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Incentives and taxation in Rawls’s institutional theory of justice

Maxime Desmarais-Tremblay

Journal of Institutional Economics2026https://doi.org/10.1017/s1744137426100472article
AJG 3ABDC B
Weight
0.50

Abstract

John Rawls proposed a theory of justice for the basic structure of society. Surprisingly, his suggestions for tax institutions were not well articulated. Rawls’s principles of justice do not prescribe a unique set of tax recommendations, but his remarks on tax matters reflect his vision of society as a cooperative venture in which everyone must work. This paper makes two contributions. First, it offers a chronological, systematic, and contextual analysis of what Rawls wrote on taxation. Rawls’s comments on taxation reveal his lifelong concern for preserving market incentives and his rejection of ability-to-pay as a principle of taxation. Second, the paper argues that some of Rawls’s tax proposals belong to nonideal theory because they depend on a conception of individuals in tension with the conception of moral persons developed in his theory.

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1017/s1744137426100472

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@article{maxime2026,
  title        = {{Incentives and taxation in Rawls’s institutional theory of justice}},
  author       = {Maxime Desmarais-Tremblay},
  journal      = {Journal of Institutional Economics},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1017/s1744137426100472},
}

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Evidence weight

0.50

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20
M · momentum0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

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