This article explores the relationship between liberal democracy and socioeconomic equality, both on a theoretical and a practical level. It recounts both liberal and non-liberal arguments why democracies should or should not worry about de facto inequality, and then goes through a series of consequentialist arguments about why, alternatively, democracies should either worry about high persistent levels of inequality, or conversely, why attempts to remedy inequality through social policy is likely to have deleterious political or economic effects.