ABSTRACT
In the first section of this chapter, I attempt very briefly to sketch an underlying or root idea of economic justice, the origins of which can be found in Locke. And I claim that this same idea can be found in both Adam Smith and Marx. The second section turns, then, to the accepted understanding of Rawls’s second principle of justice, in particular, to that part called ‘the difference principle’ or sometimes the ‘maximin’ principle-that is, to the part which requires the maximal well-being of the worst-off group. In this section I attempt, first, to provide the main lines of Rawls’s justificatory reasoning (on contractarian grounds) in favour of this principle and, second, to show that his principle, as seen in the light of this reasoning, incorporates the root idea developed in the first section.
