We live in a society that celebrates freedom. In nearly every respect, that value judgment is lauded over others. Political and social contests race to claim the title of “the most favoring freedom,” “the greatest champion of liberty,” and “the most likely to protect individual rights.” Regulation, on the contrary, is a concept requiring a great deal of apology, and equality (other than, of course, equality of freedom as, for example, with rights of educational opportunity a prerequisite to being able to implement one's freedom) is always somewhat suspect, perhaps socialistic, marginalized to those areas where free-market forces produce a bad result, like racism or monopolies, without any justification, or at least any justification we wish to hear. Of course, equality is important. Yet stripped of the equal right to liberty – that is, the equal rights to vote, to education or employment, or to other rights of participation that are more about freedom than equality – the entire concept of equality typically comes down to fairness or justice arguments concerning participation in the political process. For example, everyone deserves a fair trial.

It could be otherwise. We could think, “Ah, I live in a society with great equality,” “I like to see that others are similarly situated to me,” or “I love the fact that wealth is distributed with unusually low standard deviations from the norm.” We could glory in the hardy and shared air of an equal society.