ABSTRACT
Opposed to von Hayek and Nozick stands John Rawls, whose Theory of Justice provides a detailed exposition of, and justification for, the interventionist state committed to distributive justice. In essence, a society will be ‘just’ if it is organised according to principles established by all its members in the ‘original position’ behind a ‘veil of ignorance’. Suffice to note here that the ‘original position’ and ‘veil of ignorance’ relate to a stage of decision making about constitutional arrangements wherein the participants know nothing of their own personal attributes and wants and little of the society in which they live. They will accordingly choose principles of justice which are not selfinterested but based on maximising the position of those persons (of whom the decision maker may turn out to be but one) who are in the least enviable position in society. The principles which they will choose will be, first, the priority of liberty for all, subject to the need to redistribute goods in society in order to improve the lot of the ‘worst off’.
