John Rawls, the political philosopher, wrote in A Theory of Justice that the most just society is one that one would choose to be born into if one didn’t know whether one would be born among the most or least advantaged in society. A rational choice would be to pick the society where the least advantaged are better off. Rawls wrote: Now it seems impossible to avoid a certain arbitrariness in actually identifying the least favored group. One possibility is to choose a particular social position, say that of the unskilled worker, and then to count as the least favored all those with approximately the income and wealth of those in this position, or less. Another criterion is one in terms of relative income and wealth with no reference to social positions. For example, all persons with less than half of the median may be regarded as the least advantaged segment. This criterion depends only on the lower half of the distribution and has the merit of focusing attention on the social distance between those who have the least and the average citizen. Either of these criteria would appear to cover those most disfavored by the various contingencies and provide a basis for determining at what level a reasonable social minimum might be set and from which, in conjunction with other measures, society could proceed to fulfill the difference principle.* By these criteria, would a rational person choose to be born among the least advantaged of China or America? In theory, the answer would be America since it is wealthier. In reality, it could well be China, as the least advantaged in China have a far greater chance to improve their living conditions than their counterparts in America. John Rawls also emphasized that one should not just look at economic conditions. Liberty should also be factored in as a key consideration. If Rawls only had in mind political liberty, then one would again choose to be born in America. However, if one factored in personal liberty, one might well choose China since the chance of being incarcerated in America (if one is born in the bottom 10 percent, especially among the black population) is at least five times higher than China. America sends 0.655 percent (or 2.12 million) into jails. By contrast, China sends 0.118 percent (or 1.65 million) into jails. A 2019 study tried to understand which ethnic group in America had the greatest percentage of individuals with family members in jail or prison. The average figure for all Americans was 45 percent. The figure for whites was 42 percent, Hispanics 48 percent, and blacks 63 percent.* America’s judicial system is clearly far more independent and, in many functional ways, superior to China’s judicial system. Yet, I had a very interesting conversation with an American who held a senior position with an American NGO. For over ten years, he had worked with Chinese judges in China. He left China with two main impressions. First, under the veneer of uniformity and conformity, the Chinese judges had a rich plurality of views, which they expressed in their private conversations. Second, the Chinese judges were concerned with treating all classes equally. Once an American legal consultant, in an effort to be helpful, told a Chinese judge that China should consider abolishing the death penalty for all crimes except murder. The Chinese judge wisely replied that the implementation of this rule would result in China’s judicial system becoming like the American judicial system, with only poor people, not rich people, being sent to the gallows. In short, by various standards of social justice, China’s society may not be doing badly, helped by the fact that as people become better off, they have greater vested interest in voluntarily maintaining a good social order. There is one aspect of the Chinese mind that the Western mind finds difficult to relate to: the Chinese like order. And they like measures that lead to greater order. This attitude accounts for the sharp difference in Western and Chinese reactions to a new measure introduced by the Chinese government to bring about social order: the social credit scheme. Bing Song of the Berggruen Institute has described the social credit system as follows: In a 2014 document, the Chinese government outlined its vision for such a system and noted that it involved four distinct segments: a government trust system, a commercial credit system, a social trust system and a judicial trust system. What drives this gargantuan project is an effort to build a culture of trust in Chinese society.* George Soros captured well the negative Western reaction to the social credit system when he said, “The social credit system, if it becomes operational, would give Xi total control over the people.” The only application Soros could see for China was an Orwellian vision, in which the state could have total control over the lives of the Chinese people. Vice President Mike Pence has also stated this explicitly in his October 2018 speech at the Hudson Institute: “China’s rulers aim to implement an Orwellian system premised on controlling virtually every facet of human life.” George Orwell described such a society in Nineteen Eighty-Four as follows: “There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.” Yet, when even the Western media reported the reactions of ordinary Chinese people to the introduction of the social credit system, they observed that most people welcomed it as it would mean that they would know whom they could trust in their social and economic interactions. The New York Times reported: “Judging public Chinese reaction can be difficult in a country where the news media is controlled by the government. Still, so far the average Chinese citizen appears to show little concern. Erratic enforcement of laws against everything from speeding to assault means the long arm of China’s authoritarian government can feel remote from everyday life. As a result, many cheer on new attempts at law and order.”
“The most just society is one that one would choose to be born into if one didn’t know whether one would be born among the most or least advantaged in society.”
An interesting perspective in this passage. One can consider social mobility as the main criteria and in that case, there might be greater opportunity to move up income classes. On the other hand, we should not just consider in relative terms and in absolute terms, the lower income classes might have access to better infrastructure in America.
What underpins this is the difference in mindsets. Having “order” is valued in Chinese systems, and our concept of “liberty” might not be as high up the pecking list of considerations for their people.
