Ali Neden
inequality that some individuals are better off at the start of their life due to historical events justifiable? Many modern theorists have argued that it isn’t justifiable. The Communist Manifesto states that all entitlement and inheritance laws were to be abolished. John Rawls also agrees with this as his ‘original position’ and ‘first principle’ of justice are ahistorical. They both argue that external factors such as the family you are born into should have no effect on your life. They argue that this leads to the sustained difference in society between the rich and poor, and that all aspects of society from healthcare to education restrict the freedom of movement of individuals from rich to poor and vice versa. They would also argue that wrongdoing done in the past should be rectified in the present; that the inequalities faced by members of the society that have been cause by other members of society should be fixed. In defence of not rectifying the wrongdoings, many have argued that it is difficult to decide how much certain people are owed and what would be their exact position in life if the injustice had not have occurred. These arguments can also be applied to the third inequality, the inequality of opportunity. In a natural state, all individuals are born into different opportunities. They are either born into rich families or poor families and these effect opportunities. This individual would receive merit in society both on his inborn talents and on the opportunities he has had. Marxist theory argues very strongly from an egalitarian viewpoint that all individuals in a society should receive the same opportunity in order to avoid historical factors affecting merit in society, that all historical factors should be removed, in order to remove inequality.
should a state seek to eradicate these inequalities?
John Rawls writes very well on this point. He argues that inequalities in a society can only be justifiable if it benefits the neediest in society; this is called the difference principle. He would argue that the richer members of society have a moral obligation that perhaps should be forced by law to contribute more to improving the lives of the neediest, thus lessening inequality. He would also argue that a government should have a maximum ideology that the maximum effort should be used to benefit the neediest in society, for example, the welfare state. Marxist theory also provides a response to the inequality and believes that it can never be justifiable. It argues that a state should have maximum power to enforce regulations that are supposed to lead to equality for all. By eradicating entitlement, nationalizing healthcare and education and have a central distributive justice and media/transport system, it sought to eradicate inequality. By getting rid of entitlement, Marxist theory means that almost all members of society are born without property. This means that all have equality in their opportunities, certainly by nationalizing healthcare and education (and by ‘nationalizing’ I mean making it all uniform and the same for all members of society). The theory had also eradicated inequality in opportunity, that no individual can achieve more in life because of education or because he can afford healthcare. By centralizing the justice system, media and transport systems, the theory removes equality in opportunity, in media attention and that everyone has to use the same transport, thus lessening inequality. However, although it claims to eradicate inequality as inequality is not justified, it only creates more inequality. Having a central system means that most will not benefit from the central system but an elite few will have
How then, seeing that these inequalities exist either justify or resolve them? To what extent
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