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G. A. Cohen

Analytic · Europe · 1941 to 2009

Canadian-born philosopher at Oxford who defended Marx's view of history and wrote on what equality asks of how we live.

What it is

G. A. Cohen (1941 to 2009), known as Jerry, was a Canadian-born political philosopher who spent most of his career in London and Oxford. He first made his name by defending Karl Marx's account of history with the tools of analytic philosophy, and in later work he argued for equality as a requirement of justice.

He was born in Montreal into a Jewish family with communist sympathies, and as a child he went to the Morris Winchevsky school. He took a degree at McGill University and then a BPhil in philosophy at Oxford, where Gilbert Ryle guided him and Isaiah Berlin was among his teachers. He lectured at University College London for many years, became Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at All Souls College, Oxford, in 1985, and ended his career as Quain Professor of Jurisprudence at University College London. He died of a stroke in August 2009, aged 68.

The main ideas

  • Marx made clear. In Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence (1978) he used the precision of analytic philosophy to set out and defend Marx's view of history. The book led to a school called analytic Marxism.
  • Against the libertarians. He challenged the claim that each person owns themselves in a way that rules out redistribution. His book Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality (1995) takes on this use of the principle, in answer to Robert Nozick.
  • Against the difference principle as applied. John Rawls held that inequalities can be justified if they help the worst off. Cohen criticised this principle, notably in his 1991 Tanner lectures on incentives, inequality and community.
  • Equality in daily life. In If You're an Egalitarian, How Come You're So Rich?, taken from his 1996 Gifford lectures, he turned to what a belief in equality asks of the way individuals behave and choose.
  • Socialism as a question. His book Why Not Socialism? (2009) came out in the year he died.

What it looks like in practice

Imagine a well-paid professional who says she supports equality but will only work hard if taxes on high earners stay low. Cohen would ask whether someone who really holds the principle can use that argument about herself. Equality, on his view, is a standard for the choices individuals make and not only for the laws a state passes. This is an illustration of his line of questioning, not a passage from his writing.

Books and moments

  • Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence (1978) is the book that gave rise to the school of analytic Marxism.
  • Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality (1995) is his answer to the libertarians.
  • Rescuing Justice and Equality (2008) is one of his later books on justice and equality.
  • Why Not Socialism? (2009) came out in the year he died.
  • He taught many later political philosophers, among them Michael Otsuka, Jonathan Wolff and Will Kymlicka.

Questions and criticism

  • Technological determinism. Does his reading of Marx make history turn too much on the growth of technology?
  • Marxism made tame. Does applying analytic methods to Marx's thought keep what Marxism set out to do, or pull it toward the mainstream social science it had meant to oppose?
  • How far does equality reach. It is fair to ask whether a principle of justice can be asked of private choices and not only of institutions.

Close neighbours

The pages on Karl Marx, John Rawls and Robert Nozick are the closest, since much of his work is an answer to them. The page on Ronald Dworkin shows another philosopher who argued about equality in the same period.

Written by epchē in our own words, and checked against independent sources on 29 October 2026. The sources are listed below.

Who they connect to

Influenced by

  • Karl Marx · He worked to restate Marx's theory of history with the tools of modern analytic philosophy.

Reacted against

  • John Rawls · He argued that Rawls' principles allow too much inequality, and that a just society needs an egalitarian ethos.
  • Robert Nozick · He attacked Nozick's claim that people fully own themselves and what they earn.

Other Analytic thinkers

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