Rawls, Piketty, and the Critique of Welfare-State Capitalism

Political philosophers have renewed their attempts to justify John Rawls's preferred economic regime, property-owning democracy. They have followed Rawls in criticizing welfare-state capitalism because it permits unjustifiably large economic inequalities. Simultaneously, Thomas Piketty has argued that capitalism has an inherent tendency to create very high degrees of wealth and income inequality. I argue that introducing Piketty's work into a Rawlsian framework strengthens Rawls's critique of the welfare state and his case for property-owning democracy. Piketty's work, if correct, shows that welfare-state capitalism not only permits unjust economic inequalities but causes and compounds them, despite the presence of various forms of redistribution. I then argue that Piketty's solution to inequality, a global progressive tax on capital, can contribute to the aims of a property-owning democracy. This synthesis of Rawls and Piketty yields a potentially powerful left-wing yet nonsocialist critique of welfare-state capitalism.