Chris Bertram — Teaching Rawls after Piketty

Weekend Reading:

I’ll permit myself to share a few thoughts that I had about the way in which reading Piketty might impact on teaching political philosophy, and, specifically, teaching Rawls and the difference principle.

A Theory of Justice came out in 1971 and was composed during the period the French call the trente glorieuses . During that period it was easy to believe that the power of inherited wealth had melted away and that we were living in a new era of more equal opportunity, with careers open to talents and income inequalities largely explained by the differences in talent and ability that the parties in the original position were denied knowledge of. To be sure, 1960s America (like 1960s Europe) hadn’t accomplished that social-democratic meritocratic ideal, but it was kind of visible in embryo, waiting to be born. Rawls’s book took us way beyond that, challenging the glib assumptions about desert that the winners flattered themselves with, but in its toleration of some inequality for the greater good (and particularly for the benefit of the least advantaged), Rawls’s view was recognizably connected to a then-emerging social reality.

Today things look very different. What we thought would be normal—widely spread prosperity, reduced income inequality, and constant growth—has been replaced by the world of the 1 per cent (indeed of the 1 per cent of the 1 per cent). Accumulated wealth and capital ownership in the hands of the few, which never completely went away but retreated into the shadows, is back and (if Piketty is right), threatens to subject us all to the dominance of a new rentier class if we don’t do something pretty drastic fairly soon.

I suspect, though, that the teaching of Rawls hasn’t really moved on in the light of the new social reality.

Crooked Timber

Teaching Rawls after Piketty
Chris Bertram