A World You’d Be Willing to Be Born Into

A note to young leaders.

What is a just society?

The American political philosopher, John Rawls, gave the best answer I know:

“A just society is a society that – if you knew everything about it – you’d be willing to enter it, at a random place.”

Forget your postcode, your pedigree, your portfolio. Forget whether you arrived in this world holding a silver spoon or just holding on. Rawls called this the “Veil of Ignorance” – your original state, before you were born, before the Wheel of Fortune was spun.

Now ask yourself: What type of world do you want to be born into?

What disparity in wealth would you accept? What gap in health care, in education, in opportunity would you consider just? What level of reward for effort and innovation is fair?

The rest of life, alas, is lived in front of the Veil. We already know exactly who we are and what we stand to lose. I have heard intelligent, well-meaning people defend the status quo with the sincerity of martyrs, purely because the status quo was doing rather well by them.

Most of our principles, once removed from the warm bath of personal advantage, catch a cold fairly quickly.

So step, for a moment, behind the Veil. Lay aside your vested interests. Now go build a world you’d be willing to be born into.