PART THREE: REVISITING JOHN RAWLS
In a New York Times editorial on November 7th, David Brooks draws a revealing portrait of the authoritarian personality, describing Trump, Xi Jinping, Benjamin Netanyahu, Narendra Modi, Victor Orban, and others as part of “the global authoritarian wolf pack”.
In the minds of the authoritarian wolves, history is a Manichaean struggle. It’s not between left and right or rich and poor; it’s between the warriors and the weenies. The warriors see themselves as the strong ones, the men and women of steel, the masters of aggression….there’s a hint of the wild animal to them: no rules, no limits, just the law of the jungle. (Brooks, “Imagining What’s in Trump’s Brain.” New York Times, November 7, 2025)
As Brooks has it, they are “predators who are ravaging the world.” These social Darwinists believe they were born belonging to the class of the “fittest” and therefore have every right and even responsibility to assert power over others.[i]
On the other hand, in A Theory of Justice, John Rawls argues for beginning from an “original position” in which we cannot know into what circumstances or biological advantages (or disadvantages) we will be born. It is a matter of chance, not destiny, and certainly not of our own merit.
Rawl’s theory of "justice as fairness" recommends equal basic liberties, equality of opportunity, and facilitating the maximum benefit to the least advantaged members of society in any case where inequalities may occur. Rawls's argument for these principles of social justice uses a thought experiment called the "original position", in which people deliberately select what kind of society they would choose to live in if they did not know which social position they would personally occupy. (“John Rawls”, Wikipedia)
In other words, Rawls advocates a position and a political philosophy precisely the opposite of social Darwinism. If we did not know the gifts, handicaps or social circumstances into which we would be born, what kind of society would we want to create? Imagine, for instance, that you were born with middling intelligence into a dysfunctional family in an impoverished environment. Would you not prefer a society that would provide the best opportunities for you to enjoy “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” and to escape from the miseries of your beginnings– rather than a society that would discard you as not worthy of any societal investment, or as “unfit to survive”?
From a Judeo-Christian perspective, the social Darwinist approach is diametrically opposed to the biblical values of uplifting the poorest and neediest among us, and the call to a community of justice and mutual care. Buddhism and Hinduism also stress compassion, non-harm to all living things, and spiritual equality, and Islam emphasizes universal equality before Allah.
In this view, human equality does not mean denying our inherent advantages and disadvantages – the inequality of our birth and circumstances. It means that we have an equal right to the goods of life, and that the best society is that which provides and promotes the opportunity for a worthwhile and happy life for every member. Sometimes this has been termed “equity” rather than “equality.” However, I fear this term has sometimes been used to justify gross inequality.
As a society we can do much better. As Barack Obama might have it, what we need is the “audacious hope”- and determination - that the more advantaged members of society will choose to protect and promote a good life for the least advantaged. Unfortunately, although we have at times embraced this challenge, we are far from that ideal in American society today.
From Theory to Practice
To return to the pragmatic considerations of today’s political environment, what stance can both address the deep-seated and thorny issues of creating a more just economic system, AND be politically palatable to a significant majority of Americans?
I do not believe there is a real dichotomy between a “centrist” and a “progressive” vision in the U.S. today. Many voters from both parties and from both ends of the socio-economic spectrum are looking for serious change. It’s not just a Mamdani phenomenon. It is also the many workers and young people across the U.S. who come out to see Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Elizabeth Warren, although some of them have been Trump voters. There is a difference between a bold, truthful, in-depth approach, and a cautious, “cosmetic” approach. We can no longer just fix things at the edges. As David Brooks wrote recently,
The Democrats’ challenge is that they have to adapt to a new historical era. That’s not something done by working politicians who are focused on fund-raising and the next election. That’s only accomplished by visionaries and people willing to shift their entire worldview….It’s the work of decades, not election cycles. Clear your mind. Think anew. (Brooks, “The Democrats’ Problems are Bigger Than You Think”, New York Times, June 5, 2025).
While I suspect the solutions needed are somewhat different than what Brooks would suggest, he is right to identify the need for a profoundly new vision. Trump’s continued support in the last election relied heavily on the notion that he would introduce radical change to the status quo, and despite the wrecking ball nature of his approach, it still has its adherents.
In the end, it comes down to what kind of a society we want to be: an individualistic consumerist society in which the relatively few at the top of the income/wealth spectrum are the “winners” who dominate the other 99% by money, power, and status, or a communitarian society in which the individual contributes the best of his talent and abilities to the good of the community in proportion to those abilities, and individuals receives at a minimum, the education, opportunity, healthcare, housing and food that allow them to thrive.
Many working and middle-class Americans rightly feel that the system has not been working for them. For many, even a middle-class income has not provided them with adequate security when a medical crisis hits, or a job is lost, or a disaster occurs. These are the vast majority of Americans to whom Democrats need to speak. But the message they need to hear is the truth about how and why they have fallen behind, and a vision of how we can restore a more egalitarian society.
I recently saw a proposal for reining in excessive CEO salaries that I found compelling. I have pondered how we could address this significant injustice given our current market atmosphere. The “Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act”, offered by a group known as “Patriotic Millionaires” proposes an increase to the corporate tax rate based on CEO-to-median-worker ratios. It would begin at .5% increase for those that pay their CEO’s 50 to 100 times that of their median worker. It would top out at 5% for companies that pay their CEO’s 500 or more times their median employee. (Patriot Millionaires @actionnetwork.org). While it seems unlikely to gain traction in a Republican Congress, it is the kind of practical proposal that we need to seriously entertain.
In Western Europe we have numerous examples of social democracies that have been relatively successful in reducing inequality and increasing life satisfaction. We can learn from them. Yes, it’s the work of decades, but to be believable, it must begin with some dramatic changes in the very near future. These include down-to-earth changes such as affordable, high-quality child-care, social housing widely distributed in affluent areas to reverse economic and school segregation, higher pay for teachers, greater job security and/or job retraining, universal health care, and other elements of the social safety net. However, to pay for these, it is also essential that we rein in the ways that the excessive, unregulated pursuit of individual wealth has warped our economic, political, and educational institutions and made our social fabric threadbare.
Editors Note: Revisiting John Rawls is the third in a three-part series.
In Part One (How Unregulated Capitalism is killing Democracy) of this series, we discussed the how the growing inequality has impacted eighty percent of households in the U.S. and particularly those in the bottom half of median income. The concentration of wealth in the top 10% of households has disturbed our educational outcomes both because of the economic stress on lower income households, and because of the structural effects on our economy. The inequitable distribution of income and wealth has meant a tax system that provides inadequate funding for education, and has devastated the social safety nets for families. It has also created economic segregation in our schools. As a result, our public education outcomes are troubling, our civic literacy is abysmal, and our democratic institutions are faltering.
In Part Two, (Can a Capitalist Society Be Equitable?) we looked more closely at the ways in which unregulated capitalism has failed our society and threatens our democracy. While carefully regulated capitalism can provide healthy incentives for effort and innovation, the breakdown of a regulatory framework is simply a recipe for exploitation and greed by the few. A just economic system can only be revived by leaders who recognize the dangers of unbridled capitalism and who are unafraid to propose bold action to limit the power of wealth and reinstate the guardrails and safety nets of a social democracy.