John Rawls Justice as Fairness Theory is the weapon of choice for the ruling class

Rawlsianism is an evil calculus, a game of percentages. 

 Rawls from Wikimedia commons

Listening to the ideological justification for the demolition of the social democratic state it is clear than John Rawl's ideas are the weapon of choice. Isaiah Berlin, George Orwell, Karl Popper were wonderfully 'useful idiots' in their time, but it is John Rawls whose philosophy really does the dirty trick for global capitalism. Certainly that simpering Philip Blond, the Peter Lorrie of political advisers, can't hold a candle to Rawls. Did you hear his perverse defence of monarchism on Radio 4 this week?

Right now in central London students are being arrested and suffering gung ho cavalry charges by mounted policemen - I hope my son is alright. These cavalry charges against unarmed students are the direct result of of Rawlsianism put into practice.

Rawlsianism in practice is a calculus - a percentages game. So long as you can buy off the lowest most marginalised and poorest of the Sans culottes with a little smidgen of social housing, subsidised education and benefits, then the ruling class can avoid the threat of the guillotine.

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Certainly that simpering Philip Blond, that Peter Lorrie of political advisers, can't hold a candle to Rawls. Did you hear his perverse defence of monarchism on Radio 4 this week?
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It's a numbers game. Up until now society has paid for 60% of the costs of university education. That's going to go down to 40%.

And who should pay for health and education and higher education and pensions and unemployment and municipal services? You  as an individual or you as a society? This is the question asked of young people by the media. Young people who haven't learned enough yet about the utter selfishness and innate hypocrisy of the people who serve the ruling class in the media to challenge them.   

We remember Margaret Thatcher, when she said 'there is no such thing as society' and so the ideological answer of the so called 'middle ground' of acceptable market fundamentalism to this question about who should pay is that it is you as an individual should pay.

Because, after all, don't nearly all members the ruling class (many hiding behind the name of 'middle class') pay their way, pay for their children's education from start to finish, for their private health care, for their expensive social networking, for every aspect of their lives. The ruling classes, think they from their parallel world, pay their way, the shareholders with impressive portfolios, certainly pay their way. So why shouldn't everybody else?

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We still live in a social democracy because in 1948 the ruling class was scared shitless of an armed working class.
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That's what David Cameron and George Osbourne's class ask. And they ask it in the same way someone light ask coyly for the way to the bathroom and not the way to the Crapper. This question can be restated as: I deserve to be where I am, and if you are not rich then you deserve to be where you are.

But the establishment seem to have chosen to forget that they were never the ones who gave social democracy to us in the first place. They didn't give us anything through their enlightened generosity. It was the instinct for self preservation that made the different incarnations of the ruling class give way to, for example:  demands for the reform of working conditions, universal suffrage and the right to unionize.

And it was only when a whole army of men trained to use weaponry were demobbed back to the UK in 1945 expecting a home for heroes - or else. Definitely not expecting more exploitation and boom and bust and Jarrow marches and Upstairs Downstairs, that the ruling class took a step back and let the 1948 reforms happen. The 1948 reforms came despite that complete aristocrat, Winston Churchill's opposition to them and despite his war-won popularity.

We still live in a social democracy because in 1948 the ruling class was scared shitless of an armed working class.
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Basically, the Redistributive Justice as Fairness Principal was consciously designed to be an instrument of societal control; to be used in a Machiavellian way by calculating strategists...
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But the latest ploy has been Rawlsianism. In addition to being an implied apologia for managed capitalism, it is a numbers game that has been played for the last 20 years at the suggestion of policy wonks. It is a simulated 'What-if-think-tank-let's see-just-how-far-we-can-fuck-over-whole-populations' type game that the people working in right wing and left think wing think tanks like to play.

It's called privatisation. Blair did it. Cameron did it, and even the educated Milibands will do it. They all do it. They all play the Rawlsian rag. That's what you learn on your PPEs. Society as a material undergoing stress fracture tests. Just how much do we have to support an underclass to prevent it from cracking apart?

This is the big question they ask:

How far can we commercialise every aspect of the state so that individuals pay for every single service they get? Meaning that most people will only get what they can pay for. At the same time the right wing think-tank-wanks ask another question. They recognise that there is a proportion of people in society who will be on the fringes and who have nothing to lose. The Rawlsian question is:

What is the least amount that should be paid to these Sans Culottes so that we, the ruling class, can sleep safe in our beds?

This is the Rawlsian calculus that they use. I can't stand his apologists just as I can't stand Rawl's cynicism. Consider this. Where it would have made a difference, on the international level, he refused to invoke his Justice as Fairness principle.

Basically, the Redistributive Justice as Fairness Principal was designed to be an instrument of societal control, to be used in a Machiavellian way by calculating strategists working for the ruling global corporate capitalist class - or whatever name they hide under when they are at home.