3
Introduction:
Late in his life, John Rawls engaged in a re-evaluation of the main ideas of his A
Theory of Justice, published in 1971. If he were to write it again, he suggested, he would
handle two things differently. The first would be the way he presented his argument in
favor the two principles of justice. The second would be “to distinguish more sharply the
idea of a property-owning democracy … from the idea of a welfare state.”
2
Unlike a
welfare-state, whose basic institutions are designed to “assist those who lose out through
accident or misfortune,” the basic institutions of a property-owning democracy attempt,
using progressive taxation and relying on competitive markets, “to disperse the
ownership of wealth and capital, and thus to prevent a small part of society from
controlling the economy and indirectly political life itself.”
3
For those familiar with Rawls’s writing after A Theory and with the voluminous
commentaries about it, there are two reasons why the second proposed revision might
come as a surprise. First, Rawls’s writings and particularly his theory of justice were
commonly understood as the most sophisticated philosophical defense (or even an
“apologia”) for the welfare-state; not as a critique.
4
Second, the ‘idea of a ‘property-
owning democracy’ plays a central role neither in A Theory of Justice nor in the
commentaries about it. In the Theory, it appears almost as an afterthought somewhere in
the middle of the chapter which outlines the economic institutions that fulfill the
requirements of the two principles of justice (guaranteeing equal basic rights and
allowing economic inequalities only to the extent that they benefit the welfare of the least
advantaged members of society).
5
There, referring to the work of the economist James E.
Meade, Rawls suggested that the regime corresponding to the two principles of justice is
Convention