Behind a Thin Veil of Ignorance and beyond the Original Position: A Social Experiment for distributive Policy Preferences of Young People in Greece

Societies are characterized, in varying degrees, by economic inequalities. In every country there are institutions that regulate the distribution of income towards the mitigation of inequalities and the provision of public goods and services. These institutions, like taxation, usually cause income flows from higher to lower income groups. The degree to which such redistribution will take place and the ways through which it will be implemented is one of the major political stakes and largely defines one of the dominant dimensions of political competition, namely the Left-Right distributional dimension. Political parties make policy proposals along this dimension, taking into account the demand expressed by voters. It is precisely this political demand on distributive policies that is the main subject of the present paper. According to Rawls, people located in an ideotypical “original position”, thus being behind a “veil of ignorance”, would agree to a social contract entailing inter alia that social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged. Obviously, after people move away from the original position and participate in society, the veil of ignorance is partially or totally lifted and people act based on their personal chances, i.e. they become more utilitarian. If someone is rich, then they possibly support the view that redistributive policies that transfer income from the rich to the poor are unjust and vice versa. In other words, information about the general economic situation of a society and one’s personal position affects redistributive policy preferences. Thus, it can be argued that students and young people in general have taken some steps away from the original position, but their veil of ignorance has not been totally lifted. Hence, the research question of the present paper is whether the objective provision of information on a) the social and economic disparities and related policies followed and b) on the personal position of an individual operating behind a thin veil of ignorance influences redistributive policy preferences or not. The relevant research was conducted in Greece, the country most hit by the economic crisis, where social and economic inequalities are on the rise and the issue of redistributive preferences is quite salient. The research was in the form of an experimental design to a convenience sample of approximately 500 students. The dependent variable was the distributive policy preferences of respondents. Respondents were divided to three socio-demographically identical groups and each group was subject to a different experimental condition, serving as the independent variable: the first group received no additional information, the second group received general information about the economic conditions and inequalities in Greece, as well as the relevant implemented policies, while the third group received all the information received by the second group plus information on their anticipated personal position within society. Information was provided through an objective video recording. Initial findings show that the degree in which the provision of information affects distributive policy preferences varies, depending on personal economic conditions.