https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalPhilosophy/comments/1i9sppj/john_rawls_defending_status_quo/
created by melancholicmigrant on 25/01/2025 at 17:57 UTC
5 upvotes, 7 top-level comments (showing 7)
I’ve been reading Rawls’ *Justice as Fairness*, and he argues that inequalities are acceptable if they benefit the least advantaged. Is he essentially defending the status quo of capitalism with some tweaks? Or is his framework meant to push for a more fundamental restructuring of society?
Comment by innocent_bystander97 at 25/01/2025 at 22:31 UTC
7 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Actually, he thinks economic inequalities are acceptable if they are part of an institutional configuration that makes the worst as well off as it is possible for them to be. That last bit is crucial, and it alone shows Rawls is not a defender of the status quo (his other principles have radical implications, too, though).
Moreover, he only ever embraced two kinds of economic regimes - property owning democracy and liberal socialism. He was explicit that neither laissez faire nor welfare state capitalism were consistent with his theory of justice.
Comment by Platos_Kallipolis at 25/01/2025 at 18:39 UTC
5 upvotes, 0 direct replies
It isn't particularly clear in *TJ*, but Rawls thinks his theory best supports "property owning democracy". And that would be quite radical.
But he is certainly suggesting that at least some form of capitalism can be justified. But the difference principle (which is what you are referring to) would suggest pretty radical changes to *our* current political economy.
Comment by Crazy_Cheesecake142 at 25/01/2025 at 21:29 UTC*
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
strict rawls answer - he doesn't take that strong of a stance, ever.
easy question - do you pay $20K a year to educate students with disabilities, when normally the subsidy is $2K a year or so? obviously, yes, you can and probably should say yes, because the Institution of education just works like this, most places.
harder question, which rawls may not answer (as a strength, or weakness). you possibly live in a sub-saharan african nation who struggle with some time, for having civil conflicts, or collonial influence and weak forms of liberal or central finance systems. do you pay now, $8K per year to begin educating students in regions outside of the core city-capital regions, who maybe don't yet have widely grained industrialization?
or, do you support perhaps e-learning, new forms of incentives for satellite internet, power and compute abilities within these places, or both? what if this is supported as a trade off? maybe there's high unemployment or low-wage and improbable capital cycles as an exigent condition.
Rawls theory maybe doesn't say anything about what the "most vulnerable" desire or demand here. A critic of Rawls can say his theory isn't complete, because Institutionalism doesn't cover cases which are not easily outlines by his 3 primary conditions or rules of Justice.
and maybe "least vulnerable" can agree to or would agree to.
Importantly, theory would be strict to say (more generally) - if you cannot find Justice, then the theory is just incomplete.
An example of why other non-Rawlsian theories present challenges to Rawls. A liberal thinker of the Lockian contract tradition may just say, "well good civil servants and private citizens, can find ethnographic solutions which are just better -they can translate the case to how limited government participating in competitive, international systems should solve this."
Other, perhaps "critical" or "group-based" theories may state - "Well, the solution for Justice is ultimately what people decide they can believe, live with, what is amenable, and what makes sense. And so you can't even pre-suppose a liberal value, you must ask - how would we view various education initatives? Is this what is most helpful, understandable, and applicable? What else comes with this?" And so the bridge-to-nowhere which may be a liberal or Rawlsian inefficiency or harm (injustice) is itself, more instrumental versus being a ground for justice.
and finally a nod to Nozick, perhaps my least favorite - who says, "Well I hate the idea that any group can plan this, or we empower people to even think about government and taxes," and so individuals decide if there is utility in persuing a solution - in essence, you hire security forces and perhaps generate a way to support other products and subsidize the value chains into this region - it appears practically fairly easy to state, and like many cases of energy and security and institutional initiatives, there's reasons people either don't try, or it fails for unforeseen collectivist reasons people don't have insight into.
simply stated as a liberal or modern rebuke of this idea - Libertarian systems only can find solutions with consumers - and so problems like energy, housing and infrastructure in India (slums) is perhaps the most widely studied and known cases - I can build a power plant, or add fiber internet, but if no one can afford $15 or $20 or $50 a month for that, then there is no market.
Rawls is often attributed by supporters who are progressive, as saying, "Well progressive systems of subsidies, welfare and others, are precisely the means of overocming thing - a demand-side and collective approach." which can fall both into republican-democracies like the United States, or more traditional social-democracies who have used systems like this for healthcare and perhaps agriculture.
critics usually view this as a lever of central finance known as supply-side economics, where you incentivize individuals to build better mechanisms of generating capital/debt ecosystems, which are capable of creating privately-owned means of distribution, and thus lifting from the top of the economic pyramid.
Comment by mcollins1 at 26/01/2025 at 00:08 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I agree with what everyone else is saying, and I do think that he pushes for a more fundamental restructuring of society, especially when you look at some of his more in depth discussions in ToJ.
To offer something a bit different from what others are saying, I think an argument could be made that this defends a status quo of capitalism with some tweaks (especially if we posit that he was defending what existed at the time, and not today's society which is much more unequal than even when JF was written). Primarily it rests on the critique that the fair equality of opportunity principle and liberty principle are lexically prior to the difference principle. A society which has some significant curbs on personal liberties to achieve a very egalitarian and prospeous society would fail to be just, or be considered less just than a society with more freedoms and higher economic inequality.
Comment by gauchnomics at 28/01/2025 at 16:53 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Above is a good summary of what Rawls actually advocates. If you want a primary text one of the later chapters (Part IV) in Justice as Fairness: A Restatement[1] goes into detail about property-owning democracy IIRC.
1: https://archive.org/details/justiceasfairnes0000rawl
My read of the difference was in contrast to capitalism / socialism the means of production was so widely shared that it should be considered its own economic system.
Comment by piamonte91 at 25/01/2025 at 22:02 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
He is defending a social democracy and social democracies are capitalist societies.
Comment by danhakimi at 26/01/2025 at 00:12 UTC
0 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Rawls' work *can* be used to defend a system like our status quo, or to demand significant changes. Other people have commented on how he would apply his system, but...
Think of it as a thought experiment more than a system of government. He's a statist, I mean, it's hard to imagine his philosophy would lead to anarchy... But you can imagine many different systems of government arising if we could actually get behind the veil of ignorance and negotiate.
The point is to imagine yourself in such a position when you're trying to decide what laws or principles of justice are fair.