Mitchell Cohen Responds

Jeffrey C. Isaac is a generous and provocative critic, yet I fear our disagreement may perplex some readers. He is right when he says that I still identify myself as “left” because of values—most simply, liberty, equality, solidarity. Where he calls for a “politics of democratic ambivalence,” I uphold a “left politics,” which, as I explained it, means favoring equality-friendly democracy—a society in which it is inequalities that must be justified. Readers may wonder: OK, but Isaac and Cohen are actually on the same side of many matters—they’re not quarreling about the respective merits of, say, vibrant trade unionism or gender equality or racial justice—so what’s the real substance of their disagreement? Didn’t...