Rescuing Cosmopolitanism: A Marxian Account

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Published: Mar 25, 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/ethiki.22776
Keywords:
Cosmopolitanism; Marxism; Poverty; Exploitation; Global Justice; John Roemer; Means of Production; Normative Scrutiny
Giannis Moschos
Abstract

This article argues that liberal cosmopolitanism, while effective at condemning global poverty and establishing moral duties for its alleviation, fails to provide a fundamental conceptualization of the causes of poverty. The author maintains that Marxism—specifically John Roemer’s property relations theory of exploitation—offers a more robust framework for understanding global justice. By moving beyond a superficial analysis of distributional outcomes, the Marxian account identifies causally fundamental links between an unequal distribution of the means of production and absolute deprivation. The study posits that poverty should be treated not merely as a moral "bad," but as a violation of justice rooted in systemic exploitation and economic dominance. Ultimately, the paper concludes that cosmopolitans must adopt a Marxian scrutiny of economic structures to develop truly effective action-guiding principles for global poverty eradication.

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