Democratic egalitarianism maintains that all citizens are created equal before the law.
Specifically, this philosophy combines the equal political rights of egalitarianism with the universal franchise of democracy. There are no class structures that entail separate legal practices in democratic egalitarianism. Thus, canon law, star chambers, and aristocracy are alike forbidden, and the testimony of all persons is counted with the same weight. This political development arose in the 18th century in both the United States and France after their revolutionary periods. It was a radical development, as it negated the former feudal and aristocratic foundations.
Egalitarianism is the moral doctrine that equality ought to prevail throughout society.
Economic egalitarianism, popular with liberals throughout much of the 20th Century, has given way to a concern not that everyone be strictly equal in material possession, but rather that everyone be equal in having enough material goods to successfully fulfill his or her native human capacities.
Libertarianism can be understood as radical political egalitarianism, according to which everyone is equal (or nearly equal) in coercive political power, because no one has any (or those who have it have little and are strictly limited in their use of it).
Egalitarianism is a protean doctrine, because there are several different types of equality, or ways in which people might be treated the same, that might be thought desirable.
In modern democratic societies, the term "egalitarian" is often used to refer to a position that favors, for any of a wide array of reasons, a greater degree of equality of income and wealth across persons than currently exists.
Interpreting Karl Marx as an egalitarian normative theorist is a tricky undertaking, however, in view of the fact that he tends to eschew explicit theorizing on moral principles and to regard assertions of moral principles as so much ideological dust thrust in the eyes of the workers by defenders of capitalism.
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