ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that in the case of John Rawls's A Theory of Justice, the oversight is sustained, at least in part, through making certain assumption regarding the economy. Specifically, the inquiry concerns Rawls's reasoned case for his first principles of social justice and claims that there Rawls takes it as given that the economy is perfectly competitive. The end-state notions of economic competition, such as found in Rawls, arise more from a commitment to the principle of efficiency as a key tool in theory building, rather than a commitment to find abstract but plausible notions of the economy. In the end-state conception of competition, the focus of attention is on the nature of the equilibrium state in which the contest between market traders is finally resolved. To understand better distinction between views of market economy in terms of end-state equilibriums and as an ongoing process, it is helpful again to turn to Mark Blaug for his development of distinction.
