This is philosophy bites with me David Edmonds and me Nigel War Burton.

Philosophy bites is available at W.

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There's an anachronistic opulence at All Souls College, Oxford, a college

with many eminent scholars but not a single student. College retainers serve dinner. There's

port on offer and posh cutlery on display.

So perhaps an odd place to find the Chichula Professor of Social and Political Theory, G.A. Cohen, who was born

into a poor working-class family in Montreal.

Both his parents were communists, both factory workers in the rag trade.

Joe Cohen is renowned as a leading Marxist philosopher and a critic of both the liberalism of John Rawls and the libertarianism of Robert Nozick.

Now he's comparatively well off, one question nags away.

Can one be a rich egalitarian?

Jerry Cohen, welcome to Philosophy. Can one be a rich egalitarian?

Jerry Cohen, welcome to Philosophy Pines.

Hi, it's good to be here.

Now the topic I want to focus on today is equality,

specifically equality of wealth.

Do you believe in egalitarianism? equality, can't be very precise about what the equality that a sensible egalitarian believes in

because there are many good things in life and they're not commensurable with each other. You can't trade them off against

one another and so there are going to be lots of cases where one person has a lot of wealth

but not a very nice job and not a very sustaining family life.

Somebody else does much better in the dimensions in which that first person does

...