[PEN-L:32563] Re: John Rawls

[enilsson@xxxxxxxxx]

RE
> It should be obvious that any philosopher who tried to revive the
> concept of the social contract would have little in common with
> Marxism, which posits social class as the fundamental unit of analysis.

I have an admittedly imperfect understanding of Rawls, and perhaps others
will set me straight. But the above claim seems to me to show a profound
misunderstanding of Rawls.

He was not claiming that we should look at actually existing societies as
if they were the product of a social contract. Rather, Rawls asked "what
would society look like IF it was designed from scratch by people who did
not know what position they would have in this newly designed society
when it came into being." The resulting "social contract," Rawls
suggests, should be the blueprint of the society we should construct.
This society would, arguably, have no classes. This blueprint has NOT
guided the construction of the actual societies we see in front of us
(with classes, injustice, etc).

Eric Nilsson