This is a set of closely related theories that without exemption advocate the thesis that all members of a society should have exactly equal amount of resources. Simpler theories of this kind are satisfied with the claim that everyone should be given, at all costs, completely equal quantity of certain crucial material goods, like money. More careful and sophisticated egalitarian thinkers are aware that such a distribution would have too many shortcomings: those with greater needs for which they are not themselves responsible (like the handicapped people), would get less satisfaction than others because they would have to spend a great share of their resources just to catch up others (if ever) in normal functioning; lazy and idle people would be rewarded and the talented and industrious would be discouraged, etc. To evade such unacceptable consequences, the adherents of strict equality started a search for some complex measure of goods that would be given to everybody in equal amounts but would not suffer from similar bad effects. Many such egalitarian measures were proposed so far, like: that everyone should be equally happy, that everyone should have not only equal amount of material resources but also an equal power to use these resources (this proposal wants to deal with unequal personal abilities), that everyone should have an equal chance to be happy, and the like. The discussion that goes on among egalitarians does not allow one to say yet which of the proposed ways of equal distribution is the best one.

The main egalitarians are:
Richard Arneson, G.A. Cohen, Amartya K. Sen