Hayek seemed to espoused a view of social organization that maximizes individual autonomy by minimizing government coercion, but then acknowledges that this system requires individuals generally to conform to social conventions. In other words, government coercion in the interest of social goals was to be replace by self-coercion in the interest of social goals. Nice system if you can get it. But if we start with the assumption that men are angels, doesn’t the discussion become moot?

Many people bemoan the US’s large prison population. But arguably it’s a necessary component of a society that minimizes collectivist indoctrination, in which the spirit of rebellion is alive and well and can only be restrained by force.

Dump hypocrisy. Rather than social convention, let’s have the Republican National Convention: unapologetic dissent and, where socially necessary, state repression of that dissent by unapologetic force!

Hayek seemed to espoused a view of social organization that maximizes individual autonomy by minimizing government coercion, but then acknowledges that this system requires individuals generally to conform to social conventions. In other words, government coercion in the interest of social goals was to be replace by self-coercion in the interest of social goals. Nice system if you can get it. But if we start with the assumption that men are angels, doesn’t the discussion become moot?

Many people bemoan the US’s large prison population. But arguably it’s a necessary component of a society that minimizes collectivist indoctrination, in which the spirit of rebellion is alive and well and can only be restrained by force.

Dump hypocrisy. Rather than social convention, let’s have the Republican National Convention: unapologetic dissent and, where socially necessary, state repression of that dissent by unapologetic force!

Also, I wonder if you're reading strains of commitment too loosely, as in “strains” are the same as “annoyances.” Note that in TJ the strains point was made in context of utilitarianism — we were supposed to wonder whether the strain of sacrificing all of our good for the greater good was something we could put up with, or whether it would be too psychologically taxing. With JAF, the strain is comparatively milder. We're only asked whether we could see our good as consistent with the good of society, given the difference principle. Of course, he abandons this Kantian reading later — this may be what you're getting at — but even then, I'm not sure that the strains you point out are so demanding as to doom the theory (as Rawls seems to think the strains of utilitarianism render that theory psychologically implausible).

When I first read about Rawls' theory of justice I couldn't see how it was supposed to work. Firstly, I couldn't see how people who were stripped of all their particular desires, culture etc could be motivated to agree to anything.

Secondly it wasn't clear to me why powerful egoists should care what decisions they might make in a hypothetical original position. Why shouldn't they dismiss it the same way they dismiss utilitarianism and welfare economics — “Why should I care about other people's satisfaction?”

But thinking about it, I couldn't think of any reasons for self-interest either. Despite anything Randroids might say, there's nothing more rational about self-interest than there is about altruism or nihilism. If you don't care about anything, reason can't help you.

And this brought me back to Rawls. I realised I did care about fairness. And that's how the original position became interesting again.