Introduction: Can the state rule without justice?

Summary

A friend of mine returned from the People's Republic of China several years before the market orientation began with an account of the situation there that on balance was favorable. On the negative side, she was put off by the close supervision of her activities by the officials. But there was an overriding positive side to things; she was convinced that the society's institutions encouraged the pursuit of justice. This she thought differentiated it from society in the United States, where it is not the pursuit of justice but the pursuit of economic power that is encouraged.

Her comparison stuck with me like a pebble in my shoe. It was not that I wanted to reverse the comparison by saying that in the United States the fundamental goal is justice whereas in China it is power. Moreover, what annoyed me was not that her comparison took sides, for I too was ready to grant that the Chinese Revolution had led to gains for the majority of the people of China along the dimension of basic needs. And I was also ready to consider the necessity of a better order for the United States. I was annoyed because I could not fit the comparison with what I had come to think about justice itself, which was that no stable state can rule without encouraging a pattern of justice. How had I come to this view?