How does rawls justify the difference principle

Relatedly, they continue to explore what role responsibility should play in the distribution of economic goods Sen , Cohen , Valentyne , Knight Because the luck egalitarian proposals have a similar motivation to the Difference Principle the moral criticisms of them tend to be variations on those leveled against the Difference Principle.

However, as noted above, what is practically required of a society operating under the Difference Principle is relatively straightforward. How the theoretical concerns of luck egalitarians are to be practically implemented is often not so clear.

A system of special assistance to the physically and mentally disabled and to the ill would be a partial implementation of the compensation system, but most natural inequalities would be left untouched by such assistance while the theories commonly require compensation for such inequalities.

Exploring how in practical ways the economic systems can be refined to track responsibility while mitigating certain types of pure luck will be an ongoing challenge for luck egalitarians. Welfare-based principles are motivated by the idea that what is of primary moral importance is the level of welfare of people. Advocates of welfare-based principles view the concerns of other theories—material equality, the level of primary goods of the least advantaged, resources, desert-claims, or liberty—as derivative concerns.

They are valuable only in so far as they affect welfare and so all distributive questions should be settled entirely by how the distribution affects welfare. Choosing welfare as the relevant value is only the first step towards answering the distributive questions. Welfare-theorists must also specify the welfare function. The welfare functions proposed vary according to what will count as welfare and the weighting system for that welfare.

Moreover, philosophers have tended to focus on an extremely small subset of the available welfare functions. This theory can be used to illustrate most of the main characteristics of welfare-based principles. Jeremy Bentham, the historical father of utilitarianism, argued that the experience of pleasure was the only thing with intrinsic value, and all other things had instrumental value insofar as they contribute to the experience of pleasure or the avoidance of pain.

His intellectual successor, John Stuart Mill, broadened this theory of intrinsic value to include happiness, or fulfillment. Modern philosophers since Kenneth Arrow, though, tend to argue that intrinsic value consists in preference-satisfaction, i. So, for instance, the principle for distributing economic benefits for preference utilitarians is to distribute them so as to maximize preference-satisfaction.

The welfare function for such a principle has a relatively simple theoretical form requiring the distribution maximizing the arithmetic sum of all satisfied preferences unsatisfied preferences being negative , weighted for the intensity of those preferences.

To accommodate uncertainty with respect to outcomes the function is modified so that expected utility, rather than utility, is maximized see consequentialism.

The basic theory of utilitarianism is one of the simplest to state and understand. The criticisms and responses have been widely discussed in the literature on utilitarianism as a general moral theory see consequentialism. Two of the most widely discussed criticisms will be mentioned here. The first, which was famously articulated by John Rawls , is that utilitarianism fails to take seriously the distinctness of persons.

Maximization of preference-satisfaction is often taken as prudent in the case of individuals—people may take on greater burdens, suffering or sacrifice at certain periods of their lives so that their lives are overall better. The complaint against utilitarianism is that it takes this principle, commonly described as prudent for individuals, and uses it on an entity, society, unlike individuals in important ways. While it may be acceptable for a person to choose to suffer at some period in her life be it a day, or a number of years so that her overall life is better, it is often argued against utilitarianism that it is immoral to make some people suffer so that there is a net gain for other people.

In the individual case, there is a single entity experiencing both the sacrifice and the gain. Also, the individuals, who suffer or make the sacrifices, choose to do so in order to gain some benefit they deem worth their sacrifice.

In the case of society as a whole, there is no single experiential entity—some people suffer or are sacrificed so that others may gain. Furthermore, under utilitarianism, unlike the individual prudence case, there is no requirement for people to consent to the suffering or sacrifice, nor is there necessarily a unified belief in the society that the outcome is worth the cost.

For instance, some people may have a preference that the members of some minority racial group have less material benefits. Under utilitarian theories, in their classical form, this preference or interest counts like any other in determining the best distribution.

Utilitarians have responded to these criticisms in a number of ways. Often they just deny the empirical claim upon which the criticism rests. So they assert that the empirical conditions are such that utility maximizing will rarely require racial minorities to sacrifice or suffer for the benefit of others, or to satisfy the prejudices of others.

Relatedly, utilitarians often emphasize the long run perspective required by their theory. They may concede that short-term maximization may point to distribution on a racial basis but that this would not be welfare-maximizing in the long run and that even greater welfare can be achieved by re-educating the majority so that racist preferences weaken or disappear over time, leading to a more harmonious and happier world.

In reply, it is pointed out that the utilitarian must supply an account of why racist or sexist preferences should be discouraged if the same level of total long term utility could be achieved by encouraging the less powerful to be content with a lower position. Critics of utilitarianism have responded that this reliance on the empirical conditions turning out a particular way undermines the plausibility of utilitarianism as a moral theory.

They argue that we do not have to wait until we find out how strong the racist feelings are, how many are in the adversely affected racial minority, how many racists there are, etc.

It is argued that given utilitarianism says that we do need to know these numbers in order to know when, if ever, racist policies are wrong, utilitarianism fails to adequately capture our moral judgments. Utilitarians respond that if their theory on rare occasions does require people to sacrifice or suffer in these or other ways, the unintuitiveness of this consequence is a result of our contrary moral judgments about right and wrong, which are fallible.

Most recently, some utilitarians have drawn on institutional theory or game theory in defence, or in modification, of utilitarianism see Hardin , Goodin , Bailey Utilitarian distribution principles, like the other principles described here, have problems with specification and implementation. Most formulations of utilitarianism require interpersonal comparisons of utility.

This means, for instance, that we must be able to compare the utility one person gains from eating an apple with that another gains from eating an apple. Furthermore, utilitarianism requires that differences in utility be measured and summed for widely disparate goods so, for instance, the amount of utility a particular person gains from playing football is measured and compared with the amount of utility another gains from eating a gourmet meal.

Utilitarians face a greater problem than this theoretical one in determining what material distribution, or institutional structure, is prescribed by their theory. Those who share similar utilitarian theoretical principles frequently recommend very different distributions or structures to implement the principles. This problem occurs for other theories, with recommendations for distributions or economic structures to implement commonly varying among advocates with similar theoretical principles.

But the advocates for other distributive principles tend to cluster significantly with respect to what they recommend. This is much less the case with respect to advocates for utilitarian and welfare-based distribution principles with advocates dispersed in their recommendations across the full range of possible distributions and economic structures. For instance, many preference utilitarians believe their principle prescribes strongly egalitarian structures with lots of state intervention while other preference utilitarians believe it prescribes a laissez faire style of capitalism.

There is an explanation for why utilitarianism seems so much less determinate in its policy including structural recommendations and it points to what is the greatest challenge to utilitarianism as a guiding distributive principle.

Other distributive principles can rule out, relatively quickly, various policies on the grounds that they clearly violate the guiding principle, but utilitarians must examine, in great detail, all the policies on offer. They must then aggregate these utilities across all individuals. The size of the information requirements make this task impossible.

Hence, broad assumptions must be made and each different set of assumptions will yield a different answer, and so the answers range across the full set of policies on offer. Moreover, there is no obvious way to arbitrate between the different sets of assumptions.

For instance, suppose three utilitarians agree on the same utilitarian distributive principle. The challenge for contemporary utilitarians is to explain, given the massive informational requirements of utilitarianism and our apparent human inability to meet those requirements, how the population, and its experts, can plausibly arbitrate between conflicting policy and institutional recommendations coming from utilitarian theorists who share the same underlying normative principle.

Another complaint against welfarism is that it ignores, and in fact cannot even make sense of, claims that people deserve certain economic benefits in light of their actions Feinberg, Lamont The complaint is often motivated by the concern that various forms of welfarism treat people as mere containers for well-being, rather than purposeful beings, responsible for their actions and creative in their environments.

The various proposed desert -based principles of distribution differ primarily according to what they identify as the basis for deserving. While Aristotle proposed virtue, or moral character, to be the best desert-basis for economic distribution, contemporary desert theorists have proposed desert-bases that are more practically implemented in complex modern societies. Locke argued people deserve to have those items produced by their toil and industry, the products or the value thereof being a fitting reward for their effort see Miller Most contemporary proposals for desert-bases fit into one of three broad categories:.

According to the contemporary desert theorist, people freely apply their abilities and talents, in varying degrees, to socially productive work. People come to deserve varying levels of income by providing goods and services desired by others Feinberg Distributive systems are just insofar as they distribute incomes according to the different levels earned or deserved by the individuals in the society for their productive labors, efforts, or contributions.

Under each principle, only activity directed at raising the social product will serve as a basis for deserving income. The concept of desert itself does not yield this value of raising the social product; it is a value societies hold independently. Hence, desert principles identifying desert-bases tied to socially productive activity productivity, compensation, and effort all being examples of such bases do not do so because the concept of desert requires this. They do so because societies value higher standards of living, and therefore choose the raising of living standards as the primary value relevant to desert-based distribution.

This means that the full development of desert-based principles requires specification and defense of those activities which will or will not count as socially productive, and hence as deserving of remuneration Lamont It is important to distinguish desert-payments from entitlements. For desert theorists a well-designed institutional structure will make it so that many of the entitlements people have are deserved. But entitlements and just deserts are not conceptually the same and regularly come apart.

For instance, as Feinberg notes, a person can be entitled to assume the presidential office without deserving it Feinberg , 86 and a person who accidentally apprehends a criminal may be entitled to a reward but not deserve it.

Conversely, a team may deserve to win the championship prize but not be entitled to it or a person may deserve an economic benefit but not be entitled to it. Indeed, these and many other instances of desert and entitlements coming apart provide the bases for desert theorists to argue for institutional reform.

Payments designed to give people incentives are a form of entitlement particularly worth distinguishing from desert-payments as they are commonly confused Barry , — Even though it is possible for the same payment to be both deserved and an incentive, incentives and desert provide distinct rationales for income and should not be conflated Lamont While some have sought to justify current capitalist distributions via desert-based distributive principles, John Stuart Mill and many since have forcefully argued the contrary claim—that the implementation of a productivity principle would involve dramatic changes in modern market economies and would greatly reduce the inequalities characteristic of them.

It is important to note, though, that contemporary desert-based principles are rarely complete distributive principles.

They usually are only designed to cover distribution among working adults, leaving basic welfare needs to be met by other principles. The specification and implementation problems for desert-based distribution principles revolve mainly around the desert-bases: it is difficult to identify what is to count as a contribution, an effort or a cost, and it is even more difficult to measure these in a complex modern economy. The main moral objection to desert-based principles is that they make economic benefits depend on factors over which people have little control.

John Rawls has made one of the most widely discussed arguments to this effect Rawls , and while a strong form of this argument has been clearly refuted Zaitchik, Sher , it remains a problem for desert-based principles. But welfarists view this as a virtue of their theory, since they think the only morally relevant characteristic of any distribution is the welfare resulting from it. Whether the distribution ties economic benefits to matters beyond our control is morally irrelevant from the welfarist point of view.

As it happens, welfarists often hold the empirical claim that people have little control over their contributions to society anyway. Most contemporary versions of the principles discussed so far allow some role for the market as a means of achieving the desired distributive pattern—the Difference Principle uses it as a means of helping the least advantaged; utilitarian principles commonly use it as a means of achieving the distributive pattern maximizing utility; desert-based principles rely on it to distribute goods according to desert, etc.

The market will be just, not as a means to some pattern, but insofar as the exchanges permitted in the market satisfy the conditions of just acquisition and exchange described by the principles. For libertarians, just outcomes are those arrived at by the separate just actions of individuals; a particular distributive pattern is not required for justice. Robert Nozick advanced this version of libertarianism Nozick , and is its best known contemporary advocate. The complete principle of distributive justice would say simply that a distribution is just if everyone is entitled to the holdings they possess under the distribution Nozick, p.

The statement of the Entitlement Theory includes reference to the principles of justice in acquisition and transfer. For details of these principles see Nozick, pp. The principle of justice in transfer is the least controversial and is designed to specify fair contracts while ruling out stealing, fraud, etc. The principle of justice in acquisition is more complicated and more controversial.

The principle is meant to govern the gaining of exclusive property rights over the material world. If I own a can of tomato juice and spill it in the sea so its molecules The obvious objection to this claim is that it is not clear why the first people to acquire some part of the material world should be able to exclude others from it and, for instance, be the land owners while the later ones become the wage laborers.

In response to this objection, Nozick follows Locke in recognizing the need for a qualification on just acquisition. One of the main challenges for libertarians has been to formulate a morally plausible interpretation of this proviso.

This is partly because it fails to consider the position others may have achieved under alternative distributions and thereby instantiates the morally dubious criterion of whoever is first gets the exclusive spoils. The assessment of this argument is quite complex, but the difficulties mentioned above with the proviso call into question claims 3 and 4. The challenge for libertarians then is to find a plausible reading of 3 which will yield 4.

Moreover, Nozick extends the operation of the proviso to apply both to acquisitions and transfers, compounding the problem Nozick, , p. Cohen eloquently expresses this concern:. Of course, many existing holdings are the result of acquisitions or transfers which at some point did not satisfy the principles of justice for acquisitions or transfers, however these are understood. Hence, libertarians who rely on historical principles to underpin property rights must supplement these with a principle of rectification for past injustice, or at least some strategy for dealing with unjust holdings.

Although Nozick does not specify this principle he does describe its purpose:. Nozick does not make an attempt to provide a principle of rectification.

The absence of such a principle is much worse for a historical theory than for a patterned theory. Should they be held responsible for the choice made by their parents or grandparents? They are more like the captives of political culture and tradition than the designer. It happens that they were born in a society with a political culture which does not favor industrialization.

From a moral point of view, they should not be disadvantaged by their birth. The interests of individuals are excluded. In sum, people who support the domestic difference principle but oppose the international difference principle should justify why in the domestic case morally arbitrary factors need to be nullified, while in the international case they do not.

Rawls imagines an international original position. He argues that justice among societies is determined by the principles that would be chosen in the original position. These principles include the principle of equality, the principle of self-determination, the principle of pacta sunt servanda treaties are to be observed. Knowing that they represent different nations, rational representatives would try to advance their national interests, which is in accordance with their personal interests.

Not knowing the social conditions of their own society, representatives of a people would make provisions for the worst scenario. They would not simply assume that their society is a wealthy one. Instead, they would choose the difference principle, which ensures that they can attain assistance from other societies if their society happens to be less favored by nature.

For instance, David Miller argues that if the world poverty was caused by rich societies, then the citizens of those societies would have remedial obligations of justice which are enforceable, and that if rich societies played no role in causing the problem, their responsibilities would be humanitarian only.

Given the complexities of the real world, there is no way to figure out a single causation of poverty and an applicable principle of distributive justice. They argue that some people deserve a greater share of primary products because of their hard work. Admittedly, the original position ensures that no shadow of desert considerations will enter the calculations of rational people. However, when the veil of ignorance is lifted and when it comes to the end-state of distribution, the difference principle leaves enough space to desert.

For instance, though the advantaged are taxed, taxation does not lead to strict equality. Though the basic social structure is designed to maximize the benefit of the least advantaged, what the least advantaged can get from the favorable policies is still less than what they can get through hard work and what the advantaged get. It cares more about the absolute gain of the least advantaged than their relative gain. Consider the case of pastoral and industrialized societies. The international difference principle does not require the restoration of the initial equal position.

It is not unjust that a better endowed society gets greater share of primary goods than a worse endowed society as long as the latter benefits from the inequality.

In this sense, the difference principle holds that the pastoral society is responsible for the decision it makes. The same argument can be used to support the application of the international difference principle.

Even if the poverty of a decent society could be attributed to a bad policy adopted in the past, just international institutions should mitigate the negative effects, since the bad policy was adopted under the influence of factors which are arbitrary from a moral point of view, and any society could have made the same choice.

For instance, a society decides to develop agriculture instead of heavy industry probably because this society does not have the capital, technology or easy access to natural resources which are necessary to the development of heavy industry. And this society chooses to export agricultural products and import industrial products, since this is the only way that it can benefit from its comparative advantages.

However, in the international market the price of agricultural products is set at a relatively low level compared with the price of industrial products. As a result, this society accumulates less wealth from international trade than industrialized societies do.

It seems to me that the principles of justice as fairness would require some compensation to the less advantaged society.

A basic structure which fails to provide mitigation mechanisms cannot be viewed as just. One possible objection to the proposition is that though we have duty to mitigate the responsibility of our fellow nationals, we do not have a similar duty to people in other countries.

For instance, Miller admits that mitigation in the international case goes less far than in the domestic case. He defends this double standard by appealing to the principle of fraternity.

For Miller, the principle of fraternity requires each to justify to the others his relative share of primary goods, and thus the difference principle becomes necessary.

Rawls argues in TJ that a merit of the difference principle is that it provides an interpretation of the principle of fraternity. In fact, to establish justice as fairness, the principle of fraternity should never become the principle informing the design of basic social structure. Moreover, it is not the ties of sentiment that require one to justify to the others his relative share of primary goods.

For Rawls, the basic social structure should be justifiable because only reasonable terms can facilitate social cooperation. Indeed, fraternity can enhance the stability of the scheme of social cooperation to some extent. So does distributive justice. The author is not arguing that the principle of fraternity is unjust. In fact, the international difference principle does not deny that we have more extensive obligations to our fellow nationals.

However, there is no obvious reason why we should base objective moral principles on sentiments. As mentioned above, for Rawls, the basic social structure should be justifiable because only reasonable terms can facilitate social cooperation. This is followed by a second stage, in which there is a search to find out if the distribution of income, wealth and social and economic opportunities should be governed by the DP or by a principle that maximises average utility Rawls, a , p.

In other words, there is a survey on how economic and social advantages should be distributed in order to respect relations among free, equal citizens. With the aim of providing essential conditions for a more dignified life to the least advantaged, the second principle of justice aims to restore the principle of equal liberty—which eliminates the influence of social eventualities but approves a distribution of wealth and income according to the natural lottery TJ , revised edition, p. Consider, for example, the FEO.

It demands that job candidates are considered for their relevant talents and abilities while, at the same time, institutional measures are introduced to avoid incidental factors class, race, gender, etc. In turn, the DPl restricts inequalities to those that work to the greatest advantage of the group in the worst situation Daniels, : p. The DP is a principle of mutual benefit, in other words, it involves a situation of reciprocity. If we consider the existence of only two social groups—the most advantaged and the least advantaged—a society subordinated to the limits defined by the lexical priority of the equal liberties principle and the FEO can maximise the expectations of only one of the two groups.

If the DP is accepted, the system will maximise the expectations of the less advantaged group. If it is not, it is preferable to maximise a weighted average of both groups. Nonetheless, this maximisation is doubly beneficial for the most fortunate: it compensates them for something that does not justify any prior right to benefits, natural and social features that are neither fair nor unfair; and for the importance it assigns to their expectations.

The most advantaged therefore recognise that the well-being of each person depends on a scheme of social cooperation. And that the voluntary cooperation of all in a social system requires reasonable rules and particular care in improving the situation of the least advantaged. A situation in which there are more than two social groups is more complex.

He shows how common it is when other principles of justice such as fairness are properly applied. In other words, in a perfectly fair organisation, contributions by those who are in the best situation spread throughout the social fabric. In such circumstances, the practical consequences of the DP approach those of the principles of efficiency and average utility, when measured by primary goods.

Nevertheless, these principles do not lead to a continuation of expectations among subjects representing the n groups of a society, for which the DP presents a solution. It tells us that. Idem, p. As well as these benefits, the DP also encourages an interpretation of the principle of fraternity Rawls, , p. A fraternal society is a social union of social unions and does not foresee equality of conditions as a prerequisite and this is, furthermore, not acceptable under the DP.

By joining an association whose members share the same notion of justice, each individual guarantees the means crucial to pursuing their life plans—the principles of justice and fairness provide more favourable conditions to pursuing individual notions of good. Demonstration of stability reveals that individuals have a moral motivation in the first place, a sense of justice, that they are able to act accordingly and that this is not obstructed by any barrier from the theory of human nature.

Egalitarian liberalism therefore seeks to show that, on the one hand, the sense of justice is realistic in psychological terms and dominates over the impulses of certain psychological tendencies such as envy. On the other hand, it shows that fairness and goodness are compatible.

The question remains: are the inequalities permitted by the difference principle enough to incentivise social progress? This progress translates into gains in production, beneficial for the least advantaged group in the form of a supplement to income or wealth. The difference principle stipulates maximising the combination of this material gain with the social bases of self-respect, which in Rawlsian terms is the most important primary social good.

Although it is John Rawls himself, in Political Liberalism , who realises this and takes responsibility for the excessive emphasis on rational choice theory in TJ :.

Here I correct a remark in Theory, p. From what we have just said, this is simply incorrect. What should have been said is that the account of the parties, and of their reasoning, uses the theory of rational decision, though only in an intuitive way. The theory is itself part of a political conception of justice, one that tries to give an account of reasonable principles of justice.

There is no thought of deriving those principles from the concept of rationality as the sole normative concept. I believe that the text of Theory as a whole supports this interpretation. Rawls , II n. It is interesting to see that in the possible variations of the principles of justice—equal liberties, FEO and DP—most of the options at stake are notions of social justice that cover the contemporary ideological spectrum.

We shall seek to explore how these differences can be identified through variation exercises. We will then enter into a discussion about the reasons that lead Rawls to argue for a notion of property-owning democracy POD and that place it on a much more egalitarian footing than welfare capitalism.

Heuristically, it is interesting to note the possibility of differentiating between the great ideological choices of the more contemporary party political framework by observing only its variations in behaviour when dealing with the three components of the Rawlsian principles of justice.

Libertarianism will commit to the principle of liberties and a merely formal principle of equal opportunities that essentially corresponds to isonomy, that is, equality before the law. Its defence is limited to the minimal state, in charge of security and organising the three sovereign powers: legislative, executive and judiciary.

But without a social state to guarantee actual equality of opportunities, and even less so redistributive policies. Under libertarianism, support for the poorest springs from the will of philanthropists. This is largely the regime that Rawls calls laissez-faire capitalism. Nonetheless, these commitments are enough for, further to the minimum functions of the state, there to be a social state that promotes the empowerment of citizens to access opportunities, one that guarantees, for example, a universal right to education.

The fundamental reason why genuine liberalism involves accepting the demand for actual equality of opportunities relates to the central role played by the idea of universality of opportunities in it. It would clearly be illiberal for a society that professed to have freedom of opportunities—classic laissez-faire —while at the same time accepting opportunities to be removed by society. It also implements redistributive policies that can be justified in several ways, including the fact that the FEO itself cannot be guaranteed without a policy, at a particular time, to allow and restrain inequalities.

In the light of this, we shall analyse how close it is to property-owning democracy POD and liberal socialism LS , as defined by Rawls, in contrast with welfare state capitalism WSC. Provided that it is democratic in the sense that it has representative democracy, with a separation of sovereign powers and the rule of law, it undertakes these principles of justice and adds to them another function of the state. As well as guaranteeing fair equality of opportunity and redistributive policies, it considers that the state should have the power to intervene in the economy, limiting the market economy in several ways.

For example, by removing its sphere of influence in particularly sensitive fields, such as areas inherent to the welfare state, public health and education, or strategic production sectors on which the country is especially dependent.

Particularly in the political liberalism stage, where the parties of the contract are representatives of democratic citizens, people who are free and equal with an extensive interest in exercising their capacities of rationality to develop a notion of good and fairness sense of justice.

Rawls, despite concluding on the advantages of a certain egalitarianism with a liberal slant, does so under terms that are debatable in the eyes of anyone who does not identify with that framework.

As if egalitarianism were accidental in a liberal-defensive line of thought Mouffe, However, it is important to clarify something at this point. It is in accordance with this second meaning that the Rawlsian principles of distributive justice take on egalitarian characteristics see Gutmann, , p. By connecting the idea of justice to an egalitarian allocation of social goods, Rawls introduces an important restriction: individuals are treated as equals by eliminating not all inequalities, but only those that favour certain people.

An inequality that is beneficial for any individual, in that it deals with socially useful skills and energies, will be accepted by all. The idea that inequalities that broaden our initial fair share are acceptable and inequalities that hinder it are not is the core of the theory of justice as fairness. Rawlsian egalitarianism therefore demonstrates the social relativity of natural differences between individuals see Cabrita, , p. Can applying the Rawlsian principles of justice overcome the failings of the social democratic welfare state—the accumulation of wealth and worsening inequalities?

This model, which has been most extensively perfected in the social democratic systems of the Scandinavian countries and corroded by the imperatives of globalisation since the last decades of the 20th century, took on a much more demanding social programme than the dualist model.

Presumably, and given the familial association between social democracy and social liberalism in European political language, the attempt to restructure this welfare state model in light of the POD may seem paradoxical. In this sense, it is worth reminding that this regime was idealised by economist James Meade in the s, with the aim of reconciling the diffusion and equalisation of ownership of private property with the growth of state property in the British economy as a whole.

Without lingering on the recent debate on which of the two ideal regimes—the POD or SL—is the most apt for implementing the principles of justice as fairness Edmundson, ; Thomas, , we will focus our analysis on Rawls, who, while not stating preference for one regime over another, puts emphasis on the POD. As a result of this misunderstanding, at the end of the s, the philosopher went into more detail about the characteristics of POD that set it apart from WSC see Rawls, , p.

The conclusion of his reflections on this theme in JF support the proposal made in TJ on the most suitable democratic regimes for applying his principles of justice. Rawls writes:. Both a property-owning democracy and a liberal socialist regime set up a constitutional framework for democratic politics, guarantee the basic liberties with the fair value of the political liberties and fair equality of opportunity, and regulate economic and social inequalities by a principle of mutuality, if not by the difference principle.

Due to the dispersion of ownership of capital and resources, both regimes stop economic and political powers from being concentrated into the hands of a minority. The political side of LS is characteristically pluralist, and its economic side is co-inhabited by a range of independent companies operating in a free market. But, because the means of production and natural resources in this regime are public property, its distributive function is highly limited; on the other hand, the private property system uses prices in different ways to achieve both objectives.

Unlike LS, both the latter regimes allow the means of production to be privately owned, which is more favourable for implementing the DP see Freeman, , p. According to this analysis, what as at the heart of the disparities between the two regimes is the difference in strategy in the provision of justice in the political economy: while WSC accepts a substantial inequality in the initial distribution of property and natural talents as a given and, therefore, seeks to redistribute income ex post , POD searches for greater equality in the distribution of property and natural talent ex ante , with less emphasis on subsequent redistribution measures.

Following the list presented by Freeman , p. While WSC allows monopolies of the means of production by a small class, POD promotes wider ownership of the means of production so that workers can control the real capital and their working conditions as private owners, members of trade unions or worker cooperatives see Rawls, , p. Lying between trade unionism and WSC, POD includes several business management models—from the traditional one, controlled by owners, to the model common in some social democratic European countries such as Germany , co-led by management and workers, and models controlled by workers, such as self-managed cooperatives Freeman, , p.

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