No abstract

Recent scholarship has considered the requirements of justice and economic regimes in the work of John Rawls. This work has not delved into the requirements of justice and liberal socialism as deeply as the work that has been done on property-owning democracy. A thorough treatment of liberal socialism and the requirements of justice is needed. This paper seeks to begin to fill this gap. In particular, it needs to be shown if liberal socialism fully answers the requirements of justice better than property-owning democracy. It will be argued that liberal socialism does significantly better in realizing the two principles. This paper has the following structure, first, an overview of Rawls' position on economic regimes, capitalism, and the requirements of justice will be presented. In particular, how the two principles work in tandem to meet the demands of distributive justice will be considered. Second, a review of property-owning democracy will be conducted. Finally, liberal socialism will be examined and discussed as an economic regime that answers the requirements of justice more fully.as "an alternative to capitalism" (Rawls 2001, 135-136). David Schweickart provided an earlier criticism of Rawls' supposed embrace of capitalism (Schweickart 1978). When Schweickart reappraised and reaffirmed his criticism of Rawls' agnosticism in the distinction between propertyowning democracy and liberal socialism, he noted that in the days before the publication of the revised edition of A Theory of Justice and Justice as Fairness it was commonplace for people to assume that Rawls was defending a version of welfare state capitalism in his theory of justice as fairness (Schweickart 2012, 201).

G.A. Cohen's critique of the Rawlsian difference principle points out an inconsistency in its presentation. The initial equality decided by the participants in the original position under the veil of ignorance is not preserved by the inequality sanctioned by the difference principle. Cohen shows how the breakdown of the initial equality of the original position prevents the desired results of the Rawlsian system from being realized. Cohen argues that an egalitarian ethos is required within a society for equality preserving economic distributions and Paretosuperior outcomes to occur. Nonetheless, Cohen's analysis of Rawls misses the ultimate cause of inequality, which is the dynamics of capital accumulation. An egalitarian ethos is only possible if there is a socialist mode of production to facilitate its development. Additionally, Cohen's critique of Rawlsian constructivism through an argument for intuitionism does not address the natural-material existence of human beings. This existence must be considered for any advantageous social formation.

Rawls' consideration not to include the choice of economic systems as part of a theory of justice is inconsistent with his comments on redistribution and the political effects of economic inequality. When Rawls' discussion of economic systems, and his discussion of economic inequalities are examined, it is apparent that the selection of economic systems is a pertinent topic for a theory of justice. The propensity for the primary social good of selfrespect to be satisfied can be affected by the selection of economic systems. Rawls has incorrectly determined the selection of economic systems to be unimportant if different economic systems can be more advantageous to the satisfaction of self-respect than others. When socialism and Rawls' version of regulated capitalism are compared socialism is a maximin solution, and accordingly will be selected by people within the original position under the veil of ignorance.

G.A. Cohen attempts to provide a case for socialism that takes into consideration the reasons why socialism is desirable and some of the problems for its feasibility. He finds that the kind of community sentiment that socialism requires is possible, but the devices of social organization that can facilitate the growth of socialist sentiment along with the effective transmission of information are not currently known. In short, Cohen thinks social scientists and philosophers need to find out how to harness the information transmission capacity of market exchange without the motivational encouragement of rapacious self-interest that market exchange fosters. This paper argues that Cohen's appraisal of the ineffectiveness of informational transmission in socialist planned economies in incorrect. A democratically planned socialist economy can serve as the basis for the fostering of the socialist community sentiment that Cohen advocates along with the required transmission of economic information.