Attitudes to inequality are compared in Sweden and Britain, using evid
ence from the International Social Survey Program. Using a more multid
imensional model and more representative samples than before, the arti
cle starts out from various arguments about greater egalitarianism in
Sweden compared to Britain and assesses the arguments in the light of
empirical evidence. It is concluded (a) that there are no signs of any
strong 'leftism' in the Swedish population compared to the British on
e (b) that attitudes to inequality are multidimensional and tend to fa
ll into two broad perspectives, one emphasizing redistribution and one
focusing on incentives (c) that in Sweden, attitudes were mostly stru
ctured by class and 'class-related' variables, such as income and educ
ation, while age-group differences were surprisingly large in Britain.
Sector and gender cleavages seem to be of minor importance. The impli
cations of the findings in relation to various perspectives are discus
sed.