Rawlsian Property-Owning Democracy

This paper analyzes Rawlsian property-owning democracy in an American historical context. The purpose of the paper is to reveal the "overlapping consensus" between Rawlsian property-owning democracy and the American tradition that in turn could be of great value to Rawlsians wishing to make a persuasive argument for liberal reforms. A brief discussion regarding the mechanism of property-owning democracy is included. Five historical periods, Jeffersonian democracy, Jacksonian Democracy, Civil War and the age of Populism and Progressivism and the New Deal, are examined in this paper. It shows how New Dealers, with their Keynesian fiscal approach, diverged from the American tradition advocated by previous reformers and how Rawlsian property-owning democracy, as a substitution to capitalist welfare state, could reconnect with that important tradition.