Desert, Rawls argues, is incoherent, aporetic, unstable. It rewards differences(in talents and abilities) that are "arbitrary from a moral point of view" (TJ:107, 102, 104). The bases of desert are not themselves deserved

uity. Unrelated to the basic structure, it isnot the subject of justice. But what if it is a product of Rawls' effectivedepoliticization of difference? What if genuine pluralism is a casualty of the(state-regulated) public/private distinction that Rawlsian justice postulates asthe condition of pluralism's possibilit