ABSTRACT
The problem of justice is a problem of how that joint product is shared, allocated, or distributed, or of how the rewards of cooperative activity are imputed to those who have contributed to such activity. Rawls builds in a highly illiberal premise into his theory of justice by foreclosing the exit option. The Rawlsian enterprise rests on the idea of the "fair distribution" of a joint product. The choice to close off exit options in the specification of the choice situation of the social contract is supposed to produce fundamentally liberal conclusions. But it violates at the outset a fundamental liberal principle, the principle of exit rights and freedom of movement, and important elements of the liberal tradition, that is cosmopolitanism and internationalism. Rawls's attempt to justify a redistributive state can only succeed by rejecting such fundamental liberal precepts as the right of exit and the universality of principles of justice.
