Rawlsian; A New Theory

Kangas, Olli. "Distributive Justice and Social Policy: Some Reflections on Rawls and Income Distribution." Social Policy and Administration. Blackwell Publishing, December 2000. Web. 2 November 2011.

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In the article, "Distributive Justice and Social Policy: Some Reflections on Rawls and Income Distribution", Olli Kangas demonstrates the importance of an unequal income distribution in the United States. He opens his article stating that justice should be the most important and central focus in our country when it comes to income distribution. Although, it is certainly not. Kangas focuses on an idea called "Rawlsian", which is an idea that was developed by John Rawls is known as, "the most reasonable principles of justice are those everyone would accept and agree to from a fair position." He mentions many factors in John Rawls theory and specifically goes into detail about the fact that income differences are merely acceptable in our country. He states, "it causes the less fortunate to work harder and that the national wealth is increased more rapidly and the increase will gradually diffuse also to the worse-offs." He says that we may not be able to choose where we grow up, but we can change the circumstances that we are in. The Rawlsian idea is based on fairness, and Kangas makes a point to state that John Rawls ideals are correct because it shows that anyone can improve circumstances if they work harder to, and that our country is an example of giving opportunity to the people struggling from poverty. As a person who believes in this theory, Olli Kangas' purpose for writing this article was to "demonstrate the ideal society where the incidence of poverty is low, differences in the level of living between life cycles are small, income differences between the rich and poor are modest, income mobility from poverty to non-poverty is high, and where the living standard of the poor is decent."

Olli Kangas has an idea that anyone can make it in our country if they try hard and are given opportunity. This relates back to my research question because it basically states that people should be considered no matter what financial state they may be in. His article demonstrates that although many people may be 'worse-offs', they should be provided with the opportunity to make better of their lives. He thinks that our country has done a well job of giving people struggling with financial issues opportunity. This article demonstrates the ideal income gap where the rich and the poor should be as close together on the income scale as possible. My research question relates to the income gap because of the major differences financially, between the rich and the poor in our day and age. Although this article does not have an opinion on whether or not the rich should be allowed to hold jobs when it affects the lower-class, it does focus on the fact that their is a definite problem with the wide income gap between the rich and the poor and something should be done in order to keep our country as poverty-free as we can.