Can a 1970s idea save democracy today?

The American political theorist John Rawls may be known for abstractions like "the original position" and "the difference principle," but any mention of his name puts me in mind of something decidedly more tangible: Cake.

- JENNIFER SZALAI

Consider the potentially combustible situation of two children who have been given a cake to share between them. How do you ensure that the division of the cake is fair and will elicit the least complaint? The key is to involve both children in the process and to enforce a separation of powers: Assuming they're old enough to handle a knife, one child can cut the cake and the other can get first pick of the slice. The child tasked with cutting will therefore be extremely motivated to divide the cake as evenly as possible.

Rawls included a version of the cakecutting scenario in A Theory of Justice, his landmark 1971 book that the economist and philosopher Daniel Chandler wants to resurrect for a new era. In Free and Equal, Chandler argues that Rawls's approach, which combines a liberal respect for individual rights and differences with an egalitarian emphasis on fairness, could be "the basis for a progressive politics that is genuinely transformative." If this is an opportune moment for Chandler's book, it's also a difficult one.

In doing the hard work of spelling out what a Rawlsian programme might look like in practice, Chandler ends up illustrating why liberalism has elicited such frustration from its many critics in the first place.