©2008 The Aristotelian Society Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume lxxxii doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8349.2008.00166.x Symposium Title Elizabeth Anderson and John Skorupski I—ELIZABETH ANDERSON EXPANDING THE EGALITARIAN T OOLBOX: EQUALITY AND BUREAUCRACY Author: Please provide an abstract of around 50–100 words (a little shorter or longer if necessary). I Rethinking the Goal of Egalitarianism. A survey of global egalitarian strategies reveals three principal tools: (i) getting states to constitu- tionalize fundamental human rights, including anti-discrimination principles; (ii) installing the formal apparatus of democracy, includ- ing periodic elections and a free press; and (iii) redistributing resourc- es, often through public provision or funding of goods such as education and health care. The selection of these tools is theoretically motivated by a distributive conception of equality. On this view, the egalitarian goal is to equalize the resources or primary goods— rights, political liberties, opportunities, income—at individuals’ dis- posal. This conception of equality as a pattern of distribution is not fundamentally challenged by prominent recent debates concerning the metric of equality—whether just distributions should be meas- ured in terms of primary goods or other resources, or in terms of ca- pabilities or opportunities for welfare. Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance (2001), a novel about India from Independence to the Emergency, illustrates some of the practi- cal limitations of these egalitarian strategies. On election day, lower caste villagers are rounded up to cast empty ballots, to be filled in later by the local headman. When one dares to insist on his right to fill in his ballot as he pleases, he is killed. As members of the un- touchable Chamaar (tanner) caste, his family is banned from the lo- cal school. His son and brother leave the village to make their way as tailors in a big city. The only available housing is a foul squatter