Distributive Justive/ Rawls vs Capitalism

Brian Bieber

March 4, 2013

DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE:

RAWLS VS. CAPITALISM

Distributive justice addresses the fair and equitable distribution of goods in a society. We have all heard the concerns of the Wall Street bankers and huge corporate CEO’s that collect millions of dollars in bonuses while many people in the country are barely making ends meet working for minimum wage. When talking about salaries, how much is too much? How little is too little? This paper will address these questions.

According to the MERRIAM-WEBSTER DICTIONARY, the definition of distributive justice is as follows:

the justice that is concerned with the apportionment of privileges, duties, and goods in consonance with the merits of the individual and in the best interest of society (1)

This paper will be based on this definition, specifically “the merits of the individual and in the best interest of society.” Even though our country is based on the belief that all men are created equal, we are not. Some are born with specific talents others lack, some are born into wealthy families, some are born with higher I.Q.’s, some are born with mental or physical disabilities. We are not all created equally, but does that mean we should not all be treated equally or have equal opportunities in life?

John Rawls was an American philosopher who gave us the idea of the original position of veil of ignorance. In the original position, he assumes that society as a whole, will be able to determine what the fundamental governing principles of a society will be.(2) Rawls contends that people in the original position would be more apt to choose to maximize the minimum that you would receive. (2) That is, if a person had a 1 in 10 chance of being noble, and a 9 in 10 chance of being a servant, he would choose make life as a servant as tolerable and fair as possible.

Although many of Rawls teachings are used as a basis for basic business...