It is said that “that government is best which governs least.” Unfortunately, evidence shows that this isn’t true. Without the rule of law, capricious power sets the rules, usually to the benefit of a powerful few. What people really mean by “governs least” is that the rules are aligned with their interests. In an economy tuned to the interests of the few, the rules are often unfair to the rest. An economy tuned to the interests of the majority may seem unfair to some, but John Rawls’s “veil of ignorance”—the idea that the best rules for a political or economic order are those that would be
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