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Equality of relations, not just of the basket

One can give everyone the means to live and still have masters and dependents: justice is not just a floor of goods, it is a way of standing as equals.

Objects to Sufficientarianism

Elizabeth Anderson · 'What Is the Point of Equality?' · 1999

1. Sufficientarianism measures justice by a basket of goods: does each person have enough? Once the threshold is reached, it declares itself satisfied.
2. But a society can secure the necessities for all while still sorting people into superiors and inferiors: dependent on a boss, a husband, a benefactor whose favor must be begged. The basket is full, the relation remains that of a dependent.
3. But what wounds in inequality is not only the shortfall, it is having to bow one's head, to count for less as a person. The equality that counts is equality of relations: that no one stands above another.

Therefore So a floor of sufficiency is not enough: justice also requires that people stand as equals, without domination, which may demand narrowing gaps that sufficiency alone would let run.