Towards just democracies in the age of pervasive digital systems—a Rawlsian approach

Abstract

Digital systems are increasingly pervasive, influencing people's lives and societal structures. This paper uses John Rawls's concept of a basic structure of society to analyse the implications of pervasive digital systems on democracy and how to steer them to a more societally sustainable direction. The analysis shows that the profound impact of pervasive digital systems, the power of their providers, as well as the inability of mere regulation to tackle the challenges imply a need for us to attribute responsibilities of basic structure also to private organisations, such as providers of impactful technologies. However, organisations such as technology companies that are new to the basic structure have not aligned their operations with Rawlsian conception of justice, which contributes to democratic decline. As a response, the paper proposes a framework for the basic structure organisations towards developing societally sustainable pervasive digital systems.