In this paper I will argue that John Rawls's arguments in A Theory of Justice do not entail
that countries ought to choose a global difference principle. I will first delineate Rawls's argument regarding the origin and application of his difference principle, and then proceed to show that while his arguments do appear to provide narrow room for a global application of this principle, distributive concerns differ on an international level such that difference principle is not necessary.
A brief digression is necessary to provide proper exposition. In assessing whether Rawls's arguments in A Theory of Justice entail that countries ought to choose a global difference principle, it is important to clarify what is meant by "global," and how, if at all, this refines the meaning of the difference principle as applied in Rawls's discussion. For the purposes of this paper, a "global difference principle" is no different from the difference principle that Rawls develops, other than the fact that its scope is international, and its interpersonal dynamic now incorporates people from between nations.
In addition, the difference principle must be explained. Rawls's theory of justice begins by considering the society that rational people would choose behind a veil of ignorance. Rawls presents the difference principle as part of a conception of justice that "nullifies the accidents of natural endowment and the contingencies of social circumstance" (Rawls 1971, 14). With this as a goal, the difference principle states that social and economic inequalities are just only if they result in benefits for everyone, and in particular for those who are relatively least advantaged. In other words, a disadvantaged person living with an inequality must prefer his prospects with the inequality over those without it. To illustrate, Rawls presents a society with two classes, entrepreneurial and unskilled labor, such that anyone born into the entrepreneurial class has "a better [life] prospect than those who begin in the class of unskilled laborers." According to the difference principle, this inequality could only be justified if it is to the benefit of the disadvantaged, or, conversely, that the absence of the inequality would make the disadvantaged even worse off. In Rawls's eyes, this condition could be met, for example, by arguing that the very existence of higher prospects for the entrepreneurial class incentivizes them to create increased economic growth, the benefits of which will eventually "spread throughout the system and to the least advantaged" (Rawls 1971, 78). The difference principle would then inform the decisions made behind the veil of ignorance regarding the institutions that govern society, and the ways that society will address inequality in the future.
In regard to how Rawls's arguments apply beyond a closed society, it is not difficult to imagine how the difference principle might operate in an international context. Just as the difference principle is used by individual citizens to determine how their society will function, it could likewise be used by the world's nations to determine how to address inequality between themselves. A direct transposition of the lesson learned from the example regarding entrepreneurs and low-skill laborers above is that the better "life prospects" of a richer nation in regard to a poorer one could only be justified with an argument that presents the richer nation's advantage as something that eventually makes the poorer nation better off than it would be without this inequality. Rawls would likely not disagree with such a logical extension of his theory of justice: Rawls himself makes a similar logical leap later in A Theory of Justice when he applies the veil of ignorance to consider how his theory of justice would apply to international law: "Now at this point one may extend the interpretation of the original position and think of the parties as representatives of different nations who must choose together the [law of nations]" (Rawls 1971, 378).
This point regarding international law is, however, is one of the only instances in which Rawls discusses the international applications of his theories. Moreover, Rawls is rather explicit in pointing out that the principles laid out in A Theory of Justice should not be extended beyond a single state. He assumes that "the boundaries of these schemes are given by the notion of a self- contained community" (Rawls 1971, 457). However, this assumption, given near the end of his complete theory, is at odds with other arguments in A Theory of Justice, which provide at least narrow room for a global difference principle.
Regarding the veil of ignorance, the method that Rawls uses to characterize an "original position of equality" that ultimately will yield principles of justice to which everyone will agree, there is no reason to assume that people in the original position will know what their national identity is. Like class position, social status, and the natural endowment of intelligence and strength, the national identity into which someone is born is an important factor in determining their life outcomes, which vary greatly between countries. As such, national identity should not be controlled for behind the veil of ignorance, and the principles of justice chosen for society will therefore apply across national boundaries.
Rawls's assertion that the society chosen behind the veil of ignorance would be a voluntary one, whose institutions operate by terms agreed upon by everyone, mandates that the difference principle would still be chosen within an international context. This point may be illustrated by an example that highlights the interconnected relationships that exist between nations, and how this makes a nation's political and economic behavior on the international stage relevant to the well-being of citizens in other nations. Consider a developing country that is pressured to open its borders to unrestricted international trade in order to receive a valuable development loan. Imagine further that this new free trade wipes out one of the country's most valuable industries, while at the same time allowing a foreign manufacturer known to exploit its workers to outsource operations to its shores. Clearly, the international arrangement here is not one which the disadvantaged country would freely choose. Thus, without the difference principle's mandate that inequalities will be limited to those which benefit the disadvantaged, nations behind the veil of ignorance would be at risk of situations like that of this hypothetical disadvantaged nation, whose international regime did not prevent a harmful inequality.
Despite the fact that such space exists within Rawls's arguments in A Theory of Justice for a global difference principle, these arguments do not in fact entail that countries ought to choose a global difference principle. In addition to Rawls's assertion that his arguments are meant to be confined to a single state (Rawls 1971, 457) (albeit at odds with some of his previous points) there is evidence that distributive concerns operate on an international level such that the difference principle is not appropriate. Rawls's own account in his 1999 book Law of Peoples is particularly elucidating. In Law of Peoples, much like he does when discussing international justice in A Theory of Justice, Rawls lays forth the various relative conditions that peoples of different states would select behind a veil of ignorance. These include reciprocal arrangements regarding treaties, human rights, and war, but do not include the difference principal or anything resembling it. In other words, the peoples of different countries will not require that inequalities between nations be justified by being to the advantage of the worse-off nations. According to Rawls, inequalities between nations are only unjust when they have unjust effects on the "basic structure of the Society of Peoples" and on the relationships among peoples (Rawls 1999, 113).
So certainly, distributive concerns may still be at play in international justice, but only indirectly. For example, if we imagine two deeply impoverished societies, one who, despite its poverty, remains internally well-ordered (in the Rawlsian sense that all of its citizens accept and acknowledge a common conception of justice [Rawls 1971, 5]) and participates fully in the principles that govern international society, and another that is likewise impoverished, but in this case, impoverished to the extent that the society cannot remain well-ordered or participate equally in the international system, Rawls's would find redistributive aid appropriate only in the second case. Because while both societies experienced inequality compared to other nations, this inequality only became unjust and thus deserving of material assistance when it had an unjust effect on the international order. And while this context may yield the same result as a global difference principle, it is important to note that this approach to redistribution is distinct from the difference principle because it is not explicitly concerned with money. Wealth and income are explicit concerns of the difference principle within society, by virtue of Rawls including them as primary goods. In the international context, the resources at issue in a nation's duty of assistance are not necessarily financial. To the contrary, a country that is not well-ordered is likely to need institutional guidance from its well-ordered peers instead of pure financial help. If it was in fact the case that financial inequality was the factor preventing a nation from being well-ordered, as in the previous example, material assistance would be appropriate.
As a whole, then, it is clear that Rawls's arguments in A Theory of Justice do not entail that nations should choose a global difference principle. While such a principle might certainly facilitate some important international redistribution, Rawls's work in The Law of Peoples shows
that distributive concerns differ on an international level and that the explicit framework of the difference principle is not required to achieve some of its redistributive goals between nations.