Equality is a multi-dimensional concept. Diverse opinions are put forth in locating the exact relationship between these two concepts. Writers like De Tocqueville and Lord Acton hold the view that liberty and equality are opposed to each other as they are antagonistic. The desire to have equality destroys the possibility of having full liberty. Achievement of equality demands positive state action. Equality needs a ‘positive state’ and liberty needs a ‘Negative State’. The Elite theory of Democracy is against the principle of equality. But on the other hand writers like Maitland, Rousseau, Barker, Laski etc. hold the view that they are complementary to each other. Liberty and equality have a common end, the promotion of the value of the personality and the free development of its capacities. R. H. Tawney rightly remarks that “a large measure of equality, so far being inimical to liberty, is essential to it”. No one of these can be enjoyed in isolation.
L. T. Hobhouse opined that liberty without equality is a high-sounding phrase with squalid results. Liberty lies in equality. Liberty without equality degenerates into licence and equality without liberty lapses into uniformity.
Liberty is superior to equality because equality serves under liberty. To Prof. Barker “Equality in all its forms, must always be subject and instrumental to the free development of capacity; but if it be pressed to the length of uniformity; if uniformity be made to thwart the free development of capacity, the subject becomes the master, and the world is turned topsy-turvy.”
The development of a rich variety of personalities require a large measure of liberty and forbids all attempts to impose a dead level of social and economic equality. Liberty unites men but equality criticises the social hierarchy and contributes towards the stability of the community. Therefore liberty would be hollow without some measure of equality and equality would be meaningless without liberty. In this age of democracy where voting is a powerful weapon in the hands of the electorate economic equality is most essential condition because the economically powerful person will use his economic resources to gain political power. Political equality will be a mockery in the absence of economic equality. All the democratic constitutions of the world have incorporated liberty and equality in their constitutions because both of them have a common aim- the development of human personality and to make life worth-living. Therefore, it is said liberty without equality is narrow and equality without liberty is monotonous. Both at them are the essential conditions of human existence.