Explains how diverse societies distribute such entities as education, citizenship, work, leisure time, honors, and love, as well as wealth and power, and argues that a just distribution necessitates an open egalitarianism.

1. Complex equality -- Pluralism -- A theory of goods -- Dominance and monopoly -- Simple equality -- Tyranny and complex equality -- Three distributive principles -- Free exchange -- Desert -- Need -- Hierarchies and caste societies -- The setting of the argument -- 2. Membership -- Members and strangers -- Analogies: neighborhoods, clubs, and families -- Territory -- "White Australia" and the claim of necessity -- Refugees -- Alienage and naturalization -- The Athenian Metics -- Guest workers -- Membership and justice -- 3. Security and welfare -- Membership and need -- Communal provision -- Athens in the fifth and fourth centuries -- A medieval Jewish community -- Fair shares -- The extent of provision -- An American welfare state -- The case of medical care -- A note on charity and dependency -- The examples of blood and money -- 4. Money and commodities -- The universal pander -- What money can't buy -- Conscription in 1863 -- Blocked exchanges -- What money can buy -- The marketplace -- The world's biggest department store -- Washing machines, television sets, shoes, and automobiles -- The determination of wages -- Redistributions -- Gifts and inheritance -- Gift exchange in the Western Pacific -- The gift in the Napoleonic Code -- 5. Office -- Simple equality in the sphere of office -- Meritocracy -- The Chinese examination system -- The meaning of qualification -- What's wrong with nepotism? -- The reservation of office -- The case of the American blacks -- Professionalism and the insolence of office -- The containment of office -- The world of the petty bourgeoisie -- Workers' control -- Political patronage -- 6. Hard work -- Equality and hardness -- Dangerous work -- Grueling work -- The Israeli kibbutz -- Dirty work -- The San Francisco scavengers -- 7. Free time -- The meaning of leisure -- Two forms of rest -- A short history of vacations -- The idea of the sabbath -- 8. Education -- The importance of schools -- The Aztec "House of the Young Men" -- Basic schooling: autonomy and equality -- Hillel on the roof -- The Japanese example -- Specialized schools -- George Orwell's Schooldays -- Association and segregation -- Private schools and educational vouchers -- Talent tracks -- Integration and school busing -- Neighborhood schools -- 9. Kinship and Love -- The distributions of affect -- Plato's Guardians -- Family and economy -- Manchester, 1844 -- Marriage -- The civic ball -- The idea of the "Date" -- The woman question -- 10. Divine grace -- The wall between church and state -- The Puritan commonwealth -- 11. Recognition -- The struggle for recognition -- A sociology of titles -- Public honor and the individual desert -- Stalin's Stakhanovites -- The Nobel Prize in literature -- Roman and other triumphs -- Punishment -- Ostracism in Athens -- Preventive detention -- Self-esteem and self-respect -- 12. Political power -- Sovereignty and limited government -- Blocked uses of power -- Knowledge/power -- The ship of state -- Disciplinary institutions -- Property/power -- The case of Pullman, Illinois -- Democratic citizenship -- The Athenian lottery -- Parties and primaries -- 13. Tyrannies and just societies -- The relativity and the non-relativity of justice -- Justice in the twentieth century -- Equality and social change.