Rawlsianos a fuer de hayekianos

David Gordon ha escrito para The American Conservative un excelente artículo sobre John Rawls, su filosofía, sus críticos y sus simpatizantes desde el campo liberal, que él denomina "rawlsekians". Gordon, liberal de vastísimo bagaje intelectual y veterano en el movimiento, es editor y crítico del Mises Review.

El artículo vale la pena por su clarificadora síntesis de los principios de Rawls, por compendiar las críticas más devastadoras contra su tesis, por explorar las posibles conexiones de la teoría rawlsiana con Hayek y con el liberalismo, por mencionar algún cotilleo sobre Rawls y Nozick, por psicoanalizar a Rawls en relación con su fijación por el concepto de "suerte", y por reflexionar sobre su futura preeminencia u olvido. Es una aproximación a Rawls muy honesta e insructiva.

One might think that an unrestricted free market best promotes the interests of the least well off class. If so, the difference principle will forbid any egalitarian redistribution of wealth or income. Raymond Geuss, a disciple of Theodor Adorno stationed at Cambridge, has denounced Rawls for this reason. Can one not use the difference principle, he asks, to justify any degree of inequality? Rawls himself does not interpret his principle this way, but his theory does not rule it out. The Rawlsekians interpret the difference principle in exactly this fashion. (Incidentally, one writer who thinks Rawls can be read in a way consistent with conservatism is the philosopher’s son, Alec Rawls, though he has so far not published much on this topic.) (...)

The Rawlsekians believe that Rawls’s notion of choice behind the veil of ignorance is a good starting point for political philosophy. They argue that libertarian principles would be chosen in the original position. But the convergence between Rawls and Hayek can be looked at from the other direction. Hayek, a great Austrian economist and one of the greatest classical liberals of the 20th century, was not altogether opposed to the welfare state. Much to the distress of more thoroughgoing libertarians like Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard, in The Road to Serfdom and The Constitution of Liberty Hayek defended small-scale welfare legislation.

(HT: Marginal Revolution)