ABSTRACT
In the last two decades, egalitarians and former marxists have been eager to catch up with the individualistic and conservative mood which claims to represent commonsense and has permeated the end of the century in Western countries, especially in the Anglo- Saxon world. In an era which witnesses a widening of the gap between the poorest countries and the affluent ones, and also of the gap between the poor and the rich in Western countries, egalitarian theorists have been mostly anxious to show that there may be substantial legitimate inequalities. The desire to compensate for bad brute luck makes the notion of opportunity even more difficult. Even if equality of opportunities did legitimate the resulting outcome inequalities, this claim would not be of much help in a world plagued with huge differences of abilities and incentive problems which make it hopeless to achieve equality of opportunities.
