On Well-Ordered Societies Fulfilling the Difference Principle

Abstract

Rawls asked himself “When a regime works in accordance with its ideal institutional description, which of the five regimes satisfy the two principles of justice?” He eliminated regimes (a) to (c) because he felt that they violated the principles of justice from the outset and concluded: “this leaves (d) and (e) above, property-owning democracy and liberal socialism: their ideal descriptions include arrangements designed to satisfy the two principles of justice (ibid., p.138)”. However, Rawls did not provide any positive or convincing proof to demonstrate that the second principle was indeed satisfied within (at least) these two regimes. Indeed, his theoretical explanation is far from satisfactory, “Suppose that x1 is the most favored representative man in the basic structure. As his expectations are increased so are the prospects of x2, the least advantaged man. In Figure 1 let the curve OP represent the contribution to x2’s expectation made by the greater expectations of period. x1The point O, the origin, represents the hypothetical state in which all social primary goods are distributed equally. Now the OP curve is always below the 45-degree line, since x1 is always better off. Thus, the only relevant parts of the indifference curves are those below this line, and for this reason, the upper left-hand part of Figure 1 is not drawn in. Clearly, the difference principle is perfectly satisfied only when the OP curve is just tangent to the highest indifference curve it touches. In Figure 1 this is at the point a ([1], p.46).”