Rawls

[liadnan]

Via Chris Bertram on Crooked Timber: correspondence between John Rawls and Philippe van Parijs on The Law of Peoples, the European Union, political liberalism and global capitalism. Fascinating, particularly as to see Rawls more opposed to the last of those than generally emerges from his work and also his views on what the EU should or could be.

"The idea of economic growth, onwards and upwards, with no specific end in sight, fits [large banks and the capitalist business class whose main goal is simply larger profit] perfectly. If they speak about distribution, it is [al]most always in terms of trickle down. The long–term result of this — which we already have in the United States — is a civil society awash in a meaningless consumerism of some kind. I can’t believe that that is what you want."