The veil of ignorance
Design rules as if you don't know which position you'd occupy.
John Rawls's thought experiment. Imagine you're designing the rules of a society but you don't yet know what role you'll play in it. You don't know your wealth, race, gender, talents, or family. You'd design fairer rules under this veil, because you might end up as anyone.
The framework is a test for fairness by removing self-interest. Anyone designing a system from a known position will tilt toward their own interests, often without realising it. Removing the knowledge forces fairer design.
For operators, the veil applies to compensation systems (would you design this if you didn't know your role?), to organisational policies (would you set this rule if you might be on either side?), and to any system that affects multiple parties.
Examples in the wild
Compensation policies often look reasonable to senior management and unreasonable to junior employees. The veil-of-ignorance test reveals the bias: would you set this if you might be a junior employee?
Fund terms structured by GPs almost always favour GPs. LPs who run the same test (would the GP accept these terms if they were the LP?) negotiate better deals.
Family rules, friendship norms, and shared agreements all improve when designed under the veil. Most one-sided arrangements get caught.
The veil of ignorance is one of the mental models we apply through real cases inside the Pareto MBA — a part-time program for professionals who want to think clearly about business.