ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the competing claims of equality of resources. Equality of political power, including equality of power over publicly or commonly owned resources, is treated as a different issue. The chapter argues that an equal division of resources presupposes an economic market of some form, mainly as an analytical device but also, to a certain extent, as an actual political institution. It suggests that the idea of an economic market, as a device for setting prices for a vast variety of goods and services, must be at the center of any attractive theoretical development of equality of resources. The information left to independent political level under equality of welfare is therefore brought to initial level of individual choice under equality of resources. Under equality of welfare, people are meant to decide what sorts of lives they want independently of information relevant to determining how much their choices will reduce or enhance ability of others to have what they want.
