ABSTRACT
For upper-class whites, the US economic system, like the government, appears relatively benign, open, and genuinely pluralistic in the best sense of that word. But for those demanding greater social and economic equality, the system seems hostile, exclusionary, even monolithic. In the eighteenth century, when Adam Smith was writing, the concepts of equality and democracy were almost entirely political ideas, with only a small band of French revolutionaries preaching anything resembling social or economic equality. Generally speaking, conservatives in the United States look upon socioeconomic equality as a mirage, and they continue to be possessive individualists, arguing that whether people merit their natural and social assets, they possess them legitimately and thus are entitled to what they can earn therefrom in an open, free market. Conservatives, fearing a radical destabilization of the precarious democratic balance if socioeconomic egalitarianism gets out of hand, are understandably pleased that the quest for equality has so far emphasized the material face of politics.
