Discussion about this post

User's avatar
JustAnOgre's avatar

I dunno whether I read Rawls right, but Rawls seems more radical than Marx. For Marx, the worker deserves the full value of the work they are producing, does not deserve one cent more, does not have a valid claim to anything else. It is libertarian self-ownership with a particular twist.

Rawls's model presupposes communism instead of arriving to it. It presupposes that the entire wealth of society is held in common, and thus we might choose any particular distribution of it. It has no account of individual property rights. It also has no account of people actually deserving something or not.

Expand full comment
Nicholas Gruen's avatar

I agreed with the thesis of the book — that liberalism offers an attractive way of life, but I found the book marred by its academic framing.

And the second paragraph of the book felt the need to repeat itself within a couple of sentences.

"I am not a religious man, and even so I still wasn’t prepared for what greeted us. The beach and surrounding area were packed with thousands and thousands of partyers. It was beer, bikinis, Santa hats, and tattooed flesh as far as the eye could see. As I said, I’m not religious, nor I should add prudish, but …"

Expand full comment
3 more comments...

No posts