“Lacking much historical information and assuming (1) that victims of injustice generally do worse than they otherwise would and (2) that those from the least well-off group in the society have the highest probabilities of being the (descendants of) victims of the most serious injustice who are owed compensation by those who benefited from the injustices, … then a rough rule of thumb for rectifying injustices might seem to be the following: organize society so as to maximize the position of whatever group ends up least well-off in the society.”

Source: Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974), pp. 231-232 http://books.google.com/books?id=fVITAAAAQBAJ&pg=PT138

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Robert Nozick 32
American political philosopher 1938–2002

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