Six objectives lie at the heart of egalitarianism, which is, I suggest not a single philosophy but an amalgam of these concerns. These objectives are: to avoid unfairness, to protect impartiality, to sustain self-respect, to show equal respect, to nurture fraternity, and to prevent domination. What makes someone an egalitarian is caring about these things.nWhat – if any – connection is there between the extent to which markets dominate economic relations in some nation or the world and the extent of ethically relevant inequalities? It seems more than mere accident that the spread of markets has gone hand in hand with the spread of ideologies that recognize the political equality of all citizens and institutions that to varying extents implement these ideologies. The real questions concern the bearing of markets on the six underlying concerns of egalitarians and hence on the distribution of crucial resources and opportunities, status, socially provided benefits and burdens, valued possessions, and political influence.nAlthough markets, especially in virtue of their impersonality, undermine traditional caste and status distinctions and relations of personal dependency and in that way lessen domination, nurture self-respect, and set a framework for treating people with equal respect, they obviously can create enormous inequalities in economic and political power; and they sometimes nurture degrading and dehumanizing occupations. However it is not obvious that people need the impersonality of markets in order to degrade and dominate others. Compared to the non-market relations between serfs and lords under feudalism, modern sweat shops don’t look all that bad. Though on most measures the extent of inequality in income or wealth is certainly larger in some market societies than it could have been in poorer nonmarket societies, what is at issue in my argument is the bearing of markets on domination, self-respect, and equal respect. In combating the evils in which markets are often complicit, their contribution to equality should not be forgotten.
