 The central problem that Scanlon emphasizes is that, as he sees it, desertist theories of justice cannot explain how it can be just for different citizens to receive different-sized benefits from their countries. In this context, he hints at a two-level view according to which citizens may be entitled to different-sized benefits by the rules and regulations of some distributive institution that has been established in their country. Scanlon seems to acknowledge that if the institution itself is just, the citizens will deserve the different-sized benefits to which they are entitled. But he emphasizes that this desert of differential benefits will arise only if the institution that authorizes them is itself somehow justified. Scanlon suggests that such institutions may be justified, and so the scheme as a whole may be on the right track, but he seems to claim that the justification of the institution would then have to appeal to some justifying feature other than desert. And so, as he sees it, the scheme as a whole would not be a desertist theory of distributive justice.