Asymmetrical Information

Maybe it was a literary date...

"Yes, for my entree I'll have the Conrad, and I think I'll start with the Saki appetizer..."

hi mhd,

"but a Liberal, using the true meaning of the word prior to its semantic highjacking by a top secret cabal of neo-statists who were all influenced, at one time or another, by John Rawls."

what exactly is your beef with rawls? is it what brothersjudd asserts?

"In order to accomplish his revolution, Rawls posited a counterintuitive and antihistorical starting point for the discussion of political theory. The great political philosophers, Hobbes, Locke, etc., had used the "state of nature" as the starting point for their theories. In this state of nature, men were assumed to be completely self-centered and dedicated only to their own interests, with the result that life was "nasty, brutish and short" and only the strongest survived. But gradually men tired of this blood sport and entered into a social contract wherein they surrendered some personal sovereignty to a central governing entity, which, in whatever form, would enforce a set of impartial laws in order to protect men from one another. This is a pretty minimalist position, the social contract and the government that it creates serve only to provide a certain level of physical security, leaving men free to pursue their own fortunes and taking no interest in the degree to which they succeed. But it conforms with our intuitive understanding of human nature, our observations of our fellow man and, most importantly, it has proven a workable basis for understanding politics for some 300 years."

i am sorry, but i take exception to this on a number of levels.

first, this reading of hobbes is highly problematic. hobbes makes clear that you give up all your rights to the state (except the right to self-defense against the state if it should turn on you for whatever reason). i would like to know how you can reconcile that with a "minimalist" conception of a state? the state, under hobbes conception has the right to do what it wants--BECAUSE IT HAS THE POWER TO DO IT. and you must obey, if you want to stay in the state of civil society. that hardly sounds minimalist to me. the link has a better case for locke (though there are some problematic assumptions in play that also need unpacking there as well).

this issue of power leads to another issue. hobbes says:

"I put for a general inclination of all mankind a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death. And the cause of this is not always that a man hopes for a more intensive delight than he has already attained to, or that he cannot be content with a moderate power, but because he cannot assure the power and means to live well, which he hath present, without the acquisition of more. " hobbes, leviathan, book one, chapter xi

that desire to avoid death, to survive, only evolves out of this desire to have power. if you are dead, you don't have power; so life and survival is a way to express this desire to keep and enhance power...

versus this from the link

"The classic understanding, basing the social contract on the avoidance of death, is obviously universal, we are all agreed that our own deaths are to be avoided, and, therefore, more sound. "

this issue of power is not addressed by the link that you appear to use as a support for your argument. that is hobbes fundamental assumption--the desire to acquire power, not the desire to avoid death (which is a by-product).

further:

"In order to accomplish his revolution, Rawls posited a counterintuitive and antihistorical starting point for the discussion of political theory. The great political philosophers, Hobbes, Locke, etc., had used the "state of nature" as the starting point for their theories."

the hobbesian social contract is not as intuitive as it might seem. how exactly is it that a we get this society if folks are "seeking power after power unceasingly till death" to paraphrase hobbes. i meet someone, kill them, and then, what? learn? learn what is in my self interest? isn't it more sensible to suppose that folks actually start out willing to cooperate--be it from rational or emotional bases--c.f. theory of sentiments, etc?--as well as having a desire to get what they want by what ever means? sure allow them to have what hobbes says they have--the desire for power--but give them the full range of emotion in which this is expressed. are you driven by fear alone, mdh? do you think that humans have conflicting drives and emotions? that seems to me to be the message from observing my own and others' actions. if you grant that, there is no necessity for a life that is "nasty, short and brutish" even in the state of nature. reason: because the state of society is co-extensive with the state of nature--for human beings. and has been that way since the first folks or their ancestors formed a familial bond. with all due respect, hobbes' thought experiment is just that--a thought experiment--and in many ways quite ahistorical and simplistic. and if it is, then why the beef with rawls for positing another one? especially when on the face of it, hobbes' position can be seen to be as absurd as rawls' position.

rawls' main point--and not one that your link seems to have picked up on, is that rawls is looking for a situation where my liberty is the maximum that i can achieve, consistent with the maximum liberty available to others. that does sound like a liberal position. he thinks he can get there from his thought experiment. there is nothing in your link to argue otherwise with logical necessity.

as for the anecdotal examples that your link uses: please--there are many other folks who would say other than what the link says--they would accept higher level of taxation. this is in contradiction to the claim. and we know this for a fact--in this country (as a minority?)and in other countries which in fact have high levels of taxation. but i do not think that my example is relevant--just as the claimed example offered by the link is not relevant either. to the extent that the link finds it is the case here--that posits some interesting beliefs and mores that have historically evolved--a point that rawls is at pains to want to "level or leave out" through the use of the originary position & veil of ignorance. bottom line: we are not in the originary position, when this survey is asked, so why blame the thought experiment for not complying with this? to the extent that these survey results are based on skewed questioning, well...

i think that there are better critiques of rawls than the one offered by your link. using hobbes' thought experiment to trump another thought experiment is not going to do it.

Yeah, that Willy Stern tale was a real tear-jerker. All the indignities bigots have visited upon suffering Republicans over the years ... forced to sit BEHIND the bus (in a luxury sedan, but still) ... blithely assumed to be members of country clubs across the nation ... often required to consort with common riff-raff (such as strike-breakers) ... o the humanity.

Damon lapses into self-parody, as does this letter writer in Sunday's Des Moines Register:

"We love almost everybody and, unlike Republicans, we're not real haters. They play hardball and we play softball. Democrats need to get tougher, meaner and more contemptible candidates to beat the Republicans at their own game plan."

When you believe that Republicans uniformly arrive at their opinions out of hatred, that they all hang out at the country club, and that they support poverty and discrimination, you show such profound ignorance of conservatives that you are intellectually unarmed. That should comfort me, I suppose, in the short term; long term, I think we are all better off with intelligent and informed debate than with comic-strip stereotypes.

Jane,

I'm sure that Rawls line was not meant to be taken seriously, but just in case... the word "liberal" was "hijacked" long before Rawls. In 1963's "Capitalism and Freedom," Milton Friedman complained of it but Rawls' "Theory of Justice" wasn't even published until 1971.

The "hijacking" actually goes back to the end of the 1800s. Nineteenth century liberalism (from "liber", freedom--thus, e.g., liberty) said that the great danger to human freedom was governments, governments which had traditionally been run by priests and nobles. So the job of the liberal was to cut back the government: disestablish churches, remove tariffs and economic regulations, take away special privileges from the well-born and well-connected.

But, said the hijackers, by 1900 the great danger to freedom was concentrations of private power: trusts and big business. So the job of the liberal became to build up government as a check on business. And as a positive force to improve people's life chances. This was possible because now the government could be run by good and talented people: non-partisan civil servants and educated politicians and their advisors.

Of course, it didn't always work out that way.

There were scads of books and articles at the time detailing why the true liberal now had to support bigger government. Perhaps the most famous in America is Herbert Croly's "The Promise of American Life." W.H. Greenleaf does a masterful job of charting the change in Britain in "The British Political Tradition, Volume Two: The Ideological Heritage" (Methuen, 1983)(which is also surprisingly readable). And Brink LIndsey touches on it as part of the "Industrial Conterrevolution" in his "Against the Dead Hand: The Uncertain Struggle for Global Capitalism" (Wiley 2002), perhaps the best book on "globalization" that has been written.

Roger, it wasn't Jane's post--it was the esteemed Mr. Dreck's.

Jane and Mindles--you might want to reformat the template to add an attribution at the bottom of the post (where most blogs have it) as well as at the top. It might reduce the confusion somewhat.

Actually I think the attribution at the top makes more sense than the conventional 'at the bottom' label. On a blog with multiple authors, isn't it best to know right away?

Yes, but apparently it didn't work in Roger's case...

So, belt and suspenders.

It might also be better if Jane's attribution were more distinctive from Mindles'.

“what exactly is your beef with rawls? is it what brothersjudd asserts?”

You didn’t ask me this question directly, but I will answer it anyway. John Rawls was a warm and well meaning human being---who unwittingly caused enormous damage. I personally considered him perhaps the most destructive thinker in the last half century. It is a mistake to believe that only nasty and hateful people are harmful. A nice person who doesn't have their head screwed on straight is also to be feared.

I am appalled by the economic illiteracy reflected in John Rawls’ writings. He ignored economic theory and failed to comprehend that sharing the wealth is of secondary importance to creating a larger pie for everyone. Rawls' followers used his philosophical premises to support larger government social programs. We are a less wealthier country today because of his silliness.

Interestingly, several dictionaries give an alternate romanization of saki.

It's very weird, since despite being normally correctly romanized to "sake," it's then usually pronounced as if it were romanized "saki" anyway. It's that Great Vowel Shift playing havoc again. (In Japanese it's "sa-kay," not "sa-kee.")

Setting aside the whole "What's your problem with Rawls?" thing, is it clear that the persons now generally referred to as liberals in America ("PGRTALIA", i.e., Democrats other than near-Republicans such as Zell Miller, Greens and those of like persuasion) or their predecessors deliberately appropriated the term "liberal"?

My understanding is that "liberal" was pretty nearly a term of abuse for a long time (i.e., until the mid-20th century); the early PGRTALIA called themselves "Progressives."

Not intending to start a fight here; just curious as a factual matter.

what i find intereting on the comments is that it is all about liberals (i've ignored the comments about rice wine). a classical liberal was tolerant or open minded. it appears now that liberals are orthodox.

"But, said the hijackers, by 1900 the great danger to freedom was concentrations of private power: trusts and big business. So the job of the liberal became to build up government as a check on business."

They also argued that while "freedom from government" as per the ideals of the classical liberals was great, fine, and dandy in principle, in practice it wasn't so good for the *few* who were too weak to take care of themselves and/or too ignorant to know how to do so.

Thus government of course was needed to care for, empower, and educate these souls about what was good for them. With anti-child labor laws, workplace regulation, government-financed public schools, etc., etc.

Initially those who needed such largesse from government in order to become capable of enjoying true liberal freedom from it were chidren, the truly poor, the uneducated, newly arrived immigrants, etc. -- but over time they become an ever growing class ... ever growing ... ever growing ... Now Warren Buffett must get his full Medicare benefits no matter what the implications for the future fiscal insolvency of the nation, because if millionaires are means-tested out of receiving Social Security and Medicare transfer payments from those poorer than themselves the entire liberal social welfare political structure will collapse. But I digress.

Anyhow, this idea that liberalism espouses freedom from government "except when the weak need help" was the little loophole that the giant tanker truck of politics was driven through, carrying the mighty load that in the US eventually mutated "liberalism" into the philosophy of the nanny state with government as comprehensive regulator and giant transfer-payment machine. Although in Europe "liberal" still has much closer to its original meaning.

“Thus government of course was needed to care for, empower, and educate these souls about what was good for them. With anti-child labor laws, workplace regulation, government-financed public schools, etc., etc.”

I have little problem with much of the Progressive movement’s goals of the early 20th Century. It is a very good thing that we outlawed child labor and made work areas safer. The problem is that it’s often very difficult to restrain an increasingly activist government.

Classical Libertarians are far to quick to assert that in the long run many of these problems will work themselves out. Sadly, that attitude does little to address the dangers of those in the here and now laboring in unsafe environments. A viable democracy is always challenged to seek rational compromises and not surrender to extremism.

It's an interesting consequence of democracy that things like child labor (and racist acts, etc.) are outlawed only when they are already largely on their way out, or at least when the tide has already shifted against them. (Child labor because of increased wealth and income.) The reasons, naturally, are obvious.

“It's an interesting consequence of democracy that things like child labor (and racist acts, etc.) are outlawed only when they are already largely on their way out, or at least when the tide has already shifted against them. (Child labor because of increased wealth and income.) The reasons, naturally, are obvious.”

Your point is very valid. I well remember reading about conservatives who warned that our capitalist system would be destroyed if our nation outlawed child labor and unsafe labor conditions. Needless to say, the exact opposite occurred and the lower classes also began to enjoy a bit more of the profits.

Please note that one could argue that the government was merely performing its duty to protect its citizens from harm. These actions were not per se egalitarian measures! You must also be cautious and not jump to the invalid conclusion that conservatives are always self-centered Cassandras. More often than not, their fears are very realistic.

On the historical shift of "liberalism": you need look no further than FDR's Four Freedoms (illustrated by Rockwell) to see the huge shift between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth century. Somehow freedom of speech and freedom of religion were magically equated with "the government must protect us" and "the government must provide our Thanksgiving dinner".

"It is a mistake to believe that only nasty and hateful people are harmful."

Yep. I know it's a canard, but in my experience lefties value intentions much more highly than results. I worked for four years at a public housing authority, and there I lost the last shreds of my faith in statism and welfare. Public housing, on balance, worsens the lives of single mothers and throws their children into the bleakest of situations--a characterization I would have rejected until I saw it with my own eyes. And now when I mention my misgivings about public housing and welfare, lefties are quick to let me know that the problem isn't that public housing doesn't work well, but that I'm a mean person who wants poor people to suffer.

The highjacking took several generations. The disillusionment with free enterprise caused by a failure to understand the origins of the depression. The war alliance with Russia against the Fascists and Nazis, the Spanish Civil War with the good guys in the national front, led to the confusion that the fascists, all of whom were products of the Socialist International, were opposites of the Communists rather than opportunistic splinters from the same political tree. Right went ran from statist capitalism to Fascism; left from social democrats to communists. There were no liberals left, especially in our Universities were local grown newly romanticized left were reinforced by the refugee European intellectuals, from an entirely different philosophical left. They were descendents of Rousseau and Marx, not, Lock, Mill, let alone Burke. They were romantics, not Anglo Saxon pragmatists and they dominated the Universities when the boys returned from the war and, with the GI Bill in hand, entered university en masse for the first time. A large chunk of the American middle class became Europeanized romantics, of course in a flabby friendly liberal arts American way. That left business to defend free enterprise and liberalism, until the democrats imploded over Viet Nam, causing the remaining liberal intellectuals to abandon the Democratic Party, and to support Reagan for which they were called neo conservatives. The Republicans became the broad coalition that included liberals, and the democrats a collection of groups dependent upon, or supportive of the leviathan.

It's a pretty common thing for words to change their meaning over time. "Hijacking" seems an overwrought way of describing the process. Besides, if we're not going to call moderate leftists "liberals" what shall we call them instead? "Socialists" covers too much ground already; "progressives" is tendentious.

Nowadays, about the only time child labor laws are even needed is when they can be used to suppress young entrepeneurs, such as the bicycle repairman whe was charged with the crime of employing himself.

One does not have to be a hard-core statist to maintain that children, at some young age, are incapable of providing the informed consent necessary to complete a contract, thus making it reasonable to have the state regulate such arrangements. What that age is, and how to regulate in a way that recognizes that the age of informed consent will vary greatly from child to child, of course, are very difficult questions.

PJ/Maryland wrote:

On the historical shift of "liberalism": you need look no further than FDR's Four Freedoms (illustrated by Rockwell) to see the huge shift between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth century. Somehow freedom of speech and freedom of religion were magically equated with "the government must protect us" and "the government must provide our Thanksgiving dinner".

Sadly I think you’re right. President Bush actually praised this misnamed “Four Freedoms” on his carrier speech post Operation: Iraqi Freedom.

I wonder if anyone else caught that.

hi david,

"I am appalled by the economic illiteracy reflected in John Rawls’ writings. He ignored economic theory and failed to comprehend that sharing the wealth is of secondary importance to creating a larger pie for everyone."

i would like your opinion on this hypothetical: given the two principles of justice that rawls outlines in his work, would the following be an example of rawlsian justice--

i cut the top rate of taxation by 10%. i cut peoples rates at the bottom end by 11%. let us have some twd dynamic scoring so that the action actually increases the overall pie. so everyone gets more, even if in absolute terms, the poor don't actually receive anywhere near as much as the rich.

do all benefit? is this a just situation from a rawlsian standpoint?

rawls argues that income distribution can follow pareto optimal paths (which shows some understanding of economic principles i think)--in the end, you can get an outcome such that it is not possible to move away from that outcome without making someone worse off.

what exactly is your argument david? the summary you offered above seemed to be very general. could you please put some flesh on it?

“what exactly is your argument david? the summary you offered above seemed to be very general. could you please put some flesh on it?”

Michael W. Jackson wrote a superb work concerning the philosophical premises of John Rawls entitled “Matters of Justice (1986).” He says the following:

“Although Rawls lavishes attention on the distribution of the goods that he regards as primary, the closest examination of his book (A theory of Justice) produces no sign of any discussion of how these goods are produced.”

I agree completely with Jackson’s assessment. And you are obligated to point out any writings whatsoever where Rawls directly deals with the creation of wealth. Can you do so?

hi david,

"I agree completely with Jackson’s assessment. And you are obligated to point out any writings whatsoever where Rawls directly deals with the creation of wealth. Can you do so? "

i do not know jackson's assessment, nor his argument. feel free to outline it for me. before i feel obligated to do anything, i want to know what your argument is to support the very fiery first post you made on this issue. i do not get any real sense that you read my second post. is there a particular reason you do not want to address the hypothetical i gave you?

Mindles H. Dreck:

Richard A. Posner would agree with you, at least in part. I think he would likely leave out the ostensive contempt for Rawls, given Rawls' well-placed quote two pages prior to the one below. I quote from The Economics of Justice by Posner:

The fundamental rights--sometimes referred to as "the liberties of Englishmen"--"consist, primarily, in the free enjoyment of personal security, of personal liberty, and of private property." Blackstone's conception of a free society was close to that of Adam Smith and other "liberals" in the original and nearly forgotten sense of that term: people should be free to behave as they please so long as they do not invade other people's freedom.

“ i do not get any real sense that you read my second post. is there a particular reason you do not want to address the hypothetical i gave you?”

I am not at all satisfied with John Rawls reference to Pareto’s optimal theory. This is not in the least bit sufficient for someone who makes a big deal about equality. He is obligated to spend enormous time on how best to generate wealth---long before placing an emphasis on sharing. John Rawls failed to do so and therefore I have every rational and moral right to ridicule his overall work.

What did Rawls really say that is so original? The Judeo-Christian ethos has long taught that we should be concerned with those less fortunate than ourselves. I am an ex-Catholic who well remembers the nuns reminding me that I was fortunate not to be born in the gutters of Calcutta. No, the big deal concerning the alleged wisdom of John Rawls is simply a matter of the Liberal Harvard “elite” looking for any justification to push large social welfare programs. Needless to add, I concluder that these programs have cause enormous harm to our nation, and perhaps more importantly, to those receiving these welfare transfers. Are you suggesting that you are truly concerned regarding the poor and disadvantaged? If so, why aren’t you investing more time and effort to understand the brilliant insights of Thomas Sowell?

In passing, I might also add that I consider it ludicrous for anyone claiming “ to have earned everything they got in life.” This is only half true. They conveniently overlook the aspect of good fortune which underpins everything.

David: I see you still haven't read Rawls. Am I to take it that you've been concentrating on the Derrida, then?

Jim: That "Warren Buffett/Medicaid" line is getting old. You know the degrading and dehumanising history of means tests as well as I do. Not least, of course, the fact that a means test gives a low-ranking government employee something close to the power of life and death over vulnerable people, and my God do they abuse it. Knock it off.

"David: I see you still haven't read Rawls"

And you have read John Rawls? Where is the evidence?

"Not least, of course, the fact that a means test gives a low-ranking government employee something close to the power of life and death over vulnerable people, and my God do they abuse it"

So you recognize the complete ineffectiveness of government, and your solution is more government. Hmmm.

What curious responses!

David:

>>And you have read John Rawls? Where is the evidence?

Well, the fact that I can spot when you're bluffing about him ought to be pretty convincing.

mj:

>>So you recognize the complete ineffectiveness of government, and your solution is more government.

Wrong on both counts. I recognised the unpleasantness and mean-mindedness of government; I didn't say anything about "ineffectiveness". And the only "solution" I offered was for Jim Glass to knock it off talking about means tests. Do feel free to come back with any other comments, but please bear in mind that I only really feel the obligation to be polite to people who appear to be reading what I write, not to people who pump out canned responses.

A. This article might fit well in Jane's dating tips series: Calling your date an a**hole on the first date is generally discouraged.

B. Let's say, hypothetically, that Dreck went to an old-money, high-end prep school. How is it that he met no Republicans there? Was it a matter of political apathy on campus? Or have the terms of debate at elite prep schools been pulled even further left than at elite northeast colleges?

Alkali writes, "is it clear that the persons now generally referred to as liberals in America ... or their predecessors deliberately appropriated the term "liberal"?

My understanding is that "liberal" was pretty nearly a term of abuse for a long time (i.e., until the mid-20th century); the early PGRTALIA called themselves "Progressives.""

I don't think anyone thought they were "appropriating" the term. They thought they were keeping the ends and just changing the means. New challenges required new strategies. The ends were still a life of personal freedom and dignity. The means were now a powerful, reconstitued government rather than the "anarchy" and "oppression" of unregulated markets.

I think liberal was a pretty positive term for most of the twentieth century. At the turn of the century "progressive" was also a positive term. When Teddy Roosevelt split from the Republican Party and ran for president on the "Bull Moose" party ticket, the official name of the party was the Progressive Party. The presidencies of TR, Taft, and Wilson (1901-1921) are some times referred to as the "progressive era." Progressive, in this sense, usually refers to the idea that laissez-faire attitudes are old and no longer useful. Government is the great problem-solver.

Use of the term "progressive" faded after World War I, leaving the activist government field to "liberal."

Some time in the 1970s in America, there came to be a reaction to the designation "liberal," with many Republicans using it as a term of abuse. Some Democrats did instead take to calling themselves progressives. But I think that's passed. Now people who use the adjective "progressive" a lot tend to be pretty far left.

But what do I know? I couldn't tell Mindles from Jane.

If I understand D-squared correctly, it is intolerably degrading to be required to demonstrate need prior to accessing the violently coercive power of the state in order to satisfy one's material desires. Well, some of us find that degradation preferable to the thuggish actions of those who can provide for themseleves but, due to their membership in a larger of more efficient political faction, choose to use violence to take what others have gained by mutual consent, particularly when those being taken from are much worse off than those doing the taking. There really is no way around it; if it is morally legitimate for Buffet to grab his ice cream server's wages to pay for his social security benefits, then it is morally legitimate for midwestern sugar beet producers to grab the wages of their beet-pickers tosubsizize the producer's lavish lifestyle. In fact, under this reasoning, access to power legitimates any activity, as long as democratic processes are followed. Thus, democracy is fetishsized to the point of moral bankruptcy.

So, to paraphrase d^2:

You have the right to food money.
Provided, of course,
you don't mind a little
investigation,
humiliation,
and if you cross your fingers,
rehabilitation.
Know your rights.
These are your rights!

Did I get it right?

"Jim: That "Warren Buffett/Medicaid" line is getting old."

Medicare line.

"You know the degrading and dehumanising history of means tests as well as I do..."

You're right, I sure do. Soon I'll be degradingly means tested out of college financial aid for my kids. Every year on my tax return I am dehumanizingly means tested out of various deductions and credits because my income is too high. (Where's the earned income credit for *my* kids?) And how many other government assistance programs am I means tested out of? Ouch!

I'm with you -- you're feeling my pain! Let's get rid of these dehumanizing means tests. Let those poorer than me pay more taxes to end my degradation by giving me all these things too. To heck with future national insolvency.

"Not least, of course, the fact that a means test gives a low-ranking government employee something close to the power of life and death over vulnerable people, and my God do they abuse it."

Your concern for the vulnerable billionaires of the world is noted. And I've got to say, this is the first time I've seen the welfare state sold as defending the helpless rich from the abuses of government. ;-)

As for your observation about how government employees so readily abuse their power, we can pick that up the next time the conversation turns to the subject of the regulatory state...

dear mhd,
some folks including myself have raised a number of issues with your post. do you feel like coming out to play?

hi david,

"He is obligated to spend enormous time on how best to generate wealth---long before placing an emphasis on sharing. John Rawls failed to do so and therefore I have every rational and moral right to ridicule his overall work."

i must admit that i am not sure how to respond to this claim. part of me wonders if you are deliberately avoiding examining the ideas that rawls has put forward, and part of me feels that you are very serious about your claim on the basis of jackson's argument.

so, in honour of the second possibility, i will attempt a reply on your grounds. HMRR? how might rawls respond? i don't have my copy of a theory of justice with me, but my memory (and if someone can help me out here, i would be grateful) rawls makes clear in his book that his task is not about the generation of wealth. he is interested in distributive justice. as i say that, i can almost hear you saying: "ah-hah! that is my point! he ignores what i think is crucial to any such argument!" i guess you can say that if you want to, but i would ask you to consider this question before you do:

is neo-classical economics, itself, a discipline that solely looks at efficiency issues? if it is, i guess i will grant your claim on the basis that, if i am a rawlsian, we have no common language to talk about these issues. if economics also looks at issues of distribution, then i think your argument is misplaced. there are plenty of theorists in economics, i believe, who quite comfortably take the level of wealth/production as given and then try to figure out whether such distributions that emerge in such an economy are "just" or "ok" under a given normative set of judgements, given constraints concerning the maintenance of the economy's efficiency.

i happen to believe that economics can accomadate both kinds of research programs. where does this leave rawls. i found it interesting that you didn't want to engage the hypothetical that i offered you. it is actually germane to your claim--would rawls consider it to be a just distribution? under many folks thinking, it will lead to an increase in the overall pie (hi twd!), and thus to wealth creation, which as i understand it, was central to your issues with rawls research program. if you think it is consistent with rawls, in your opinion, i want to know then how you reconcile this with your claim concerning rawls that his work has nothing to say about wealth generation.

"If so, why aren’t you investing more time and effort to understand the brilliant insights of Thomas Sowell?"

i would also appreciate knowing more about sowell, because this is the first time i have heard of him. what would you recommend for us to read exactly, and why? what insight does sowell have, in your view, that would be useful for us to learn more about.

in gentleness

rawls says (ish.. paraphrasing massively): imagine you could be anyone.. how would you want goods distributed? there are 2 answers to this: the one rawls gives assumes that the suply of goods is an exogenous factor isolated from how they are distributed... with these assumptions, you would decide that an equal share for all is best... i would agree with and make this decision if the supply of goods is exogenous and independent

however, the answer where the supply depends on the distribution is much different, under my lights

the main question is: what is natural, what can we expect? communists (all speeds, from rinos faster) say that wealth is natural, and as mattt yglesias does, argues for equal distribution as pareto optimal

but say that poverty is natural (png, despite cultural anthropology class' insistence, looks pretty poor and natural) well then maybe we should try and convinve people to work and make things better

if you don't know people (or are willing to lie) you can claim that people will work just cause they feel like it... but they are just working for other motives... but cash is the most universal and most effective motivator (since it is fungible)... but distribution does affect supply... look at burkina faso or north korea... people are pretty equal there (outside of a few corrupt elites) but burkina faso's people are better off, despite the better technology and materials that north korea has (or had)

why? motivation!!!! at a small level at least, the people of burkina faso can keep what's theirs... they can't get too well off or the elites steal it, but they can feed themselves and become headman of a village or some such... in nk, everybody starves, the military starves less and shoots people who are starving more, and kim jong il drinks hennesy by the case and has women flown in...

so rawls is great, in a closed system with no tehnical development (a full zero sum game), but in a non-zero game, rawls is horrible, because he sends us down the path of poverty and slavery...

yeah matt y and harvard... thank god the b-school isn't completely run by communists (although pretty much)

“so rawls is great, in a closed system with no tehnical development (a full zero sum game), but in a non-zero game, rawls is horrible, because he sends us down the path of poverty and slavery...”

I agree completely with this assessment. Furthermore, allow me to comment on the practical results of John Rawls’ writings. I strongly suspect that at least 95% of his fans are far left of the political center. These folks almost certainly campaign for large government social programs. Does anyone disagree?

“i found it interesting that you didn't want to engage the hypothetical that i offered you. it is actually germane to your claim--would rawls consider it to be a just distribution?”

I concede that you may very well have a valid point. It is possible that John Rawls abstractly theorized that free market remedies might achieve his desired goal of equality. Still, I also concur with (the other Michael) Jackson that Rawls is ultimately a determinist who places little value on merit and virtue. If this is so, A Rawlsian is virtually compelled to advocate for a powerful over centralized government.

“i would also appreciate knowing more about (Thomas) sowell, because this is the first time i have heard of him. “

These following links should be helpful. I consider Sowell to be perhaps the most brilliant scholar speaking about poverty issues living today. So much so, I don’t recall even one instance when I’ve disagreed with him:

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell1.asp

http://www.tsowell.com/

I have a shiny sixpence waiting here on my desk for anyone who can prove that Warren Buffett or any memeber of his immediate family, have made use of state-financed medical services in the last ten years. The UK has non-means-tested free healthcare and had non means tested student grants until not so long ago and is not bankrupt. Means-tested benefits don't work, and non means tested benefits do.

cas, may I offer some assistance?

>>i must admit that i am not sure how to respond to this claim. part of me wonders if you are deliberately avoiding examining the ideas that rawls has put forward, and part of me feels that you are very serious about your claim on the basis of jackson's argument.

The first part of you is closer to being right. Mr Thomson has a naughty habit of pontificating about books he hasn't read (get him onto the subject of Derrida and Foucault one day), and Rawls is a favourite. The reason you get the feeling that he's not really addressing the issues in Rawls can be summarised thus:

1) David hasn't read anything written by Rawls.
2) David hasn't actually read Jackson's critique, but has come across summaries of it and references to it and decided that he basically knows what it's all about.
3) David has read all of Sowell's (IMO, dreadful) popular works but none of his much better scholarly ones.

You're attempting to have an argument with someone who is bluffing. This is the purest waste of time on the Internet.

dsquared, what is your opinion about the Federal Food Stamps program (if you have sufficient familiarity) as a means of satisfying the caloric needs of those unable to provide for themselves? Has means testing in this program rendered it ineffective?

I'm afraid I don't have any familiarity with it at all. The means tested free school meals system, as implemented in the UK when I was a kid, however, was just f***ing barbaric.

Not having your experience, I really cannot comment knowledgeably, although I must note that there is danger in overusing words such as "barbaric", since they then lose their descriptive force when the truly horrific is encountered, which I have had some observational experience with, in various man-made and naturally occurring hell-holes on a few continents. I'm no expert on the Food Stamp program either, but I think it would be misleading in the extreme to say that means testing has made the program ineffective in seeing that calories can be obtained by those in need. Health care, of course, is a much different problem, given that the best health care will always be dependent on extremely scarce technology, and everybody wants the best when their health is at stake; there is no acceptable discount substitution available for the person who is gazing into the jaws of death. To say, however, that means testing for benefits renders ineffective all programs that do so seems to me to be, at the very least, a massive overgeneralization.

hi david,

i took the opportunity to read one of mr. (dr?) sowell's speeches, http://www.tsowell.com/spquestc.html.

interesting read. i know that you admire the man's arguments, but i had some disquieting moments. this is what i mean:

"As Rawls puts it, "undeserved inequalities call for redress."
A fight in which both boxers observe the Marquis of Queensberry rules would be a fair fight, according to traditional standards of fairness, irrespective of whether the contestants were of equal skill, strength, experience or other factors likely to affect the outcome-- and irrespective of whether that outcome was a hard-fought draw or a completely one-sided beating.
This would not, however, be a fair fight within the framework of those seeking "social justice," if the competing fighters came into the ring with very different prospects of success-- especially if these differences were due to factors beyond their control."

and most folks would not see it that way either. i think that is one of the reasons why we have weight classes for such activities, so that big men fight against big men, and small men against small men. what is your intuition on boxing or wrestling, david? do you think weight classes are a needless piece of social engineering? or a necessary set of rules to avoid unnecessary tragedy?

i think one extreme case might cast some light on this point: war. in war, we have a set of "queensberry" rules for its conduct--the geneva convention. most combatants respect them to some degree. nobody really argues that we can supplement them per se. however, one of the interesting arguments is that in war, might makes right. a big country can push a small country around however it pleases. i suspect that a "social justice" approach might argue that doing so is unfair, unless one follows a set of mutually agreed procedures before getting to that point. not using the procedures would be an example of "unfairness or unjustness." in a nutshell, i suspect that many folks, especially overseas see the current administration's war in iraq in this light.

rather than then debate whether the administration was justified or not, i want to relate this to a point that sowell makes further on concerning his autobiography, about the nature of "cosmic justice" (something that is impossible to attain. again from his speech

"Whenever I hear discussions of fairness in education, my automatic response is: "Thank God my teachers were unfair to me when I was a kid growing up in Harlem." One of these teachers was a lady named Miss Simon, who was from what might be called the General Patton school of education. Every word that we misspelled in class had to be written 50 times-- not in class, but in our homework that was due the next morning, on top of all the other homework that she and other teachers loaded onto us. Misspell four or five words and you had quite an evening ahead of you.
Was this fair? Of course not....Instead, they forced us to meet standards that were harder for us to meet-- but far more necessary for us to meet, as these were the main avenues for our escape from poverty "

the consequences of such instances of "unfairness" can have devastating results. if it is war, we can go off and punish mexico as we did in the mid 19th century, or iraq today. or, in terms of sowell's experience, a student can just fail. sometimes, they make out ok, but most of the time, an urban, poor, black male, is likely to find themselves in the grip of a cycle they cannot escape. mr. sowell escaped. i find the following interesting:

"It so happens that I was a high school dropout. But what I was taught before I dropped out was enough for me to score higher on the verbal SAT than the average Harvard student. That may well have had something to do with my being admitted to Harvard in an era before the concept of "affirmative action" was conceived."

maybe it did. i'd like to know how did he go on the math portion? the point here is that mr sowell probably had help somewhere, and not just from ms. simon. and good luck to him. and that help was probably private, rather than state sanctioned. does that make it any better david (if that was in fact the case) than if he had been helped by a state program? and what if he had been helped by a state program? after all, when i read sowell's speech, i get no sense that he acknowledges the level of real help he probably got from folks (given the circumstances he started with). i think you said it best david:

"In passing, I might also add that I consider it ludicrous for anyone claiming “ to have earned everything they got in life.” This is only half true. They conveniently overlook the aspect of good fortune which underpins everything."

one of rawls points is that he wants us to think what a world would look like if we took "good fortune" into account in distributing goods.

hi lua,

a question: when you take rawls thought experiment, what do you conclude? "i do not care! i will take what fate gives me and affirm that, even if i am in a society that looks down on me and gives me nothing--in fact ensures that i never amount to anything at all!" or do you think: "hmm, maybe i would like some constraints on the outcomes i get, because some outcomes are so bad, that even i do not want them."

anyhow, i know that will not satisfy you, because i do not address your issue of motivation. let us put aside the issue that rawls was not primarily directing his research program at the issue of how to assure economic efficiency and the growth of the economy, a point i made earlier. rather he was interested in ways to distribute society's income in ways that we could consider fair and that we could develop intuitions about.

however, in answer to your question of motivation, i ask the following, because your argument is a variant of david's: i invite you to take the same thought experiment on taxation that i invited david to take. if you do, what do you conclude?

also,

"in nk, everybody starves, the military starves less and shoots people who are starving more, and kim jong il drinks hennesy by the case and has women flown in... "

and you think that a rawlsian intuition leads to that? i do not think that a rational society, following rawls' experiment gets you anything like that. this feels like a red herring at best.

"so rawls is great, in a closed system with no tehnical development (a full zero sum game), but in a non-zero game, rawls is horrible, because he sends us down the path of poverty and slavery..."

i do not understand how you leap from your claims re motivation to this statement concerning zero and non-zero-sum games. remember, rawls two principles allow for all folks to actually benefit from a rule change. the second principle holds that:

Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both:

(a) to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged..., and
(b) attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity.

that difference principle is strongly egalitarian i will grant, but it allows for distributions that make both people better off. so the rich can benefit! if you can swing it, then go for it and get a bigger pie! if that is what rawls believes, why does motivation have to destroyed? why can there not be a bigger pie under rawlsian justice?

what think you, lua?

“but most of the time, an urban, poor, black male, is likely to find themselves in the grip of a cycle they cannot escape. mr. sowell escaped.”

The plight of the urban male is exacerbated by the extremely high illegitimacy rates nearing 80% of the black population. White Liberals have encouraged blacks to feel sorry for themselves and indulge in other forms of self destructive behavior. For instance, many inner city black children refuse to study because they fear that their peers will accuse them of “acting white!”

“one of rawls points is that he wants us to think what a world would look like if we took "good fortune" into account in distributing goods”

The inherent difficulty of the well meaning Rawlsian perspective is its deterministic premises. A follower of John Rawls is virtually incapable of addressing the aspects of virtue and individual moral choices. It is not sufficient to merely say “there but for the grace of God go I” when we observe a homeless person eating out of a garbage can. We are also compelled to ask if this sad person is responsible for their own circumstances. Ultimately, in their heart of hearts---all Ralwsians believe that human victims are victims of their environment. Am I right? Isn’t this what you truly think?

“Equality can only be guaranteed by limiting either diversity or freedom.”

---Clay Shirky

http://www.shirky.com/writings/fcc_inequality.html

The above quote hits the nail on the head. A Rawlsian universe would inevitably turn into a Gulag. If nothing else, we must never forget that its a mathematical certainty that in a free society everyone is going to br below average in some respect!

I am also not being the least bit facetious or engaging in reductio ad absurdum reasoning in saying that it’s “unfair” Michael Jordan’s basketball skills are vastly superior to my own. Sigh, this indeed impacts negatively upon my self esteem and sense of worth. What can be done to rectify this “injustice?” It is currently medically impossible to help me to become Michael Jordan’s equal. Thus, the only other thing that can be done is to chop off Mr. Jordan’s arms or harm him in some other manner!

mj: So you recognize the complete ineffectiveness of government, and your solution is more government.

dsquared: I recognised the unpleasantness and mean-mindedness of government; I didn't say anything about "ineffectiveness".

So let me re-phrase mj's comment: So you recognize the unpleasantness and mean-mindedness of government, and your solution is more government. (Not that means-testing Social Security is a good place to bring up this argument; almost every adult American is means-tested when we file our tax returns, and it's the _money_ we mind, not the means-testing. The argument against means-testing SS payments is that it destroys the last shreds of the illusion that SS is a insurance or pension plan rather than a welfare plan.)

And mj, it's extremely silly to call government "ineffective". It's quite effective. Government programs frequently don't have the effect claimed when they are proposed, but they are always effective at providing jobs and power for the people in government.

Consider this: About 5,000 years ago, in a few parts of the world agriculture and other technology advanced to the point that government above the village level became possible. And then most progress stopped right at that point for more than 3,000 years.

So how did we wind up with our vast increases in technology and wealth? The Roman Empire fell. From approximately approximately 400 to 1400 AD, Europeans had governments that were barely distinguishable from bandits. The large-scale technologies of aqueducts and other large "public works" were temporarily lost, but small scale technologies such as iron-working and agriculture seem to have actually improved through the "Dark Ages" (the Romans never made chain mail, and often used slaves instead of horses because they could neither grow fodder affordably nor make an effective draft harness), although economic development was held back by all the banditry. By the time feudalism was finally coalescing into governments that could actually enforce the laws, technology was in the driving seat. Knightly armies had been slaughtered by English longbows and Swiss pikemen, and the only truly effective response turned out to be technological - firearms. And once fire-arms dominated the battlefield, any government that held back technological or economic progress, deliberately or inadvertently (through excessive taxation, or either excessive regulation or lax enforcement of property rights) would soon fall to some nation with more and better firearms...

Which brings us to the present day. Although IMO government regulations and taxation in the USA are far past the optimum point, it seems that we are still one of the most lightly taxed nations and the most lightly regulated of any nation where the government is able to enforce most of it's laws. As a direct result of that, we're also the richest nation overall, have been for most of a century, and since 1945 in military matters the question has never been whether we could win, but whether we were willing to do what was necessary and bear the costs.

I meant, "The real reason against means-testing SS payments is that it destroys the last shreds of the illusion that SS is a insurance or pension plan rather than a welfare plan."

hi david,
thanks for the post.

"Ultimately, in their heart of hearts---all Ralwsians believe that human victims are victims of their environment. Am I right? Isn’t this what you truly think?"

i think that if you are talking about social goods, there is some truth to what you say. if you are talking about inherent human individual talents, then rawls would say that this is something inherent in human beings and needs to be respected, though those with talents might be willing, under the veil of ignorance to legislate for institutions where those with these talents give back to society and to those less fortunate then themselves. aka: first principle of justice.

"It is currently medically impossible to help me to become Michael Jordan’s equal. Thus, the only other thing that can be done is to chop off Mr. Jordan’s arms or harm him in some other manner!"

david, i think you are joking here, right? i know that you are tapping into an interesting debate sparked by nozick's arguments in "anarchy, state, and utopia," but even nozick would find your claim a bit of a misrepresentation of rawls position. so, i am going to treat that as some good natured fun...

actually, as far as i can tell, you really do not have a beef with rawls' major insight--justice demands that--in some way-- we look after/give help to the unfortunate, most especially those who cannot look after/ rationally choose for themselves. your beef is with the way such help is implemented. please correct me if i am wrong, but that is the way that it looks like to me. after all, the homeless person could very well be mentally ill to a severe degree.

your beef is with governments, not rawls per se. there is no requirement, in rawls' theory why the institutions have to be governmental, apart from free rider problems that are likely to come up. potlach, anyone?

Are you sure that you can legitimately restrict John Rawls' premises to purely economic parameters? I am indeed dead serious with my Michael Jordan example. Why should he possess far more athletic talent than myself? What’s “fair” about that?

You seem to misunderstand my point concerning the inescapable dilemma of discerning the moral decisions of individuals who are in an economically difficult position. The Ralwsian position essential assumes that everybody is a victim of their environment. Moral choices and virtue are supposedly not relevant factors to be considered. But this is entirely unrealistic. Unfortunately, I am also unable to play God and therefore when I am occasionally confronted by someone eating out of a garbage can---it is virtually impossible for me to determine if they are victims of bad luck---or mostly responsible for their own predicament. Did this person have a very rough life through no fault of their own, or did they make moral choices resulting in a tough bed to sleep in? A viable society cannot assume that each and everybody enduring tough times is a victim of circumstances! The veil of ignorance is truly that, and that is why John Rawls’ writings are inadvertently pernicious and dangerous.

Am surprised that no one has mentioned Hayek in being vocal in lamenting the loss of the title 'Liberal' to the political socialists (using the term 'political socialist' in its political meaning and not in the connotations that it might have for a university psychology major). Some good commentary here though about how the loss came about. . .

Cas, it seems to me that Potlatch, would be prescient in describing the consequences of Rawls', Theory of Justice, in that it appears that he took little consideration into how wealth in a dynamic society evolves. . . not a static description either, Hernando de Soto's: The Mystery of Capital, being an excellent exposition of some of that.

hi reader,
thanks for the reference, i will have to look it up. as for the rest of the post--a little too obscure for me to break apart. on the dynamism issue, we have covered this in a few posts above in terms of what one interpretation of rawls' project is.

hi davis,
i think rawls would have baulked at your jordan example. can you name me one place in the theory of justice where he considers this sort of example in terms of the solution you offer? your claim is consistent with perhaps a crude utilitarian framework--the greatest good for the greatest number requires that i cut off your arm so we all feel better... part of the reason for rawls' project was because he disliked the way utilitarianism disrespected human dignity. to put it another way, if you were in the original state, under the veil of ignorance, would you agree to a rule that allowed folks to do as you now suggest they could do to m jordan? i think that the large majority of folks would resist your "inclination" to rip off someone's arm. i think, given your reasoning and the way you argue your post, that you would too vote against any such bloody rule.

in other words, david, why do you assume that other folks will not have the same moral sentiment that you do, when it comes to such issues?

cas,

A quibble, perhaps. You say of David's Michael Jordan scenario that he is "tapping into an interesting debate sparked by nozick's arguments in "anarchy, state, and utopia."" I think that concern is much older and more wide-spread than Nozick (1973) or Rawls (1971). I mean the question of how can you have equality in a world where people are inherently unequal.

Some people largely try to deny the question, "People really are pretty much equal; it is simply an unjust society that has made them unequal" (a lot of the energy behind socialism derives from this.). Some try to carve out spheres where equality is required and spheres where it isn't, e.g. everyone gets one vote but their dollar income may vary. Some try to set floors and/or ceilings on the amount of inequality (I would put Rawls "difference principle" here.).

In 1961 Kurt Vonnegut published a story called "Harrison Bergeron" (collected in his "Welcome to the Monkey House"). Vonnegut is, of course, now known as quite a lefty. The story begins:

"The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anyone else. Nobody was better looking than anyone else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anyone else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General."

Everyone must be fitted with buzzers to interrupt their trains of thought so that no one is smarter than anyone else.

George is watching a ballet:

"He tried to think a little about the ballerinas. They weren't really very good--no better than anybody else would have been, anyway. They were burdened with sashweights and bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in. George was toying with the vague notion that maybe dancers shouldn't be handicapped. But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts."

cas,

John Rosenberg's discriminations.us has another example of John Rawls being blamed for a good deal of what ails us in a June 7 entry called "It's a Crock."

“...and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General."

It is a virtual certainty that a society emphasizing equality will have to create a way to handicap the elite. There is simply no realistic way to improve my basketball talent to equal that of Michael Jordan. Thus, it is far easier to damage him in some manner if I’m to have any chance whatsoever against him on a basketball court.

“i think rawls would have baulked at your jordan example. can you name me one place in the theory of justice where he considers this sort of example in terms of the solution you offer?”

I’m sure that John Rawls would have explicitly rejected my offered “solution.” Still, he cannot logically do so. That is why I accuse Rawls of hesitating to take his views to their logical conclusion. And yes, others are more than willing to take those few added logical steps. That is why we constantly hear calls for the redistribution of wealth. Such programs definitely hurt the well to do, but essentially do little to raise the poor out of poverty.

Finally, I notice that you do not touch my objections concerning moral choices with even the proverbial ten foot pole. The John Rawls’ philosophical position inherently treats human beings as total victims of their environment. No consideration is given to the possibility that the individual might be in a bad situation due to their own fault. I may not have been gifted athletically to truly compete with Michael Jordan, but what about the fellow that was simply too lazy to make the necessary effort?

hi roger,
i followed the link--yep, its easy to mischaracterize rawls' arguments, especially since it stands and/or falls as a complete edifice--rawls the systematic thinker.

also liked the vonnegut extract! again, i doubt rawls would touch that one!

hi david,

"I’m sure that John Rawls would have explicitly rejected my offered “solution.” Still, he cannot logically do so. That is why I accuse Rawls of hesitating to take his views to their logical conclusion. And yes, others are more than willing to take those few added logical steps."

i don't think so. rawls CAN REJECT YOUR CHARACTERIZATION because he has a lexigraphic ordering of priority for his principles. to make what you say possible, he would have to privilage the difference principle over the "greatest individual liberty consistent with the greatest liberty of others" principle. he doesn't. you are decrying a distortion of rawls position, not his actual one.

"'1. Each person has an equal right to a fully adequate scheme of equal basic liberties which is compatible with a similar scheme of liberties for all.

2. Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions. First, they must be attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity; and second [the difference principle] they must be to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged members of society.' The principles are lexically ordered, with the first coming before the second and the first part of the second coming before the second part of the second"

http://info.bris.ac.uk/~plcdib/rglos.html has a nice summary of his essential terms.

"Finally, I notice that you do not touch my objections concerning moral choices with even the proverbial ten foot pole. The John Rawls’ philosophical position inherently treats human beings as total victims of their environment."

i did touch on this: i do not agree with your claim re "total victims of their environment." some folks suffer bad luck, and some are as you say--morally dubious actors. and some have a complicated interaction between environment, talent, and circumstances that highly problematize your nice dichotomy between "victimhood" and "non-victimhood." again, i think you raise a straw man of rawls argument to knock down.

cas,

I read Rawls a long time ago so this is probably an ignorant observation...

It seems like 2 could indeed trump 1 because the terms are so general. For example, speech has effects; no one denies that. Indeed, why would we engage in it if we didn't think it had any effects?

I have heard it said that to argue against affirmative action is racist and anti-black, and that racist anti-black speech keeps blacks down. So speech can't be a basic liberty, and indeed, since anti-black speech hurts some people (who are generally less-well-off), it is the responsibility of a just society to suppress arguments against affirmative action.

Chris Betram reports this as an actual exam answer he got:

"According to Rawls it is a matter of pure chance whether I am born into an affluent family or a depraved family."

http://junius.blogspot.com/2003_06_08_junius_archive.html#200399899

Jeez. I just checked in here again. The Rawls remark was supposed to be a humourous parallel to the whole Strauss/neocon cabal thing.

I read Rawls as a Freshman in college. It was one of the first books that fooled me into thinking I could read through my eyelids, if you know what I mean.

It's interesting that comments on Orrin Judd's review (which happened to have been the last thing I had read about Rawls prior to this post) are inserted here instead of his prominently offered comment feature...?

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