Social equality

Rights
Theoretical distinctions
Claim rights and liberty rights Individual and group rights Natural and legal rights Negative and positive rights
Human rights
Civil and political Economic, social and cultural Three generations
Rights by claimant
Animals Authors Children Consumers Fathers Fetuses Humans Natives Kings LGBT Men Minorities Mothers Plants Students Women Workers Youth Disabled persons
Other groups of rights
Civil liberties Digital Linguistic Reproductive

Social equality is a state of affairs in which all people within a specific society or isolated group have the same status in certain respects. At the very least, social equality includes equal rights under the law, such as security, voting rights, freedom of speech and assembly, property rights, and equal access to social goods and services. However, it also includes concepts of economic equity, i.e. access to education, health care and other social securities. It also includes equal opportunities and obligations, and so involves the whole of society.

Social equality requires the absence of legally enforced social class or caste boundaries and the absence of discrimination motivated by an inalienable part of a person's identity. For example, sex, gender, race, age, sexual orientation, origin, caste or class, income or property, language, religion, convictions, opinions, health or disability must not result in unequal treatment under the law and should not reduce opportunities unjustifiably.

Social equality refers to social, rather than economic, or income equality. "Equal opportunities" is interpreted as being judged by ability, which is compatible with a free-market economy. A problem is horizontal inequality, the inequality of two persons of same origin and ability.

Perfect social equality is considered by Liberals to be an ideal situation that, for various reasons, does not exist in any society in the world today. The reasons for this are widely debated. Reasons cited for social inequality commonly include economics, immigration/emigration, foreign politics and national politics. Also, in complexity economics, it has been found that horizontal inequality arises in complex systems.

See also

• Social inequality, the opposite of social equality
• Ethnic Penalty
• Egalitarianism
• Equality before the law
• Equal opportunity
• Equality of outcome
• Leveling mechanism
• Rule according to higher law

References

• Russell Blackford. Genetic enhancement and the point of social equality, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. July 20, 2006
• Thorvaldur Gylfason and Gylfi Zoega. Education, Social Equality and Economic Growth: A View of the Landscape, CESifo Economic Studies, Vol. 49, 4/2003, 557–79
• Farmer, Paul E., Bruce Nizeye, Sara Stulac, and Salmaan Keshavjee. 2006. Structural Violence and Clinical Medicine. PLoS Medicine, 1686-1691.
• W. G. Runciman. "Social" Equality, The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 68.

Further reading

• Bryce, James (1898). "Equality," The Century; A Popular Quarterly, Volume 56, Issue 3.
• Mallock, William H. (1882). Social Equality: A Short Study in a Missing Science, Richard Bentley and Son.
• Stephen, James Fitzjames (1873). "Equality." In Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, Chap. V, Holt & Williams.
• Stephen, Leslie (1891). "Social Equality," International Journal of Ethics, Vol. 1, No. 3.

.