John Rawls: Hero of Liberalism In Its Prime, Critic At Its Worst

As a young man, John Rawls considered entering the priesthood but his plans were disrupted by World War Two. The horrors of the war, the Holocaust, and the rise of authoritarianism and Stalinism in Eastern Europe lead Rawls to question what a just society looked like. His thinking led finally to his most read and influential work, A Theory of Justice. A Theory of Justice is Rawls’ main view on an ideal society, a society in which the poorest are treated as well as possible, where widespread rights and social services are granted to all, and where a free and truly democratic system is in place; this was his idea of the perfect world and it would influence future liberal thought greatly. Despite being one of the main thinkers and heroes of modern liberalism, as Rawls matured and developed his theories and the world around him changed, so did his views. In 2001, a year before he passed away, he published the immensely critical Justice as Fairness: A Restatement. Rawls began to doubt the capitalist liberal order immensely: he saw what was happening around him in the eighties and nineties, and what he saw displeased him. Rawls found answers in Democratic Socialism. Rawls’ turn to leftism and his rejection of capitalism was a direct response to the failures of the system he had once idealized.

As a young boy, two of Rawls’ siblings died of illness, and Rawls himself was afflicted by illness. According to Rawls’ biographer, the loss of his brothers was the most important event in Rawls’ early childhood (Anatory). Later on, Rawls would plan to join the priesthood, publishing his thesis on a theological issue (Wenar and Estund). Soon after graduating he enlisted in the army and was deployed to the Philippines where he saw horrific trench warfare and such scenes of violence that he lost his Christian faith (Wenar and Estund). After witnessing the aftermath of Hiroshima and disobeying an unjust order to punish a soldier, he was demoted and eventually left the army (Wenar 394). All of these early life experiences would later go on to deeply influence how Rawls saw the world, especially in his writing of A Theory of Justice.

A Theory of Justice came out in 1971. It has sold more than 300 000 copies and has been incredibly influential in liberal thought (Coman). In this massive text, Rawls outlines what he believes a fair society would look like, a society designed by rational and reasonable people (Wenar 394). In Rawls’ idea of a perfect society people are “free and equal, reasonable and rational, and society [is a] fair scheme of cooperation” (Wenar and Estund). In order to assure this Rawls also ensures that political membership is not based on being a part of a group or identity and that all have the same basic abilities to take part in the society, and that people are not given privilege simply due to their birth or because they have more potential (Wenar and Estund). Rawls also realizes that people as a whole want more ‘good’. People want more rights, more freedoms, they want better jobs, more respect in their society, and a higher standard of living; these are what Rawls calls “Primary Goods” (Wenar and Estund). Rawls was not a complete equalist, but inequality could be accepted only when it benefited the least well off. A doctor can be paid more for example because their work benefits the least well off; this is what is known as the “Difference Principle” (Davies). This fair Rawlsian society would be created by what Rawls proposed as the Veil of Ignorance, also known as the Original Position.

The Original Position or Veil of Ignorance is Rawls’ most famous contribution and concept. First, the Veil of Ignorance places metaphorically all of the participants behind a Veil; they do not know who they are, what their ethnicity or religion is, what their wealth or ability to work is, what their age or gender is. Then behind this Veil, they must decide on the laws of their society. Rawls says that reasonable and rational people would choose a society where the worst off are treated as well as possible. In studies, the Veil has been proven to be an effective way of encouraging the kind of thought Rawls wanted (Huang et al). In Rawls’ A Theory (2001) he explains what rational and reasonable people would do with his two Principles of Justice.

First Principle of Justice: Each person has the same indefeasible claim to a fully adequate scheme of equal basic liberties, which scheme is compatible with the same scheme of liberties for all.

Second Principle of Justice: Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions:

They are to be attached to offices and positions open to all under conscious of fair equality of opportunity; and

They are to be to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged members of society

This state Rawls proposed was similar to the welfare state and capitalist societies other liberals had proposed at the time (Quish). Simply put, a strong support system with room for capitalism and private property rights. But Rawls lived through the Reagan and Thatcher era, and he saw the decline of the welfare state and the liberal dream. In his final work Rawls ‘restated’ his beliefs.

The Reagan and Thatcher eras of capitalism and conservatism were disastrous for liberalism and the welfare state. Reaganomics or supply-side economics brought about increased wealth at the cost of the worst off, real wages went down while productivity went up and economic inequality increased (Mishel and Bivens). During this time social services were cut and the poor suffered for it the most (McTague). That era set out the path for the next couple of decades. Massive corporate control over politics, a policy of austerity, and climatological collapse (McTague). This unsettled Rawls; the dreams of the civil rights era and the golden age of liberalism were long gone (Bolotnikova).

This era of conservatism fundamentally changed how the ‘Father of Modern Liberalism’ thought, a man who had once been to the White House and received a medal for his work published Justice as Fairness: A Restatement. A Restatement was a critique of his earlier work, and a new proposal of what the ideal society would look like (Quish). He lists five forms of government.

1. Laissez-faire capitalism

2. Welfare-state capitalism

3. State socialism with a command economy

4. Property-owning democracy

5. Democratic socialism

He explains how the first three violate at least one Principle of Justice, leaving only property-owning democracy and democratic socialism. Rawls rejects the welfare state because it allows “a small class to have a near-monopoly of the means of production.” (Quish, 2018) This kind of control allows the few to “enact a system of law and property ensuring their dominant position, not only in politics but throughout the economy”(Quish). While welfare-state capitalism’s commitment to redistribution implied “some concern” for equality of opportunity, the fact that it permits concentrations of power that corrode democracy not only means that it fails to protect political liberty, it “rejects the fair value of political liberties” (Quish). Rawls never outright claims Democratic Socialism is the answer, but his neutrality was a common thread of his. Rather than arguing for one side, he presented his view and then logically guided the reader to the conclusion he wanted (Quish). One of the forefathers of modern liberalism in his last published essay has found a solution in socialism.

John Rawls inspired youth and thinkers. A Theory of Justice was seen being read at Tiananmen Square and is one of the most read books on philosophy ever written (Coman). But as capitalism and liberalism declined with the violence and decay of the Reagan and Thatcher era, Rawls’ faith in liberalism was shocked. A series of events including the war on drugs, the rise of austerity as political policy, increasing racial anger, and the suffering of the working class were prevalent at the time of Rawls writing A Restatement (Mctague). All of these added to Rawls’ ultimate belief that capitalism could no longer work, that it was pleonexia built upon cancerous consumption (Wenar and Estund). Capitalism had failed to bring about a better world, liberalism had failed to build a better world, even his property-owning democracy was a social democracy and left-wing. Justice had failed and the worst off were suffering for it. There was no Difference Principle, wealth inequality boomed while the poorest suffered. And despite the growth and wealth of the capitalist liberal order, the people saw little of it, and the cost to the environment was too great to bear. It was a society built on growth for the sake of growth. A pleonexia and Rawls rejected this, he rejected capitalism, and he found his answers elsewhere. Rawls says finally “The thought that real saving and economic growth are to go on indefinitely, upwards and onwards, with no specified goal in sight, is the idea of the business class of a Capitalist society” (Wenar and Estund).

Work Cited

Anatory, Izidory. “THE INFLUENCE OF JOHN RAWLS AND ROBERT NOZICK UNDER CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.” Academia.edu, 2008, www.academia.edu/5618697/THE_INFLUENCE_OF_JOHN_RAWLS_AND_ROBERT_NOZICK_UNDER_CONTEMPORARY_POLITICAL_PHILOSOPHY. Accessed May 25th.

Bolotnikova, Marina N. “The Rawlsian Revolution.” Harvard Magazine, 16 Aug. 2019, www.harvardmagazine.com/2019/09/john-rawls-political-philosophy. Accessed March 30th 2021.

Coman, Julian. “John Rawls: Can Liberalism’s Great Philosopher Come to the West’s Rescue Again?” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 20 Dec. 2020, www.theguardian.com/inequality/2020/dec/20/john-rawls-can-liberalisms-great-philosopher-come-to-the-wests-rescue-again. Accessed March 30th 2021.

Davies, Ben. “John Rawls’ ‘A Theory of Justice’.” 1000wordphilsophy, 29 June 2020, 1000wordphilosophy.com/2018/07/27/john-rawls-a-theory-of-justice/. Accessed March 30th 2021.

Huang, Karen, et al. “Veil-of-Ignorance Reasoning Favors the Greater Good.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 116, no. 48, Nov. 2019, pp. 23989–23995., doi:10.1073/pnas.1910125116. Accessed March 30st

McTague, Tom. “Remember the ’90s, Don’t Long for a Return.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 20 Aug. 2020, www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/08/brexit-trump-china-90s-golden-era/615406/. Accessed March 30th 2021.

Mishel, Lawrence, and Josh Bivins. “Understanding the Historic Divergence Between Productivity and a Typical Worker’s Pay: Why It Matters and Why It’s Real.” Economic Policy Institute, 2 Sept. 2015, www.epi.org/publication/understanding-the-historic-divergence-between-productivity-and-a-typical-workers-pay-why-it-matters-and-why-its-real/.

Quish, Ed. “John Rawls, Socialist?” Jacobin, 22 Aug. 2018, jacobinmag.com/2018/08/john-rawls-reticent-socialist-review-theory-of-justice/. Accessed May 13th, 2021.

Wenar, Leif, and David Estlund. “Rawls.” Oxford Handbooks of Political Philosophy, 18 June 2012, p. ., doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195376692.013.0021.