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the greatest benefit of the least advantaged and (b) attached to offices and positions open to all under considerations of fair equality of opportunity” (p. 302). The second principle is an especially important point. Inequality is not viewed as an evil in and of itself but, rather, as a condition that can be harnessed for the good of all. An example may help illustrate this idea: The rules set forth under the veil of ignorance might allow some positions in society to be more appealing than others; examples for the former might be those with higher pay, better working conditions, and so on. In the case of physicians, for example, we want very capable practitioners because they make life- and- death decisions that require considerable levels of skill and many years of difficult training. Because there are a limited number of people with the required aptitude and because the training process is ar duous, members of society may wish to encourage those few people with the requisite aptitude to become doctors. Furthermore, people who be come physicians could earn more than others without breaking the second principle if they are required to use some of their time to assist the least advantaged in society. The previously presented point b ensures, moreover, that the position of physician is open to everyone with the appropriate ap titude and is not limited by reasons of race, gender, social class, or other non- merit- based considerations. Rawls’s approach to distributive justice has considerable appeal to many social workers. Those who have tried to apply his principles quickly run into practical difficulties, however. No matter which set of rules is agreed to under the veil of ignorance, even when using Rawls’s two principles, it is difficult to determine whether that structure is “to the greatest benefit of the least ad vantaged” and, therefore, just. It is also seemingly impossible, without drastic interventions, to keep the children of the advantaged from maintaining their early lead in health, schooling, and connections. A very different interpretation of distributive justice is set forth by Robert Nozick (1974) in Anarchy, State and Utopia. Nozick argues that Rawls and others who focus on end-states or patterns of a distributive process are wrong. In order to maintain a fair distribution of resources, there would have to be a central distribution mechanism, and there is not. In other words, the end- state, or the point at which people have been assigned their positions and given the rules, is theoretically a rather equal distribution of economic goods. However, the distribution is constantly made less equal because people put forth unequal effort and have unequal skills, and under Rawls’s system they are paid according to effort and skill. The only way to prevent inequality is to have government constantly redistribute wealth. ROBERT NOZICK’S VIEWS ON DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE