ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the perennial claim that liberty and equality are incompatible and, hence, that any attempt to reduce substantive inequality promises to diminish individual liberty in society. It argues that this contention is mistaken and that one sort of substantive equality is not only compatible with, but is necessary for, the satisfaction of this libertarian requirement. The argument chiefly consists of four reasonably brief parables. First, second, third and fourth parables are text and commentary. Libertarians characteristically think of themselves as favouring a free society, a society in which individual liberty is maximized. On a warm autumn day sometime in the year 1984, the hundred-odd members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union assemble, in a more than usually gloomy mood, to hold one of their periodic meetings. The approach taken by the Central Committee toward satisfying the libertarian requirement is a fairly familiar one.
