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(1984) Contemporary Marxism, Dordrecht, Springer.
Rawls' theory of justice should be of special interest to orthodox Marxists, and this for at least three reasons: (a) Rawls strives to integrate his philosophy with the empirical social sciences and economics, something which for Marx too had been a chief aim. (b) Despite the intimate collaboration between philosophy and the empirical sciences which Rawls proposes, he claims to develop a genuine ethical theory, and ethics is something which is lacking in Marxian philosophy. (c) The Rawlsian ideal of a just society has at least in some respects a strongly socialist flavor: Rawls' Difference Principle states that in a just society somebody's being better off than others can be justified only as far as his being better off simultaneously improves the lot of the worst off.
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/978-94-009-6268-2_16
Full citation:
Küng, G. (1984)., The Marxist critique of Rawls, in J. J. O'rourke, T. J. Blakeley & F. Rapp (eds.), Contemporary Marxism, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 237-243.
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