Discussion of the Relationship between Fairness and Efficiency ——Based on Rawls' “A Theory of Justice”

Abstract

Since China’s reform and opening up, from the Third Plenary Session of the 14th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China that put forward "efficiency first and fairness" to the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, "first distribution and redistribution must deal with the relationship between fairness and efficiency, and redistribution pays more attention to fairness" Distribution policy, in 2021, the tenth meeting of the Central Finance and Economics Committee clearly stated that it is necessary to promote common prosperity in stages. The relationship between fairness and efficiency has always been the basic principle and standard for the country to formulate policies, and it is also the core issue discussed by scholars. Both utilitarianism and Rawls' two principles of justice provide us with different perspectives to explore the relationship between fairness and efficiency. This article focuses on Rawls's critique of utilitarianism and the specific content of the two justice principles, and makes a simple discussion on the relationship between fairness and efficiency and its enlightenment on the formulation of distribution policies in our country.