Egalitarianism (from French égal, meaning "equal") is a trend of thought that favors equality among living entities. Egalitarian doctrines maintain that all humans are equal in fundamental worth or social status, according to The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The Cultural theory of risk holds egalitarianism as defined by (1) a negative attitude towards rules and principles, and (2) a positive attitude towards group decision-making, with fatalism termed as its opposite. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the term has two distinct definitions in modern English. It is defined either as a political doctrine that all people should be treated as equals and have the same political, economic, social, and civil rights or as a social philosophy advocating the removal of economic inequalities among people or the decentralization of power. Some sources define egalitarianism as the point of view that equality reflects the natural state of humanity.

Some specifically focused egalitarian concerns include economic egalitarianism, legal egalitarianism, luck egalitarianism, political egalitarianism, gender egalitarianism, racial equality, asset-based egalitarianism, and Christian egalitarianism. Common forms of egalitarianism include political and philosophical.

Thomas Sowell (born June 30, 1930) is an American economist, social theorist, political philosopher, and author. A National Humanities Medal winner, he advocates laissez-faire economics and writes from a conservative and libertarian perspective. He is currently a Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

Sowell was born in North Carolina, but grew up in Harlem, New York. He dropped out of high school, and served in the United States Marine Corps during the Korean War. He received a bachelor's degree from Harvard University in 1958 and a master's degree from Columbia University in 1959. In 1968, he earned his doctorate degree in economics from the University of Chicago.

Sowell has served on the faculties of several universities, including Cornell and University of California, Los Angeles, and worked for think tanks such as the Urban Institute. Since 1980 he has worked at the Hoover Institution. He is the author of more than 30 books.

Frances Fox Piven (born October 10, 1932) is an American professor of political science and sociology at The Graduate Center, City University of New York, where she has taught since 1982. Previously, she had been a member of the political science faculty at Boston University.

Piven was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, of Russian Jewish immigrant parents, Rachel (née Paperny) and Albert Fox, a storekeeper. Piven immigrated to the United States when she was one and was naturalized as a United States Citizen in 1953. She was raised in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York. She attended P.S. 148 and Newtown High School. She received a B.A. in City Planning in 1953, an M.A. in 1956, and a Ph.D. in 1962, all from the University of Chicago. She attended on a scholarship and she waitressed for living expenses.

Piven was married to her long-time collaborator Richard Cloward until his death in 2001. Together with Cloward, she wrote an article in the May 1966 issue of The Nation titled "The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty" advocating increased enrollment in social welfare programs in order to collapse that system and force reforms, leading to a guaranteed annual income. This political strategy has been referred to as the "Cloward–Piven strategy". During 2006/07 Piven served as the President of the American Sociological Association.

Walter Edward Block (born 21 August 1941) is an Austrian School of economics economist and anarcho-capitalist.

Block was born in Brooklyn, New York to Abraham Block, a certified public accountant, and Ruth Block, a paralegal, both of whom Block has said were liberals. He earned his undergraduate degree in Philosophy summa cum laude from Brooklyn College, where he was a member of the varsity swimming team. Block earned his Ph.D. degree in economics from Columbia University and wrote his dissertation on rent control.^{[citation needed]} Block, who is of Jewish background, self-identifies as a "devout atheist".

Block's early thinking life was characterized by egalitarian thought. In an interview by the Austrian Economics Newsletter, Block stated, "In the fifties and sixties, I was just another commie living in Brooklyn." Block credits his "conversion" to Libertarianism to personal meetings with Ayn Rand while he was an undergraduate student. Alan Greenspan was in attendance at some of these meetings. As Block describes it, "In 1963, when I was a senior at Brooklyn College, Ayn Rand came there to give a lecture. I attended, along with about 3,000 of my fellow mainly leftish students, in order to boo and hiss her, since she was evil incarnate. Afterward, the president of the group that had invited her to campus announced there was to be a luncheon in her honor, and anyone was welcome to take part, whether or not they agreed with her ideas. Not having had enough booing and hissing at Ayn in her formal lecture, I decided to avail myself of this opportunity to further express my displeasure with her and her views."

David Kelley (born June 23, 1949 in Shaker Heights, Ohio) is an American philosopher, author, and advocate of Objectivism. He is founder and senior fellow of The Atlas Society. He lives in Washington, D.C..

Kelley is trained as a philosopher. He received his BA and MA in philosophy from Brown University, where he studied with the American rationalist, Roderick Chisholm. He received his Ph.D. in 1975 from Princeton University, where his advisor was the American postmodernist Richard Rorty. He was an assistant professor of philosophy and cognitive science for 7 years at Vassar College. He then taught logic for a brief time at Brandeis University, while working as a freelance writer for Barron's Magazine and other publications.

A member of her circle, David Kelley read Ayn Rand's favorite poem, "If—", by Rudyard Kipling, at her funeral in 1982.

Leonard Peikoff's Ayn Rand Institute (ARI) declared Objectivism to be a "closed system" containing only the philosophic principles advocated by Rand herself.