Rawls vs. Stalin: When the Veil of Ignorance Fails

By John-Michael Kuczynski

There’s a crucial flaw in John Rawls’s famed thought experiment of the "veil of ignorance"—one that rarely gets acknowledged but that undermines the whole framework.

Rawls asks us to imagine designing a society without knowing what role we’ll occupy in it. Will we be rich or poor? Able-bodied or disabled? Privileged or marginalized? His claim is that rational agents, placed behind this veil, will choose a just society—one with fair rules, equal basic liberties, and protections for the least advantaged.

It sounds good. But it hides an assumption so deep and so parochial that Rawls himself doesn’t seem to see it.

Rawls assumes that everyone behind the veil is basically like him.

Not just rational. But liberal. Mild. Procedurally minded. Risk-averse. Inclined toward fairness and symmetry.

But what if they’re not?

What if, on one side of the veil, you have Rawls—and on the other, you have Stalin?

The Problem of Asymmetry

Rawls doesn’t care who cuts the cake and who chooses because he assumes the cutter and the chooser are functionally interchangeable. That’s the magic of the veil: you don’t know who you’ll be, so you’ll choose rules that are fair to all.

But this only works if everyone involved shares enough moral intuition to play the game fairly.

If Stalin is behind the veil, he’s not trying to construct a just society. He’s looking for an angle. He’s gaming the system. He’s biding his time until the procedure can be used to entrench power.

The veil only works when you populate it with Rawlsian agents. The moment you introduce adversarial moral asymmetry, the framework collapses.

Rawls Projects Himself

The veil of ignorance isn’t a neutral device. It’s a projection.

Rawls is asking us to imagine that everyone is basically a version of him. Same temperament, same assumptions, same sense of fairness. But that’s not ignorance. That’s moral cloning.

Rawls isn’t actually designing a system for a pluralistic world. He’s designing one for a room full of Rawlses.

Will It Keep Working?

Let’s say the system works once. Rawls and Stalin agree on a structure. Rawls assumes the structure will function forever. But:

• Stalin gains power.

• Stalin corrupts institutions.

• Stalin rewrites enforcement.

What now? Rawls insists we keep playing by the rules. But the rules have been captured. The fairness he trusted has been hollowed out.

There is no mechanism of resistance in Rawls’s system. Once the procedure is corrupted, the whole structure becomes a cage.

Do We Even Want It to Keep Working?

If one side no longer respects the spirit of the system, should we keep honoring it? Should we keep applying Rawlsian procedure even when it serves unjust ends?

Rawls would say yes. But that answer reveals the true danger of his framework.

A moral system that is blind to character, blind to asymmetry, and blind to historical momentum will eventually be co-opted by those who see further, and who care less.

Final Thought

Rawls’s theory doesn’t fail because it’s abstract. It fails because it pretends to be neutral while assuming sameness. It only works in a world full of morally identical people. The moment a real adversary appears, the veil isn’t a safeguard. It’s a suicide pact.

Rawls vs. Stalin isn’t just a mismatch. It’s a demonstration that Rawlsian proceduralism is a luxury belief: a system built for people who assume that everyone else is playing fair.

But they aren’t.