Equality can be understood in five different senses:
Civil or Legal equality:
It means that all citizens should enjoy the same civil rights and liberties. All are equal before law. There is no equality, if there is one kind of law for one class of people and another for other classes , or if law benefits one class at the expenses of another, or if law makes distinctions between citizens on the ground of wealth, birth, political opinion, colour or creed or sex. Law must confer equal rights on all citizens, regardless of any distinction.
Political equality:
It means that all citizens have the same political rights and equal voice in government, and an equal access to all offices of, authority, provided the necessary qualifications are fulfilled. Obviously, political equality is possible under democracy and adult suffrage. But political equality becomes real only when accompanied by economic equality.
Economic equality:
It is sometimes understood as the abolition of all differences of wealth and making all to possess absolutely equal amount of wealth or income. Such an equality is a physical impossibility. Even if such an experiment is made will soon fail because of the natural differences among human beings in want and their capacity to satisfy them. Therefore, after sometimes differences of wealth and income will again come into being. What economic equality really means is equality up to the margin of sufficiency. It means the opportunity to satisfy the minimum economic needs which enable an individual to live a decent and active life, without frustrations. The minimum is shown by the fact that all men need to eat, drink and have shelter.
All of these needs are equally urgent for every one to this extent; the economic needs of all must be satisfied. But beyond it, there may be differences of income or wealth. In correct terms, it means that one man must no eat cakes when ten others are starving to death, or a few men must not have abundance of wealth while the masses of people have not enough food, clothing, medicine and other necessaries of life, to keep themselves alive. Such inequalities of wealth and income would court the upper classes, vulgarize the middle classes and brutalize the poor classes. The State must, therefore, guarantee all citizens such an amount of wealth and income which enable them to satisfy their primary needs of life. As Laski puts it, economic equality is a problem of proportions. It implies a certain levelling process so that there be no longer the present-day inequalities, which produce frustrations among the have-nots, and over indulgence among the haves. This equality is the basis of social justice. It will solve our social and political problems.
Social Equality:
It means that all individuals are equal members of the society and no one is entitled to social privileges. It implies that there should be no distinctions in the social status of the people due to differences in race, colour, rank, class, caste or sex. Caste system or Untouchability among the Hindus destroys social equality. The colour bar against the Negroes as in South Africa against the coloured peoples also destroys social equality. Social inequality is an inevitable result of economic inequality.
Natural equality means, as we said above, that nature has made all men equal, as was believed by early writers. But in fact there is no natural equality. Nature has not made all men equal. Rather, the opposite is truer. All men are unequal in physical, mental and moral qualities. Historically speaking, the cry of natural equality has been very useful in levelling down inan-made inequality of wealth, social status or political privileges.