In President Obama's much-discussed speech in Roanoke, Virginia,
among his remarks on the source of success was his assertion that
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help.
There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to
create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you
to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a
business — you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen. The
Internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the
Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.[1]
What is one to make of the president's celebration of the
government's role in the personal pursuits of citizens and his
diminishment of the causal connection between the productivity of
individuals and the success of their pursuits? This essay locates the
source of Obama's assertion in the influence on his thought of
philosopher John Rawls's theory of distributive justice and
philosophical pragmatism's theories of mind, self, and society.
[2] But I begin with what he asserts is the defining issue of our time:
