Egalitarianism: Background Inequalities and Differential Treatment
Introduction
Egalitarianism is a central tradition within political theory that places equality at the heart of justice. Unlike minimalist views of equality that focus only on equal legal status or formal rights, egalitarianism is concerned with the deeper social, economic, and historical conditions that shape individuals’ life chances. At its core, egalitarian thought asks not merely whether individuals are treated the same by law, but whether they are placed in positions where they can genuinely enjoy equal dignity, opportunity, and freedom.
Two closely related ideas are crucial to understanding modern egalitarianism: background inequalities and differential treatment. Background inequalities refer to the deeply entrenched social and economic disadvantages that individuals inherit due to factors beyond their control, such as class, caste, gender, race, or family circumstances. Differential treatment refers to the idea that achieving equality may require treating individuals and groups differently in order to offset these disadvantages. This chapter explores how egalitarian theory conceptualizes background inequalities, why equal treatment is often insufficient, and how differential treatment can be morally and politically justified within a democratic framework.
Egalitarianism as a Theory of Justice
Egalitarianism begins from the moral claim that all persons are of equal worth and deserve equal concern and respect. However, egalitarian theorists diverge on what equality requires in practice. Some emphasize equality of resources, others equality of welfare, capabilities, or opportunities. What unites them is the rejection of the view that social outcomes should be determined by morally arbitrary factors.
Modern egalitarianism developed in response to the limitations of formal equality. While liberal revolutions succeeded in dismantling legal privileges based on birth or status, they left intact many social and economic hierarchies. Egalitarian thinkers argue that justice must address not only how institutions treat individuals now, but also how past injustices and structural conditions continue to shape present inequalities.
Background Inequalities: The Problem of Unequal Starting Points
Background inequalities refer to the pre-existing social conditions that systematically advantage some individuals while disadvantaging others. These inequalities are “background” in the sense that they operate prior to and independently of individual choice. Family wealth, social networks, quality of education, nutritional security, and cultural capital profoundly influence what individuals are able to achieve.
From an egalitarian perspective, such inequalities are morally troubling because they are largely undeserved. Individuals do not choose the social class, caste, gender, or ethnicity into which they are born. Yet these factors often determine access to education, employment, political influence, and social recognition. As a result, formally equal rights can coexist with substantively unequal lives.
John Rawls famously described natural talents and social circumstances as “arbitrary from a moral point of view.” In A Theory of Justice, Rawls argues that a just society cannot allow the distribution of life chances to be determined by such contingencies alone. Background inequalities distort fair competition and undermine the moral basis of merit. What appears as individual success is often the outcome of accumulated social advantages.
In societies marked by historical oppression—such as colonialism, racial segregation, or caste hierarchy—background inequalities are not accidental but systematically produced. They persist over generations, making it impossible to achieve genuine equality merely by declaring equal rights or equal rules.
Equal Treatment and Its Limits
A common response to inequality is the demand for equal treatment: that laws and policies should apply uniformly to all citizens. While equal treatment is an important democratic principle, egalitarian theory highlights its limitations. Treating unequals equally can entrench, rather than reduce, injustice.
When individuals begin from vastly unequal positions, uniform rules may reproduce advantage. For example, a single standard examination may appear fair, but students from privileged backgrounds—who have access to better schools, private tutoring, and supportive home environments—are far more likely to succeed. In such cases, equal treatment ignores background inequalities and rewards inherited advantage.
Egalitarians therefore distinguish between formal equality and substantive equality. Formal equality focuses on sameness of rules, while substantive equality is concerned with the actual effects of policies on different groups. The latter requires attention to social context, history, and power relations.
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Differential Treatment: Equality Through Unequal Means
Differential treatment refers to policies and practices that deliberately treat individuals or groups differently in order to correct for background inequalities. From an egalitarian standpoint, such treatment is not a violation of equality but a means of realizing it.
Affirmative action, reservations, quotas, and targeted welfare policies are examples of differential treatment. These measures recognize that historical disadvantage cannot be overcome simply by opening competition on formally equal terms. Instead, additional support or preferential access may be necessary to level the playing field.
Ronald Dworkin provides a powerful defense of differential treatment through his theory of equality of resources. Dworkin argues that justice requires compensating individuals for disadvantages arising from brute luck, while allowing inequalities that result from informed and voluntary choices. Differential treatment is justified when it addresses disadvantages for which individuals are not responsible.
Similarly, Amartya Sen emphasizes that equality should be assessed in terms of capabilities—the real freedoms individuals have to pursue valued ways of living. Because people differ in their needs and social conditions, treating everyone identically may result in unequal capabilities. Differential treatment becomes necessary to ensure genuinely equal freedom.
Differential Treatment and Democratic Concerns
Despite its egalitarian rationale, differential treatment has generated significant controversy. Critics argue that it undermines merit, stigmatizes beneficiaries, or violates the principle of equal citizenship. From this perspective, preferential policies are seen as unfair to those who do not receive them.
Egalitarian responses to these criticisms stress that “merit” itself is socially conditioned and cannot be separated from background advantage. Moreover, the ideal of equal citizenship is compromised not by differential treatment, but by enduring social hierarchies that exclude large sections of the population from meaningful participation. Temporary or targeted differential treatment can, in fact, strengthen democracy by broadening access to power and opportunity.
The challenge for egalitarian policy is to ensure that differential treatment is carefully designed, proportionate, and oriented toward long-term equality rather than permanent categorization. It must be accompanied by broader structural reforms in education, health, employment, and political representation.
The Indian Context: Caste, Inequality, and Justice
In the Indian context, the relevance of background inequalities and differential treatment is especially pronounced. The caste system has historically structured access to resources, knowledge, and dignity, producing enduring patterns of exclusion. Formal legal equality introduced during the colonial and postcolonial periods could not, by itself, dismantle these hierarchies.
The Indian Constitution reflects a distinctly egalitarian understanding of equality. While it guarantees equality before the law, it also authorizes differential treatment in the form of reservations and special protections for historically disadvantaged groups. These measures are grounded in the recognition that caste-based inequalities are structural and intergenerational.
Debates over reservations often mirror the theoretical tension between formal equality and substantive equality. Egalitarian theory provides a framework for understanding why differential treatment is not an exception to equality, but an essential component of achieving it in deeply unequal societies.
Contemporary Debates and Relevance
In contemporary politics, egalitarian arguments about background inequalities remain highly relevant. Global economic inequality, gender disparities, racial injustice, and unequal access to education and healthcare continue to shape life chances across societies. The rise of meritocratic rhetoric has, in some cases, obscured the role of inherited advantage and structural power.
Egalitarianism challenges the assumption that equal rules are sufficient for justice. It insists that democratic societies must continuously examine how institutions distribute advantages and disadvantages, and whether these distributions reflect fair terms of cooperation among equals.
Conclusion
Egalitarianism offers a demanding and morally ambitious account of equality. By foregrounding background inequalities, it exposes the limits of formal equality and highlights the ways in which social structures shape individual outcomes. Differential treatment, from this perspective, is not a deviation from equality but a necessary strategy for realizing it.
A just society cannot be content with treating everyone the same while ignoring deep and enduring disparities in power, resources, and opportunity. Instead, it must be willing to adopt context-sensitive and corrective measures that enable all individuals to participate as equals. Egalitarianism thus reframes equality not as sameness, but as fairness grounded in equal respect, social justice, and democratic inclusion.
References
Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971.
Dworkin, Ronald. Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000.
Sen, Amartya. Inequality Reexamined. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Bhargava, Rajeev and Acharya, Ashok (eds.). Political Theory: An Introduction. New Delhi: Pearson, 2008.
Anderson, Elizabeth. “What Is the Point of Equality?” Ethics 109, no. 2 (1999).
