ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates the belief that some kind of equality can be achieved through public expenditure on the social services has long been an essential part of what R. H. Tawney called the Strategy of Equality. It attempts to specify in as precise a fashion as possible the various ways in which the objective of equality can be interpreted. There seem to be five distinct types of equality that appear in one context or another as suitable objectives for guiding the distribution of public expenditure: equality of public expenditure, equality of final income, equality of use, equality of cost, and equality of outcome. The principal focus of the strategists of equality was the differences that exist between social groups defined in terms of social class. In communities no longer divided by religion or race, and in which men and women are treated as political and economic equals, the divisions which remain are, nevertheless, not insignificant.
