Snapshot
A society is just **iff** its rules (a) are chosen from a stance of equal moral standing **and** (b) never evolve into material patterns that re‑create domination or humiliation. Therefore, whatever advantages you hold remain legitimately *yours* only so long as three empirical guardrails simultaneously hold:
1. **Floor‑raising** – the least‑advantaged keep gaining;
2. **Power‑check** – no actor gains coercive leverage;
3. **Status‑check** – wealth gaps never harden into public badges of superior or inferior worth.
Once any guardrail trips, the title dissolves pending reform or redistribution.
Formal core
> **P1 (Moral Standing).** All citizens are moral equals; relations of domination (control over basic options) or humiliation (publicly intelligible markers of inferior worth) violate that standing.
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> **P2 (Fair‑Choice Procedure).** Only rules that every rational agent could endorse *ex ante* behind a veil of ignorance count as legitimate.
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> **P3 (Substantive Guardrails).** Legitimate advantages remain only while three concurrent, measurable tests are passed:
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> **(T1) Floor‑Raising** Inequalities must improve the life prospects of the bottom decile.
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> **(T2) Power‑Check** Inequalities must not confer effective control over others’ core options.
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> **(T3) Status‑Check** Inequalities must not function as publicly intelligible badges of superior worth.
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> **P4 (Dynamic Review).** Because power and status creep, T1‑T3 require continuous monitoring and automatic corrective triggers.
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> **C (Conditional Title).** Holdings allotted by fair rules are yours *only while* T1‑T3 hold; corrective redistribution or structural reform becomes morally mandatory when any test fails.
Defence of the premises
2.1 P1 — Relational‑egalitarian foundation
*Conceptual*: Citizenship presupposes reciprocal independence (Pettit’s “non‑domination”) and equal social standing (Anderson’s “democratic equality”). *Empirical anchor*: High inequality correlates with worse health, lower social trust, and subjective status anxiety even when median incomes rise.
2.2 P2 — Rawlsian impartiality
Behind the veil, risk‑averse but mutually disinterested choosers refuse rules that might leave them dominated or humiliated. This procedure converts equal moral standing into publicly shareable principles without appealing to any one group’s interests.
2.3 P3 — Why three guardrails?
Procedural legitimacy is *necessary* but not *sufficient*: real economies mutate. The three tests isolate the specific relational harms condemned in P1.
Concentration and stigma creep incrementally. *How*: statutory sunset clauses plus independent commissions (analogous to central‑bank independence) that publish annual Floor‑Raising, Power, and Status dashboards and trigger predetermined policy levers (tax shifts, antitrust break‑ups, campaign‑finance caps) when thresholds are crossed.
**Equal moral standing → fair initial rules → real‑world guardrails → dynamic review → conditional title. **This chain converts abstract relational‑egalitarian ethics into a fully operational standard that can be legislated, audited, and, when necessary, enforced—delivering both principled legitimacy and empirical accountability.