How (Not) to Criticise Property-Owning Democracy: A Response to Schemmel

Christian Schemmel makes a strong case that John Rawls underplayed the capacity of robust universal welfare states' to realise in practice liberal egalitarian principles of justice, and that improvements upon the best existing welfare states will more plausibly take the form of movement in the direction of democratic socialism rather than the more individualist regime that Rawls called a property-owning democracy. Nonetheless, I do not believe it follows from these arguments (even if accepted) that highly unjust, deeply flawed welfare states such as the United States should first focus on developing a universal welfare state and leave thoughts of property-owning democracy to the side for the foreseeable future.