The problem of distribution of income and wealth has traditionally been a plague upon our society.

        In contrast with Libertarian, socialist take equality to be the ultimate political ideal and contend that the fundamental rights and duties in a society are determined by this ideal. As Kai Nielson contends, radical egalitarianism is justified because it produces the conditions for the most extensive satisfaction of everyone’s needs. A basic difficulty with Nielson’s socialist solution to the problem of distribution of income and wealth is proclaimed necessity of abolishing private property and socializing the means of production. While everyone apparently owns an equal portion of everything produced, the work put into the production may be unbalanced. For example, one person working five hours a day, would be achieving the same as someone who worked twenty hours a day. Although a normative decision, should someone who has placed long hours be content with receiving the same benefits as someone who worked less?

        Finally, we come to the idea of Welfare Liberalism. According to John Rawls, fair conditions can be expressed by an “an original position in which people are concerned to advance their own interests behind a veil of ignorance.” The effect of the veil of ignorance is to deprive people in the original position of the knowledge they would need to advance their own interests in ways that are morally arbitrary. The principles of justice would be derived in the original position in two successive formulations. The first being the social conception of justice: Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive total system total system of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system of liberty for all. Social and economic equalities are to be arranged so that they are to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged, consistent with the just savings principle, and attached offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity. The second formulation concerns the general conception of justice: All social goods—liberty and opportunity income and wealth and the bases of self-interest—are to be distributed equally unless an unequal distribution of any or all of these goods is to the advantaged of the least favored.

The prevailing idea of arranging certain equalities so that they help to benefit the least advantaged can be considered a useful system. While the distribution of wealth and income need not be equal, it must be to everyone’s advantage. Unlike the views of Hospers and Nielson, this ideal allows the movement of persons up the social and economic ladder. The idea is that since everyone’s well-being depends a upon a scheme of cooperation without which no one could have a satisfactory life, the division of advantages should be such as to draw forth the willing cooperation of everyone taking part in it, including those at a less advantage. Thus, this allows people to move up the economic ladder, while still maximizing the minimum benefits for all within this system. The two principles mentioned earlier, not only include that individual rights are preserved but that society as a whole is protected. By this I mean, the first principle is a protection of individuals and thus requires equality in the assignment of basic rights and duties, while the second, inequalities are justified if and only if they result in benefits for everyone in the society.

It is interesting to note that our society basically evolved into a system such as this one. If we begin by saying that in the early year of man’s existence they were in fact under a veil of ignorance, because they had no real conception of what was right or wrong. As man evolved, they slowly changed their perceptions of justice in order to benefit the least advantaged in life. They evolved from a system of tyranny and autocracy which allowed only a few individuals to benefit, to a system of democracy, which allows lesser advantaged people to benefit. Actually, the idea of democracy itself is a basic working model of the Welfare Liberalism, where the rights of the minority is protected against the will of the majority and the society changes itself in order to help benefit the less advantaged by way of laws. Unfortunately, democracy is not perfect model of the view of Rawls and, as such, it does allow for failures with in the system.

However, the view of Welfare Liberalism does have some weak points that are worth mentioning. The first weakness of this view is that it assumes that people are willing to conform to producing a system in which everyone benefits to a certain degree. Another assumption that the view makes is that everything is done under a “veil of ignorance.” Realistically, in contemporary times, this is impossible, people have already formed conception on issues and to say that they are to disregard all of those conceptions is probably an impossible task. Another big flaw of this view is it assumes that an individual is willing to take a loss inorder to satisfy a greater net balance of satisfaction. Of course this idea is false, who would want to endure a loss or give up a luxury in order to advance the conception of good in society.

As stated earlier democracy can be a related working model of Welfare Liberalism, however, it has it’s faults. Homelessness is a good example of where democracy has failed. According to Peter Marin, in Homelessness, the homeless can be divided into two groups: those who have had homelessness forced upon them and want nothing more than to escape it; and those who have at least in part chosen it for themselves. He also adds that, “Homelessness is the sum total of our dreams, policies, intentions, errors, omissions, cruelties, kindness…” So if we consider that this model of Welfare Liberalism should protect the rights of those who are less advantaged, in this specific example it has failed. Society has considered these people as outcast, regardless of the group they consider themselves apart of. And so as a society, we have said that we do not owe anything to its members in trouble, which is contrary to the assumptions that democracy is designed to help the less advantage.

In response to these weaknesses, Rawls holds that people would want a system of Welfare Liberalism because persons so situated would find it reasonable to follow the conservative formula of a “maximum strategy” and thereby secure for themselves the highest minimum payoff. And therefore, by securing a minimum payoff, their seems to be a safety net in which person’s can advance themselves without losing everything.

In conclusion, a system of Welfare Liberalism is the best choice of the three views we have seen. The two views of Hospers and Nielson, in my view, fail to allow persons to move within the system. It seems that once you have found a certain niche, you are bound into that for an indefinite amount of time. However, a system of Welfare Liberalism allows not only for people to move up and down the social and economic barrier, but also helps by improving the injustice against those who are at a lesser advantage. Of course it is important to note that no system is perfect and thus Welfare Liberalism does have its faults; one being that it fails to understand that a “veil of ignorance” is impossible to place upon people who already have, in contemporary time, formed conceptions of what is right and wrong.