Like other altruistic notions, the goal of "economic equality" is subjective and can be interpreted in several different ways. Under the simplest interpretation, each citizen is to be allotted the same quantity of every consumer good. For example, everyone receives an equal quota of medical care and an equal quota of athletic equipment. (To be precise, each of these categories comprises an assortment of different goods, each of which would be associated with a particular quota.) Such a policy, however, seems to run counter to common sense. A healthy person, for example, is allocated just as much medical care as a gravely ill person, while the bedridden invalid receives equal quotas of basketballs and baseball bats.

Under a more sophisticated interpretation, each citizen is allotted the same monetary income, to spend as that person chooses. The relative impact of such a system on the welfares of different individuals, however, depends on the prices that have been assigned to different goods. Since the free market has been abolished, no standard pricing system exists. Hence the relative prices must be arbitrarily defined by ruling bureaucrats. But in that case, the practical meaning of "economic equality" is also defined by those same subjective pricing decisions. For example, if the bureaucrats assign higher prices to medical care and lower prices to professional athletic equipment, healthy individuals will enjoy a higher standard of living, while gravely ill persons will suffer. Whatever prices are assigned, "economic equality" is in effect determined, not by any objective standards, but by arbitrary bureaucratic mandates.