Rawlsian Justice and Preferences over Work

Abstract

Rawls's assertion that the specification of property rights over the means of production is not determined by the theory of justice is shown to rest on shaky foundations. His account of the subjective circumstances of justice, which serve as an empirical constraint on the deliberations of those in the original position, is shown to reflect neoclassical economic theory in which preferences over work are excluded from welfare analysis. As a result, those in the original position are concerned only with the distributive outcomes of the basic structure, and not at all with its form in terms of the modalities of ownership of productive assets. This in turn is shown to conflict with Rawls's professed methodology, in which constraints are not to be placed upon the conceptions of the good held by those in the original position. There is, however, very little scope for Rawls to amend his argument on this point without compromising the integrity of the whole. Hence, there is no good reason to exclude property rights over the means of production from consideration in the liberal theory of justice.