ABSTRACT
Inequality consists of the uneven distribution of attributes among a set of social units: individuals, categories, groups, regions, or something else. Social historians interest themselves especially in the uneven distribution of costs and benefits-goods, broadly defined. Relevant goods include not only wealth and income but such various costs and benefits as control of land, exposure to illness, respect from other people, liability to military service, risk of homicide, possession of tools, and availability of sexual partners. Like social scientists in general, social historians have paid little attention to the uneven distribution of other attributes such as genetic traits and musical tastes except as they correlate with the uneven distribution of goods in this broad sense. Goods vary in the extent to which they are autonomous (observable without reference to out-side units, as in accumulations of food) or relative (observable only in relation to other units, as in prestige). On the whole, inequalities with respect to autonomous goods reach greater extremes than with respect to relative goods.
