Concept

Equality of outcome

Overview

Equality of outcome, equality of condition, or equality of results is a political concept which is central to some political ideologies and is used in some political discourse, often in contrast to the term equality of opportunity. It describes a state in which all people have approximately the same material wealth and income, or in which the general economic conditions of everyone's lives are alike.

Achieving equal results generally entails reducing or eliminating material inequalities between individuals or households in society and usually involves a transfer of income or wealth from wealthier to poorer individuals, or adopting other measures to promote equality of condition.

One account in The Journal of Political Philosophy suggested that the term meant "equalising where people end up rather than where or how they begin", but described this sense of the term as "simplistic" since it failed to identify what was supposed to be made equal.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

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1. (2) If two magnitudes are equal to a third they are equal to one another; this statement is, as Hegel has shown, a conclusion, upon the correctness of which all logic depends, and which is demonstrated therefore outside of pure mathematics. The remaining axioms with regard to equality and inequality are merely logical extensions of this conclusion. Such barren statements are not enticing either in mathematics or…

   Friedrich Engels, Landmarks of Scientific Socialism

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2. When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of…

   Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto

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3. The old saying, that 'equality makes friendship,' is happy and also true; but there is obscurity and confusion as to what sort of equality is meant. For there are two equalities which are called by the same name, but are in reality in many ways almost the opposite of one another; one of them may be introduced without difficulty, by any state or any legislator in the distribution of honours: this is the rule of…

   Plato, Laws

   States what Equality of outcome is.

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Related ideas

• Egalitarianism
• Productive forces
• Friedrich Hayek
• John Rawls
• Karl Marx
• Politics (Aristotle)
• Marx's theory of alienation
• The Guardian
• Mental disorder
• Milton Friedman
• Meritocracy
• Political philosophy
• Economic liberalism
• A Theory of Justice
• Socialism
• The New York Times
• Aristotle
• Friedrich Engels
• Amartya Sen
• Standard of living
• Coercion
• Conservatism
• Ideology
• Communism

Opposing perspectives

• Welfare state

Place in the tradition

Part of Political philosophy.

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