Utilitarians, Rawlsians and Libertarians all emphasized the individual, not the collective, and Utilitarian economists and Rawlsian lawyers both emphasized differences between groups, the former based on income, the latter on disadvantage. Both influenced social-democratic policies. Utilitarian economists demanded redistribution guided by need; gradually, welfare benefits were redesigned so that entitlement was unlinked from contributions, dismissing the normal human value of fairness.
