Contents

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents vii
3. Introduction: A Negative Observation and a Positive Conjecture 1
4. I A First Instance of the Negative Observation: Justifying the State
5. 1 The Received Materials: Improvement and Invasion 11
6. 2 Is the Claim against the State’s Force? 33
7. 3 Is the Claim against the State’s Threats? 62
8. 4 Last Attempts 78
9. II The Positive Conjecture: Claims against Inferiority
10. 5 Relations of Inferiority 85
11. 6 Disparities of Regard 103
12. 7 Reductive Gambits 117
13. 8 The State and the Secondary Tempering Factors 122
14. 9 The State and the Firm 145
15. 10 Collective Inferiority 155
16. III Further Instances
17. 11 Claims against Corruption: The Negative Observation 157
18. 12 Claims against Corruption: The Positive Conjecture 171
19. 13 Claims against Discrimination 183
20. 14 Claims to Equal Treatment 191
21. 15 Claims to the Rule of Law 203
22. 16 Claims to Equal Liberty 206
23. 17 Claims to Equality of Opportunity 212
24. 18 Claims against Poverty, Relative and Absolute 226
25. 19 Claims against Illiberal Interventions: The Negative Observation 229
26. 20 Claims against Illiberal Interventions: The Positive Conjecture 248
27. IV Contrasts
28. 21 Being No Worse Off 257
29. 22 Relations of Equality 270
30. 23 Nondomination 272
31. V A Last Instance: Democracy
32. 24 Preliminaries 289
33. 25 The Negative Observation: Correspondence 299
34. 26 The Negative Observation: Influence 309
35. 27 The Positive Conjecture: Equal Influence 323
36. VI A Democracy Too Lenient and Too Demanding?
37. 28 Pathologies of American Democracy 345
38. 29 The Permissiveness of Formal Equality 354
39. 30 Gerrymandering: A Case Study of Permissiveness 367
40. 31 The Demandingness of Informal Equality 383
41. 32 Arbitrary Voting 394
42. Conclusion: Not So Much Liberty As Noninferiority 402
43. Notes 409
44. References 441
45. Acknowledgments 459
46. Index 463