ABSTRACT
The struggle over economic and political justice has, of course, been a central force in human history. To avoid confounding country differences with differences in data collection procedures, we attempted to employ standardized procedures in all countries. The International Social Survey Program (ISSP) contained modules on the related topic of beliefs about inequality in its 1987 and 1992 surveys. Special attention is given to the question of why political theory, as in the work of such political philosophers as Rawls and Walzer, should pay attention to what surveys such as the ISJP tell us about what the people think. The existence of common measurement structures across countries offers strong evidence of the equivalence of measurement on key constructs. Scholars often made assumptions about what common people think but for the most part they argued for the justice of economic or political institutions on rational or moral grounds.
