This is a collection of essays by six prominent social scientists on the ideal of economic and social equality and the ways, if any, in which public action can help to achieve it.* Amartya Sen offers an overview of how equality can be furthered by public action.* A. B. Atkinson proposes an official poverty line in Britain as a way to focus public debate and political action.* E. J. Hobsbawm explores the tensions within the rival demands of language, nation, and culture.* Dorothy Wedderburn argues the case for the superiority of public action in relation to the National Health Service.* Albert O. Hirschman scrutinizes the rhetorical devices used to counter proposals for reform.* Ronald Dworkin demonstrates that liberty and equality are not, as some argue, in conflict.