Socialism and Equality

. . . there is now, with the existence of a large amount of sociological research on inequality of opportunity and inequality of result, and with the resurgence of interest among moral philosophers in inequality, as manifested in John Rawls’s work, the possibility of serious examination of social ideals and social reality in this area.

—James S. Coleman

Professor Coleman’s remarks raise three questions. First, what are the “social ideals” of equality? What forms of inequality are undesirable and what forms of equality desirable, and on what grounds? Second, what are the “social realities” of inequality? What is the upshot of all the research into inequality in contemporary societies? And third, what bearing does the answer to the second question have on that to the first? How does social reality affect social ideals? What is desirable, in the light of the actual, and what appears...