Abstract

This chapter discusses John Rawls’s conception of property-owning democracy and how it is related to his difference principle. Rawls says that the main problem of distributive justice is the choice of a social system. Property-owning democracy is the social system that Rawls thought best realizes the requirements of his principles of justice. This chapter explains why Rawls thought that welfare-state capitalism could not fulfill his principles and discusses the connection between welfare-state capitalism and utilitarianism. It also clarifies the crucial role of democratic reciprocity and the social bases of self-respect in Rawls’s argument for both the difference principle and property-owning democracy.