Critical Study On Western Neoliberalism

Ever since the beginning of modern times， liberalism has taken the leadingrole in western political trends， and Locke is the founder of the trend. After hundredsof years’ development， liberalism becomes more perfect， during which theUtilitarian has improved the early liberalism greatly. In1900s， Rawls reflectedUtilitarian， expecting to replace utilitarianism with fairness and justice byelaborating its definitions. Rawls’ masterpiece On Justice Theory criticized earlyliberalism thoroughly and then inherited it， which gave liberalism a new look.Rawls based justice theory on two basic presoppusitive concepts： originalposition and the veil of ignorance. In a justice society， citizens are supposed to obeytwo justice principles， one is the principle of equality and freedom and the other isdifference principle. Rawls’ justice principle attempted to protect the mostdisadvantaged in economy through welfares of the country so as to reach the aim ofmostly equality among social members. Rawls expressed a way of freedom withequality， while justice problems， as a matter of fact， are whether goods aredistributed equally.No sooner the justice theory of neliberalism， whose leading role is Rawls，came out then it was criticized by many sides， among which there were criticalvoices from liberalism as well as from other schools. The fiercest critic was fromcommunitarianism. For example， for liberalism， absolute freedom theory of Nozickwas against the redistribution of a nation; Dworkin criticized Rawls as the equality ofresults， and thus constructed his own beginning equality and freedom—resourceequal theory. For communitarianism， Sandel， starting from Rawls’“self” concept，criticized that there was no Rawls’“self” concept in reality， and then overthrewRawls’ theory construction; starting from virtue theory， Maclntyre advocated therevival of classical virtue ethics， whose justice was not the first virtue of the society，and different social groups had different virtues; Walzer and Taylor challenged Rawls’simple equality and liberalism with complex equality and cultural pluralism respectively.Overseeing the contrast between liberalism and communitariansim， its theoreticaldifferences lie in: which one is the basis of the theory， individual or community? Whether acountry is neutral? commonality and multi-value; whether justice is prior to kindness，etc. through the collision of the two thoughts， we can find out their own advantagesand disadvantages， and then provide certain thinking mode for settling kinds of crisisin social reality. How to guarantee the realization of equality and justice in society andavoid the rights of citizens’ being hurt by a nation; how to make sure that citizens canlead a virtuous life while they pursue multi-value; how to stick to the construction ofgenerally political ways as well as the multi-development of culture. All thesequestions will inspire us to think continuously and work out possible correct answers.