A brilliant, timeless, and pathbreaking book, one of the classics of the last hundred years of social theory. Ullmann-Margalit helps explain what makes social organization possible--and why inequality arises and persists. Indispensable reading, full of implications for economics, philosophy, law, psychology, and sociology--and public policy as well.

Cass R. Sunstein, Robert Walmsley University Professor, Harvard University

'[Ullmann-Margalit's] lucidly presented thesis will be of interest to moral and political philosophers ... clear and detailed at every point.'

G. R. Grice, Philosophy

'a book with arguments and ideas deserving of close attention from moral philosophers, political philosophers, philosophers of social science, and the social scientists themselves ... a sophisticated and sustained argument.'

Lanning Sowden, The Philosophical Quarterly