Reconstructing the Normative Foundations of Socialism

In this paper I argue that underlying the different historical permutations of socialism is the normative idea of the life-ground of value.  I attempt to reconstruct the normative basis of socialism on the basis of this life-ground.  The aim is to make explicit the generalizable value of socialism as in everyone's human life-interests.  In the context of a growing crisis of life-conditions across the globe, the hope is to revive political interest in a broad based socialist alternative to an increasingly life-blind global market system.