Rawls' ideas if incorporated into society would not compel any person to contribute to the greater good any more than he or she desired; they would simply impose mechanisms for distributing resources and potential rewards in the most socially beneficial and equitable manner. Industries that produce socially beneficial products and services that contribute to the greater good would be permitted to profit more from those endeavors than superfluous industries; physicians would be entitled to sufficient compensation and benefits to ensure against any shortage of physicians in society; and police officers and firefighters would earn more than professional athletes, although closer to several times the average wage in society instead of the equivalent of hundreds or even a thousand times the salary of the average person.
Finally, one of the most beneficial aspects of Rawls' ideas is that the primacy of his first principle over the second provides the same function as constitutional rights that currently protect fundamental rights of the individual, in many cases, as exceptions to the other provisions of statutory law.
Potential Problems with the Rawls Approach:
To a certain extent, Rawls' ideas have a component that is uncomfortably close to Marxism despite the fact that they do not prohibit private ownership of business production. Moreover, it could stifle creativity in a manner that reduces initiative to succeed. Likewise, it presumes that nothing beneficial ever comes from apparently superfluous industries and could limit the production of many types of products and services that derive from industries that do not serve the public good more directly.
Another possible criticism of Rawls' approach is that it may be somewhat simplistic. Instead of prohibiting profits above a certain level for industries that do not benefit society enough directly to justify large profits, it might make much more sense to allow them to purchase "superfluous industry credits" in the same manner that environmental efforts have produced a cap and trade carbon...
Other mechanisms that might ultimately benefit society more than an outright cap on profits would include much simpler mechanisms such as higher tax obligations that could fund the salaries of those who directly contribute more to the greater good.
The Role of Public Administration in Social Justice:
"Many social decisions are, of course, of an administrative nature. Certainly this is so when it is a matter of social utility in what one may call its ordinary sense: that is, when it is a question of the efficient design of social institutions for the use of common means to achieve common ends" (Rawls, 1958 p187).
Rawls' ideas would seem to comport perfectly with the essential purpose of public administration services. In principle, the entire structure of modern administrative services in society is precisely to improve society and contribute to the public good much more efficiently and effectively than individual citizens could ever hope to, even in a collaborative effort. Granted, to a certain extent, Rawls' ideas could be seen as excessively constraining individual initiative and creativity; however, in the realm of public administration of social services and justice, they would greatly increase the quality of life and contribute to the greater good. Instead of the poorly motivated, apathetic attitudes frequently associated with civil service employment, Rawls' ideas would reward civil servants sufficiently to guarantee much greater commitment to their responsibilities.
Generally, modern public administration and civil service exemplify the very concepts emphasized by Rawls except that the pay differential between civil servants and employment in many areas of the private sector greatly detract from the communal spirit and cooperation that Rawls hoped to promote through his ideas. Ultimately, while some of the specific mechanisms suggested by Rawls' ideas may be impractical to impose on a free society, their general purpose is likely achievable to some degree simply by increasing awareness of some of the conceptual arguments.
