Samuelson against “Rawls’s gratuitism”: some lessons on the misunderstandings between Rawls and the economists

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Soon after the publication of A Theory of Justice, Rawls found himself swept up in the huge wave of enthusiasm his work had elicited from economists, while also having to respond to major critiques. Among the latter we find a largely unknown piece by Samuelson, a giant in the world of economics, devoted to a central question of Rawls’s framework, namely the maximin, which he supplemented with several virulent letters strongly attacking Rawls’s notions of justice or fairness. A few years later, in a paper written in response to Arrow’s 1985 Tanner Lectures, Samuelson would dedicate a section to “Rawls’s Gratuitism,” caustically remarking that “if something true by definition is a ‘truism,’ then we may perhaps call something gratuitous a ‘gratuitism’.” Focusing on the dialogue between Rawls and Samuelson after A Theory of Justice, paying special attention to their correspondence, the paper aims to shed light on the reasons for Samuelson’s furore against Rawls’s maximin, and to draw some lessons concerning the complex dialogue between Rawls and the economists, both as regards the attitude of the economists towards Rawls and as regards Rawls’s position towards economists and the economy.