Socialist Republicanism

• Author: Tom O’Shea
• Published date: 01 October 2020
• Date: 01 October 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0090591719876889

https://doi.org/10.1177/0090591719876889

Political Theory

2020, Vol. 48(5) 548 –572

© The Author(s) 2019

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DOI: 10.1177/0090591719876889

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Critical Exchange

Socialist Republicanism

Tom O’Shea1

Abstract

Socialist republicans advocate public ownership and control of the means

of production in order to achieve the republican goal of a society without

endemic domination. While civic republicanism is often attacked for its

conservatism, the relatively neglected radical history of the tradition shows

how a republican form of socialism provides powerful conceptual resources

to critique capitalism for leaving workers and citizens dominated. This

analysis supports a programme of public ownership and economic democracy

intended to reduce domination in the workplace and wider society. I defend

this socialist republicanism from both the Marxist objection that it overlooks

the impersonal nature of domination under capitalism and the left-liberal

objections that property-owning democracy or worker codetermination

are sufficient to suppress dominating relationships. The resulting position

identifies the need for more ambitious institutional grounds for republican

liberty than is often supposed, while offering us a distinctive emancipatory

justification for socialism.

Keywords

domination, socialism, republican liberty, work, republicanism

Introduction

The republican demand for the abolition of endemic domination cannot be met

without a radical transformation of our economic life. Our best hope of secur-

ing this, so I shall argue, is a socialist programme. Conversely, republicanism

1Department of Humanities, University of Roehampton, London, UK

Corresponding Author:

Tom O’Shea, Department of Humanities, University of Roehampton, Roehampton Lane,

London, SW15 5PU, UK.

Email: tom.james.oshea@gmail.com

876889PTXXXX10.1177/0090591719876889Political TheoryO’Shea

research-article2019

O’Shea 549

offers a compelling account of unfreedom under capitalism, which socialists

can use to articulate their own emancipatory ambitions. Thus, there is good

reason for both socialists and republicans to pursue a socialist republicanism.

Socialism and republicanism can, however, seem like odd bedfellows. The

civic republican tradition has often been denounced as aristocratic and elitist,

with an ingrained suspicion of democratic rule.1 Ancient republicans were

willing to accept the subordination of slaves, women, and foreigners as the

price to be paid for the liberty of male citizens.2 So too, these republicans

inveigh against property taxes, while telling us that the function of citizen-

ship is the defence of property. In the modern era, republicans have denied

citizenship to those who lack economic independence, as well as asserting

the rights of masters over their servants. Furthermore, some contemporary

civic republicans advocate curbs on the power of labour unions and cham-

pion competitive markets as a way to reduce domination. Republican politi-

cal thought is not, then, the most obvious partner for socialist movements.3

The feeling can also be mutual, with the revolutionary hopes and collectivist

orientation of many socialists likely to trouble those civic republicans who

are committed to the rule of law and wary of majoritarianism.4

Nevertheless, recent work in the history of political thought is showing the

two traditions need not be at loggerheads, and can instead provide comple-

mentary diagnoses and remedies for the ills of capitalist societies. This radi-

cal republican history has found its most successful expression in republican

readings of Karl Marx and the recovery of a nineteenth-century labour repub-

lican movement.5 We shall also see there is an overlooked republican thread

running through early twentieth-century socialism in Britain and the United

States. The retrieval of this radical history of republicanism has been taking

place alongside contemporary republican arguments for workplace democ-

racy, the right to strike, and a political economy hostile to laissez-faire capi-

talism.6 Can these radical republican materials be used to construct an

attractive, theoretically incisive, and defensible political philosophy?

My aim is to show how a socialist republicanism fulfils this ambition.

Indeed, I shall argue that the socialist goal of public ownership and control of

the means of production is the most promising institutional foundation for a

society that curbs domination and enables popular government over our

social and economic life. In short, the path to a mature republicanism should

also lead us to socialism. Conversely, republicanism offers socialists an astute

understanding of freedom, which puts talk of “wage-slavery” and “economic

despotism” on a firm theoretical footing, while opening up a richer vision of

the lineaments of a free society.

In order to establish the compatibility and complementarity of republican-

ism and socialism, we must first grasp their central commitments. Classical