Peter Radford — Equality

Peter Radford investigates equality and comes up with some economic insights. But in my view his analysis underplays the key point that equality is essentially a legal concept based on liberal political theory, namely, absence of power-based privilege guaranteed by a single standard of justice in which the rule of law is determined by all those subject to the law having a voice of the same weight.

To my knowledge the only political theory to put forward a concept of economic equality is Marxism, and that is not mathematically determined but rather determine by potential and need:  "From each according to ability and to each according to need."

Social liberalism, developed in reaction to the economic liberalism characteristic of Dickensian times, emphasizes social justice rather than economic equality. It's concern is with adjusting for the failure of markets to distribute goods and services adequately for the needs of all to be met. The objective here, however, is not economic equality. Economic inequality is accepted as part and parcel of  investment-driven production and market-driven distribution.

Social liberalism is opposed by economic liberalism, called Libertarianism, and a scaled-down form of social liberalism, now called neoliberalism.

The issue of equality as to do with political liberalism rather than economics, and economics enters largely as a source of power asymmetry leading to political and legal privilege, a double standard of justice, and asymmetrical social, political and economic power leading to a hierarchical class structure of wide disparity in distributional effects.

The Radford Free Press
Equality
Peter Radford