 The form of a society’s basic structure will have profound effects on the lives of citizens. The basic structure will influence not only citizens’ life prospects, but more deeply their goals, their attitudes, their relationships, and their characters. Institutions that will have such pervasive influence on people’s lives require justification. Since leaving one’s society is not a realistic option for most people, the justification cannot be that citizens have consented to a basic structure by staying in the country. And since the rules of any basic structure will be coercively enforced, often with serious penalties, the demand to justify the imposition of any particular set of rules intensifies further.