majority, thwarted by our antidemocratic institutions and condemned to live under the rule of the conservative minority.

In the political context of 2016-20, this belief was overstated. Yes, Donald Trump won the presidential election of 2016 with a minority of the popular vote. But more Americans voted for Republican congressional candidates than Democratic congressional candidates, and more Americans voted for right-of-center candidates for president including the Libertarian vote than voted for Hillary Clinton and Jill Stein. In strictly majoritarian terms, liberalism deserved to lose in 2016, even if Trump did not necessarily deserve to win.

And Republican structural advantages, while real, did not then prevent Democrats from reclaiming the House of Representatives in 2018 and the presidency in 2020 and Senate in 2021. These victories extended the pattern of 21st century American politics, which has featured significant swings every few cycles, not the entrenchment of either partys power.

The political landscape after 2024, however, might look more like liberalisms depictions of its Trump-era plight. According to calculations by liberalisms Cassandra, David Shor, the convergence of an unfavorable Senate map for Democrats with their pre-existing Electoral College and Senate disadvantages could easily produce a scenario where the party wins 50 percent of the congressional popular vote, 51 percent of the presidential vote and ends up losing the White House and staring down a nearly filibuster-proof Republican advantage in the Senate.

Thats a scenario for liberal horror, but its not one that conservatives should welcome either. In recent years, as their advantages in both institutions have increased, conservatives have defended institutions like the Senate and the Electoral College with variations of the argument that the United States is a democratic republic, not a pure democracy.

These arguments carry less weight, however, the more consistently undemocratic the systems overall results become. (They would fall apart completely in the scenario sought by Donald Trump and some of his allies after 2020, where state legislatures simply substitute their preferences for the voters in their states.)

The Electoral Colleges legitimacy can stand up if an occasional 49-47 percent popular vote result goes the other way; likewise the Senates legitimacy if it tilts a bit toward one party but changes hands consistently.

But a scenario where one party has sustained governing power while lacking majoritarian support is a recipe for delegitimization and reasonable disillusionment, which no clever conservative column about the constitutional significance of state sovereignty would adequately address.

From the Republican Partys perspective, the best way to avoid this future where the nature of conservative victories undercuts the perceived legitimacy of conservative governance is to stop being content with the advantages granted by the system and try harder to win majorities outright.

You cant expect a political party to simply cede its advantages: There will never be a bipartisan constitutional amendment to abolish the Senate, on any timeline you care to imagine. But you can expect a political party to show a little more electoral ambition than the G.O.P. has done of late to seek to win more elections the way that Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon won them, rather than being content to keep it close and put their hopes in lucky breaks.

Especially in the current climate, which looks dire for the Democrats, the Republicans have an opportunity to make the Electoral College complaint moot, for a time at least, by simply taking plausible positions, nominating plausible candidates and winning majorities outright.

That means rejecting the politics of voter-fraud paranoia as, hopefully, Republican primary voters will do by choosing Brian Kemp over David Perdue in the Georgia gubernatorial primary.

It means rejecting the attempts to return to the libertarian makers versus takers politics of Tea Party era, currently manifested in Florida Senator Rick Scotts recent manifesto suggesting tax increases for the working class basically the right-wing equivalent of defund the police in terms of its political toxicity.

And it means and I fear this is beyond the G.O.P.s capacities nominating someone other than Donald Trump in 2024.

A Republican Party that managed to win popular majorities might still see its Senate or Electoral College majorities magnified by its structural advantages. But such magnification is a normal feature of many democratic systems, not just our own. Its very different from losing the popular vote consistently and yet being handed power anyway.

As for what the Democrats should do about their disadvantages well, thats a longer discussion, but two quick points for now.

First, to the extent the party wants to focus on structural answers to its structural challenges, it needs clarity about what kind of electoral reforms would actually accomplish something. Thats been lacking in the Biden era, where liberal reformers wasted considerable time and energy on voting bills that didnt pass and also werent likely to help the party much had they been actually pushed through.

A different reform idea, statehood for the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, wouldnt have happened in this period either, but its much more responsive to the actual challenges confronting Democrats in the Senate. So if youre a liberal activist or a legislator planning for the next brief window when your party holds power, pushing for an expanded Senate seems like a more reasonable long ball to try to train your team to throw.

Second, to the extent that theres a Democratic path back to greater parity in the Senate and Electoral College without structural reform, it probably requires the development of an explicit faction within the party dedicated to winning back two kinds of voters culturally conservative Latinos and working-class whites who were part of Barack Obamas coalition but have drifted rightward since.

That faction would have two missions: To hew to a poll-tested agenda on economic policy (not just the business-friendly agenda supported by many centrist Democrats) and to constantly find ways to distinguish itself from organized progressivism the foundations, the activists, the academics on cultural and social issues. And crucially, not in the tactical style favored by analysts like Shor, but in the language of principle: Rightward-drifting voters would need to know that this faction actually believes in its own moderation, its own attacks on progressive shibboleths, and that its members will remain a thorn in progressivisms side even once they reach Washington.

Right now the Democrats have scattered politicians, from West Virginia to New York City, who somewhat fit this mold. But they dont have an agenda for them to coalesce around, a group of donors ready to fund them, a set of intellectuals ready to embrace them as their own.

Necessity, however, is the mother of invention, and necessity may impose itself upon the Democratic Party soon enough.

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Opinion | Will Democrats Soon Be Locked Out of Power? - The New York Times

A periodic update about the 2022 campaign for public office.

Notices about public campaign appearances in the Sauk Valley should be sent to news@saukvalley.com. The news and notes will run periodically during the election season.

The Lee County Electoral Board unanimously voted April 12 to deny all objections against three Lee County Board members running for re-election.

Dixon resident Jennifer Lawson made formal election objections to County Board District 1 Republican incumbents Mike Koppien, Chris Norberg and Jim Schielein, arguing that they should be stricken from the June 28 primary ballot because their nomination papers were held together using paper clips.

Attorney Tim Zollinger, appointed by the Electoral Baord to oversee objection hearings and file a report to the board, made recommendations that all three objections be denied because the objector failed to meet her burden of proof. Both sides were given the opportunity to issue exceptions to the recommendations, and none were filed.

The Libertarian Party announced its slate, which includes Carbondale resident Gabriel Nelson as a candidate for state treasure the same office sought by statehouse Deputy Republican Leader Tom Demmer of Dixon and incumbent Democrat Michael Frerichs, office-holder since 2019.

Nelson was last a candidate for the U.S. House in 2020, running against Raja Krishnamoorthi, Democrat from Schaumburg, for the 8th District seat, which represents parts of Cook, DuPage, and Kane counties. Nelson founded the Southern Illinois Libertarian Party in 2014 and has since had public relations duties with the Libertarian party.

Yes, he was. The stop on Tuesday was not political, but within the duties of his office. Frerichs visited Smoked on Third and talked to workers about their enrollment in the state retirement savings plan, Secure Choice.

Petitioning began Wednesday for third-party candidates. Independent or new-party candidates must gather 25,000 valid signatures to get on the ballot.

The other announced Libertarian candidates are Deirdre N. McCloskey for state comptroller, Daniel K. Robin for attorney general, John Phillips for lieutenant governor, Scott Schluter for governor and ... Jesse White for Secretary of State.

Photos of Libertarian Jesse White and Democrat Jesse White.

Just to be clear, the Libertarian candidate for secretary of state isnt the same person as Jesse Clark White, the 87-year-old Democrat who has held that office since 1999 but is not seeking re-election.

Steve Suess, the chairman of the Libertarian Party, told the Springfield State Journal Register its a total coincidence their candidate has the same name. The party is not trying to defraud voters and that its Jesse White is a serious candidate, he added.

Libertarians espouse the the right to life, liberty of speech and action and the right to property. As policy, this is expressed as the need for greatly reduced regulation and taxation, promotion of civil liberties including freedom of association and sexual freedom, gun rights and self defense and the elimination of state welfare and most business regulation.

The party has eight office-holders statewide, including River Valley Library District board trustee Brody Anderson in Port Byron and Paw Paw village President John Prentice. The Stateline Libertarians of northern Illinois meet monthly at Big Os in the Hollow in Freeport.

In 2020, the Libertarian presidential ticket got 65,544 votes, about 1.1% of the electorate.

Meet and greet for Mike Lewis, Republican candidate for Whiteside County sheriff, 8:30 a.m., As Kitchen, Rock Falls.

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Campaign Notebook: Keeping tabs on paper clips and the two Jesse Whites - Shaw Local News Network

Apr. 17It takes a lot of gas to run a gubernatorial campaign.

Literally.

The five candidates seeking the Republican nomination for governor have racked up thousands of dollars in fuel charges and thousands of miles on their vehicles' odometers as they've crisscrossed the state on the campaign trail over the past six months.

"The car that I bought in August had nine miles when I got it. It just passed 49,000, and it's on its second set of tires," said state Rep. Rebecca Dow of Truth or Consequences, who reported $6,400 in mileage reimbursements.

Although high, the candidates' fuel charges pale in comparison to other big-ticket expenditures listed in their most recent campaign finance reports, filed Monday.

Since October, the five hopefuls spent a combined $1.36 million to try to connect with Republican voters and voters in general before the June 7 primary.

The winner in the five-way race will face off against Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who has nearly $3.8 million cash on hand, and a Libertarian candidate.

Political consultants in New Mexico and across the country were among the biggest beneficiaries of the Republican candidates' spending.

Big fundraiser, big spender

Mark Ronchetti, a former TV meteorologist who raised $2.1 million over the past six months, more than all of his Republican rivals combined, led in spending, too.

Ronchetti reported nearly $584,000 in expenditures.

The biggest expense for Ronchetti, who has been running TV ads statewide, was $158,724 in media advertising.

It was followed by more than $132,000 to McCleskey Media Strategies for a wide variety of services, from media production costs to design and printing. The president of the Albuquerque-based political consulting firm is Jay McCleskey, who ran former Republican Gov. Susana Martinez's gubernatorial campaigns and also served as her chief political adviser during her two terms in office.

Asked about the campaign's decision to work with McCleskey, Enrique Knell, Ronchetti's campaign spokesman, said the campaign doesn't generally discuss strategy or spending.

Story continues

"Mark's campaign is about listening to New Mexicans and talking about his vision for turning New Mexico around after four years of a disastrous administration that has devastated family budgets and our freedoms," Knell wrote in an email.

Ronchetti listed dozens of fuel charges that added up to more than $4,900.

"Mark is driving to every corner in New Mexico to meet voters and talk about the issues New Mexicans face," wrote Knell, who called the price of gas an "absolute disaster" for families and small businesses.

Knell argued gas prices would be climbing even higher if the Legislature had passed a proposed clean fuel standard that Lujan Grisham supported during the 30-day session earlier this year.

Boosting name ID

Dow, who raised more than $751,000 since October, came in second in spending with just over $406,000 in expenditures.

A $112,500 ad buy was the biggest expenditure for Dow, who has released two television ads. That was followed by some $99,000 in political consulting services and about $35,000 in mailings and other campaign literature.

"I started this race with 3 percent name ID, so you see a lot of mailers because we're targeting voters and letting them know who we are, what we stand for and how we're going to move New Mexico forward," she said. "I am, everywhere I go, passing out business cards, palm cards, putting signs in windows, 'Small business for Dow' and 'Parents for Dow.' "

In addition to putting 49,000 miles on her new car, Dow said she's logged at least 11,000 more miles on her other vehicles as she travels the state.

"Just this week, for example, we've gone from Angel Fire to Espaola to Santa Fe to Albuquerque, T or C and [Las] Cruces and Socorro," she said. "We're going to be in Dulce and Aztec and Farmington next week, as well as Carlsbad."

Dow also reported nearly $10,000 in campaign T-shirts.

"We can't keep T-shirts in stock," she said. "Our most popular T-shirt says, 'Green chile, guns and freedom,' and the second most popular one says, 'We're sticking with Dow,' and it has cactus on it."

Dow, who loaned her campaign $40,000, has close to $684,000 cash on hand.

"I think we're in good shape," she said. "We're getting contributions daily."

Dow said she's feeling "comfortable" with her campaign's financials with less than two months until the primary, adding the candidate with the most money doesn't always emerge the winner.

'I'm Seabiscuit'

Ethel Maharg, a former mayor of the village of Cuba who now serves as the executive director of the Albuquerque-based Right to Life Committee of New Mexico, said she's not worried about her campaign's fundraising numbers.

After raising just $12,999 in the last reporting period, Maharg has less than $800 in cash on hand.

"You gotta understand, I've worked for [two nonprofits] for the past 10 years," Maharg said. "There were times they'd ask the executive committee whether or not we literally could wait to [cash] our checks. To me, not to have that money doesn't scare me. It probably scares [the other primary candidates], but it doesn't scare me."

The biggest chunk of Maharg's expenses $4,129 has been for campaign consulting. That's followed by fuel at more than $2,000, or about 15 percent of her fundraising haul.

Maharg is undeterred, saying money corrupts. She pointed to a candidate forum in Santa Fe last week in which some of the contenders lodged potshots against their rivals.

"Did you see the display of foolishness?" she asked. "That's what that money buys you, so I'm not going to be doing attack ads and all this other nonsense that's going on. I don't do that."

Maharg said she running a "truly grassroots" campaign.

"I don't need $10,000 so I can stand there and pontificate about how much money I got because every email I get [from the other primary candidates] is like, 'I raised a million dollars.' Well, good for you," she said. "How does that help New Mexico? I'm truly here in the interest of people, not in the interest of raising a million dollars."

Maharg continues to call herself the "Seabiscuit" of the Republican gubernatorial primary, referring to the small racehorse that upset the 1937 Triple Crown winner, War Admiral, in 1938.

"Slow out of the gate, but I'm going to win in the end," she said.

'Still in this fight'

Jay Block, a Sandoval County commissioner who was the top vote-getter in the Republican pre-primary nominating convention, is heading into the primary with a lackluster $20,000 cash on hand.

Like Maharg, Block is optimistic.

"We didn't spend a lot of money in the convention, and we won the convention, while other campaigns poured in tens of thousands of dollars in mailers and other resources," he said, saying his, too, is a grassroots campaign.

"The message we're speaking around the state is resonating, and we certainly don't believe Mr. Ronchetti's polls that are done by his consultant Jay McCleskey's wife. If those polls were correct, he would have won the convention handily."

Block, who raised nearly $119,000 in campaign contributions since October, reported just over $128,000 in expenditures. The biggest portion $80,476 went to McShane LLC, a media strategy and political consulting firm in Las Vegas, Nev.

"They have a lot of experience and a winning record with races from city council to U.S. Senate," he said.

Block also reported a $5,000 payment for "legal defense" work, which was tied to a court challenge of his nominating petition signatures. The challenge was dismissed on technicalities.

Block said his fundraising efforts are ongoing.

"Today, we had a big donor give us a check for over $5,000," he said Friday. "We're fighting. Other campaigns are part of the swamp, and this is a grassroots one, and we're still in this fight."

'A lean operation'

Investment adviser Greg Zanetti, who has about $172,000 in cash on hand, reported $169,396 in contributions over the past six months.

Zanetti spent $237,000 since October, including about $157,000 on the services of three political consulting firms for digital marketing and other expenses.

"We're running a lean operation," said Ryan Lynch, who is serving as manager, spokesman and political director for Zanetti's campaign.

Zanetti loaned his campaign $185,135 at the start of the primary race.

"In a perfect world, we'll raise so much money that by the end, we've got that and then some in the bank and he's been elected governor and we can reimburse his loan," Lynch said. "But he's also committed to spending what it takes, so if that doesn't happen, it doesn't happen."

Lynch said "it's definitely a possibility" Zanetti will loan his campaign more money.

"We've got a five-way primary. Anytime you have a crowded field like that, it's more difficult to raise money and, well, our fundraising certainly reflects that," he said.

In addition to the loan, Zanetti reported $31,396 of in-kind contributions from himself for travel, advertising and rent. Lynch said he didn't know exactly how much was for fuel costs but imagines it's a "big chunk" of the total.

While Zanetti is happy with his fundraising efforts so far, Lynch said the campaign wishes it were better.

"It's one of those things that, no matter how well you do, it could always be better," he said.

"We're doing this sort of the old-fashioned way, handshake to handshake, and it's thus far proving to be effective," Lynch said. "There's more we have to do in terms of traditional marketing, TV and such. But, you know, we're happy with where we're at right now, and we're just going to keep our foot on the accelerator all the way through June 7th."

Follow Daniel J. Chacn on Twitter

@danieljchacon.

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New Mexico's GOP governor hopefuls spending big to connect with voters - Yahoo News

Assuming that the rule of law and intellectual integrity matters to a court with an originalist supermajority, the choice before the court is a clear one: It must weigh a modern libertarian preference for gun rights against the strong historical evidence allowing robust gun regulation, including may-issue permit schemes premised on specified threats like New York has had in place for a century. As the recent horrific events on the New York City subway underscore, guns have no place on public transportation or any other place where a large number of people gather. The Supreme Court would do well to act with some measure of judicial humility on this issue, respect history, not invent it, and reaffirm that the people, not unelected judges make the laws in our system.

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Guns, guns everywhere: Last weeks subway shooting was horrifying. If the Supreme Court creates a national right to carry, the future will be worse. -...

At the beginning of his short book Why Not Socialism?, G.A. Cohen asks the reader to think about a group of friends going on a camping trip together. He doesnt describe anything out of the ordinary. The friends find a site and set up a tent. Some of them fish, some of them cook, they all go on hikes, and so on.

What Cohen wants the reader to notice is that the way this trip is run looks a lot like how socialists think society should be run. The pots and pans and fishing poles and soccer balls, for example, are treated as collective property even if they belong to individual campers. When the fish are caught and cooked, everyone gets to partake equally of the result of the collective effort, free of charge. Cohens hypothetical campers act this way not because of anything especially noble about them, but because this is how any group of friends would act on a camping trip.

To make the point more sharply, he invites us to imagine a far less normal camping trip one thats run according to the principles of a capitalist market economy. One of the campers (Sylvia) discovers an apple tree. When she comes back to tell the others, theyre excited that theyll all be able to enjoy apple sauces, apple pie, and apple strudel. Certainly they can, Sylvia confirms provided, of course . . . that you reduce my labor burden, and/or provide me with more room in the tent, and/or with more bacon at breakfast.

Another camper, Harry, is very good at fishing, and so in exchange for his services he demands that he be allowed to dine exclusively on perch instead of the mixture of perch and catfish everyone else is eating. Another, Morgan, lays claim to a pond with especially good fish because he claims that his grandfather dug and stocked it with those fish on another camping trip decades ago.

No normal person, Cohen notes, would tolerate such behavior. They would insist on what he calls a socialist way of life. Why, then, shouldnt we want to organize an entire economy around the same principles?

Many defenders of capitalism would insist that, however obnoxious or unacceptable it would be to treat your friends this way, people still have a right to assert private property claims including claims to private property in the means of production and that it would be unacceptably authoritarian for a future socialist society to abridge such rights. Cohen doesnt spend any time in Why Not Socialism? on this defense, perhaps because he addresses it at length in two of his other books, Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality and History, Labour, and Freedom.

Instead, he devotes the later chapters of Why Not Socialism? to objections that even some progressives might have about whether socialist principles can scale up from a camping trip to an entire economy. Is whats possible among a small group of friends really possible for a whole society? What about economic calculation problems? What about human nature?

Cohen takes these challenges seriously, but cautions against premature defeatism. He admits that its possible that the closest well get to the fully marketless economic planning modeled by the camping trip on a society-wide scale is some sort of market socialism although he thinks its premature to rule out the possibility of going further than that.

Either way, Cohens view is that the ideal is one worth striving for. Even if we dont get all the way there, a society that more closely approximates the way of life found on the camping trip would be better than one further from it.

Why Not Socialism? was published in 2009, the year Cohen died. Five years later, libertarian philosopher Jason Brennan came out with a critique entitled Why Not Capitalism?

In it Brennan argues that instead of looking at the flaws of actually existing socialism and those of actually existing capitalism, Cohen was weighing a socialist ideal against the warts-and-all version of capitalism. Such a lopsided comparison, he thinks, proves nothing.

Brennan illustrates the point by discussing the animated Disney show Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (not to be confused with the older variety show The Mickey Mouse Club). In a parody of Cohens camping trip chapter, Brennan describes the show as it actually is everyone seems to be friends with everyone else and there doesnt seem to be any poverty or serious social distress, but it looks like a regular market economy. Minnie Mouse owns a factory and store for hair bows called the Bowtique, Clarabelle Cow is a reasonably successful entrepreneur (she owns both a sundries store called the Moo Mart and a Moo Muffin factory), and Donald Duck and Willie the Giant both own their own farms.

Brennan then asks the reader to imagine a hypothetical version of the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Village where some of the villagers started doing what Stalinist regimes did in the name of socialism. Donald forcibly collectivizes all farmland like Stalin did in 1929, Clarabelle Cow starts a secret police force, and so on. Obviously, that would be horrible!

If you dont think this hypothetical proves anything about capitalism and socialism, Brennan writes, you shouldnt think Cohens camping trip argument does either. In both cases, the problem is that like isnt being compared to like. And Brennan further argues that, even as an ideal, capitalism is better than socialism because in a laissez-faire capitalist world, anyone who wanted to secede and form a commune with their own preferred rules could do so.

There are three problems with Brennans argument. First, he is not comparing like to like in his attempt to satirize Cohen. After all, Cohen isnt describing some idealized fantasy of a camping trip; hes describing the kind of camping trip that untold numbers of people go on every year. They all work the way Cohen describes. The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Village is a trippy sci-fi fantasy of animals interacting in a half-imagined society, one where its unclear whether a state exists or what sorts of labor laws or regulations it potentially enforces. To compare like to like, Brennan would have had to find a mundane experience that many readers have had, or at least are very familiar with, where a capitalist way of life would be obviously preferable.

Second, Cohen isnt contrasting the small-scale implementation of socialist ideals with the worst things that have been done in the name of capitalism. Sylvias insistence on her property rights stops the other campers from getting apple strudel she isnt denying any of them life-saving medications because they cant afford to pay. No one hires other campers to stack firewood for them and then hires Pinkertons to beat or kill the firewood stackers when they go on strike. Cohen doesnt come up with a camping trip version of the British East India company or the enclosures that drove peasants off their land and made them desperate enough to take jobs in early factories or Adolf Hitlers declaration of emergency powers to protect Germany from the threat of left-wing revolution.

Instead, all of Cohens examples are examples of people asserting exactly the kinds of economic rights that defenders of capitalism are eager to endorse the kind that everyone would have in Brennans libertarian ideal of capitalism! Morgans grandfather passed on his property to his descendants, Sylvia is asserting her property rights in the means of apple strudel production as the initial discoverer of a piece of unowned property, and the other two are simply trying to bargain for the best deal they can get in a free market.

If Brennan wanted to seriously engage with Cohens argument, hed have to explain why, if its not okay to act this way on a camping trip, it wouldnt even be desirable to try to figure out a different way to organize a society.

Cohen thinks that whats wrong with introducing a capitalist way of life into a camping trip and with it serving as the guiding principle for an economy is that capitalism fails to live up to an ideal that its defenders often tout: equality of opportunity. In each case, some people are doing worse than others due to factors outside their control not having seen the apple tree first, not having a grandfather who bequeathed the particularly good fishing pond, or just not being lucky enough to have been born with the same skills as their friends.

Similarly, Cohen thinks, no one deserves a worse life just because they didnt grow up in a rich family or they werent born with the skills that allow some to climb up the social ladder. He contrasts bourgeois equality of opportunity, meaning that there are no formal impediments to anyone succeeding (for example, racial discrimination) and even left-liberal equality of opportunity, which attempts to go beyond bourgeois equality of opportunity with programs like Head Start that compensate for certain social disadvantages, with socialist equality of opportunity the principle that no one should have a worse life due to factors outside of their control.

If different people, for example, want to make different decisions about how many hours to work and how much leisure to enjoy, its not unjust to reward more industrious choices with greater consumption. But no one should have a worse life because of who their parents were or how well they do on tests. Cohen supplements this with a socialist principle of community: if you recognize other people as part of your community, youll try to make sure they dont suffer too much even from bad choices they make of their own free will.

Id argue Cohens list of principles is somewhat incomplete. Historically, socialists have, for very good reasons, emphasized equality of power (although, to be fair, Cohen writes eloquently elsewhere about the unfreedom that workers suffer under capitalism).

I also wish hed read about other models of what socialism could look like. As an achievable halfway house between capitalism and completely marketless, moneyless camping-trip-style socialism, Cohen discusses John Roemers scheme under which every citizen would be awarded equal stock ownership, but Cohen doesnt seem to be aware of, for example, the slightly more radical conception of market socialism advanced by David Schweickart. I wish he had, because in implementing democratic control at the workplace, Schweickarts conception comes closer to Cohens ideal while still seeming realistic in the short term.

Despite these minor defects, Why Not Socialism? is an excellent introduction to socialist ideals. The form of presentation is intuitive and even deceptively simple, while the underlying arguments are careful and sophisticated. You can finish it in an hour, and Cohens points will linger in your head for years. Read it.

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GA Cohen Showed Why We Should All Be Socialists - Jacobin magazine