This makes it easier to imagine that defects of character or differences of culture, rather than an unpleasant turn in the larger schemes of economic history, are at the root of the separation. To put the matter the other way around, economic equality blurs the distinctions between persons. It makes people feel similar to other people. As we know from the philosopher John Rawls, this ignorance, rather than equality itself, is the key to fairness in social choice. A just society, providing for the less fortunate in an equable way, is one that people would freely choose for themselves, without knowledge of their own position within it.
Inequality lifts the veil.
With high inequality, of income and of wealth, it becomes easy to know whether one is likely in the long run to be a net gainer, or a net loser, from public programs of family assistance, pension security and health care. The more inequality there is in the present, the more definite is each person's sense of their own position, both in the present and for the future. The rich feel more secure, the poor feel less hopeful. High inequality therefore weakens the willingness to share, at the same time that it concentrates resources in hands least inclined to be willing. In this way, and for this reason, inequality threatens the ability of society as a whole to provide for the weak, the ill and the old.