ABSTRACT
The Closed Commercial State published in 1800 has received little attention in the English-speaking world. This neglect is exemplified by its omission from a history of distributive justice in which John Rawls an American moral and political philosopher. He credited with being the first philosopher to define clearly the modern notion of distributive justice. The Closed Commercial State also exhibits the following essential features of the modern notion of distributive justice of which Rawls is said to be the first real exponent. The issue of distributive justice concerns the identification of principles according to which certain goods ought to be distributed, with the legitimacy of any given pattern of distribution being held to depend on whether or not the pattern in question accords with these principles. In short, the scope of distributive justice is restricted to the members of the same closed economic, legal and political community.
