John Rawls As A New Libearl

In what sense was Rawls a "New Liberal"?
One of the most important events of our times is the irruption of neoliberalism in the public stage. This event is as relevant as unexpected; no more than 50 years ago nobody would have thought about a renaissance of liberalism. Nontheless, nowadays policies that reduce the features and powers of the state, the sale of state companies and the shrink ofpublic expenses seem to be in peak. Correspondently, we can observe a revaluation of the ideas that condemn equality and justice and that in its place hoist individual freedom. In short, we are witnessing the dismantling of the interventionist state and the establishment of a neoliberal state. Or in a political way, we are witnessing the “slimming of an obese state”.
But if we take this as thedefinition of the new liberalism, and we compare this notion with the theories of Rawls, especially the ones taken from his book “Theory of Justice”, we can appreciate a great difference of concepts, therefore this essay will consist in two parts. First I will summarize the basic points of Rawls’s political philosophy and on the second point I will present the philosophy of Nozick as a critic toRawls to make a contrast between the two opposites of what seems to be a common point of view of society, at least in some basic points.
Amongst all the labor made by Rawls I will focus mainly on his theory regarding the origin of society. Rawls reformulated the contractualist theory about the origin of society, which states that the reason of why human beings live in social groups is not somethingnatural, but due to a deal, convenience, or imposition. The individual is previous to society and society is the result of a social contract. Rawls develops a theory of impartiality that supports or bases on the ideas of justice. To build his theory he analyzes which are the principles of justice. The social contract is understood here as a deal thought by some philosophers as the ideal basis ofsocial life or political life. For Rawls the basis of a democratic society consist in a reformulation of the social contract. The fact of living in a society has two problems; on first place a constant conflict of interests is given (as according to Rawls, we live in a society because of a deal) and on the second place we have the problem to maintain what Rawls called the “principles of justice” andwith this he wants to establish a procedure that gives total and absolute validity to the final result. The procedure legitimates the result (a point of view radically opposed to the approach that “the end justifies the means”). Rawls introduces the concept of the “veil of ignorance”: according to which I can only be fair if I have no knowledge of my status in the society, whether if it is ethnicgroup, gender, culture, color of skin, level of studies, etc. Therefore only in this initial position I can imagine principles according to liberty and to human inequality; I will be able to be impartial or just enough to reach the principles of justice.
There are two main principles of justice according to Rawls. First, the principle of equality, where it is required that the citizen is givenor offered a scheme of basic freedoms, such as thought freedom, or liberty of speech. This principle assures the maximum of freedom of every one, being at the same time compatible with the maximum freedom of all. On second place we have the principle of difference, that permits inequalities only when they benefit the less advantaged social group (or when beneficial for everybody). This way hestates that the two principles are lexically ordered, having priority the principle of freedom over the principle of difference in case of conflict.
But in the long list of authors that are ascribed to the idea of new liberalism we find Nozick, as one of the most relevant. His book “Anarchy, State and Utopia”, can be considered as the “Bible of neoliberals”. The text is mainly based on one idea: to...