ABSTRACT
The concept of liberty is very closely bound up with the extent of social status differences and the desire to avoid subordination, social inferiority, and dominance. The simplest concept of fairness, and the one that seems to predominate in human prehistory as well as in modern human friendship patterns, is equality. Not only has the social divisiveness of inequality always been recognized, but the dimensions of the social environment toward which social epidemiology is directing one's attention are exactly those that have often been the focus of political attention. They were expressed most clearly in the demand for "liberty, equality, and fraternity" raised during the French Revolution and still inscribed on French Euro coins today. One of the effects of the communist countries' use of state ownership and control of the economy was that the United States lost its liking for equality: people came to assume equality involved a sacrifice of freedom.
