Rawls’s boldest claim — that inequality in society is only justified if
its least well-off members fare better than they would under any other
scheme — could provide a lodestar for the protests. Rawls was no
Marxist: this “difference principle” acknowledges that a productive,
free society will be home to at least some degree of inequality. But the
principle insists that if the rich get richer while wages and social
capital of the poor and middle class are stagnant or falling, there is
something seriously wrong.
Now the above is somewhat slight from the mark. Rawls was a redistributionist and his view was to maximize the social and economic benefits to all by taking from the producers and given to the consumers, my words. In my work on Individualism and Neo Progressivism I discussed this in detail. This country was for years a bastion of individualism. This was recognized by de Tocqueville, and most likely was a direct reult of the fact that the immigrants perforce of the vacantness and isolation of the country were forced to be that way, and the result was the strength of this country.
The counter to Rawls was his Harvard colleague Robert Nozick who looked towards individualism.
Nozick establishes his "entitlement" rules for the Lockean distribution of property by the individual.
Specifically Nozick states them as:
1. An individual acquires property via the principle of justice in acquisition is then entitled to that property;
2. An individual who acquires property via the principle of justice in transfer is then entitled to that property;
3. An individual who acquires property via the principle of justice in retribution is then entitled to that property.
These were true elements of individualism. Now the Times continues:
Inequality becomes injustice when the cooperative nature of society
breaks down and a significant segment of the population finds itself
unable to thrive, despite its best efforts. Rawls does not prescribe
particular policies to heal the divide, but structural changes in
campaign financing, the banking system and the tax code are natural
places to begin the discussion. Whatever platform Occupy Wall Street
adopts, Rawlsian principles might help clarify the values of the
movement and navigate it away from divisive or intellectually bankrupt
rhetoric.
"Unable to survive", it hardly looks as if these people are unable to survive, for one wonders who is supporting them now. What significant percent of the population? In many ways the people appear and lost but bound together by a rhetoric that is divisive, lacking focus, and perhaps a metaphor for their own lives, lives without positive self direction, lives rejecting the challenge of individualism. They are children of Rawls, as Rawls was of Marx.
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