Equality of sacrifice is a term used in political theory and political philosophy to refer to the perceived fairness of a coercive policy.
John Stuart Mill noticed that citizens often view taxation laws as being fair, as long as taxation is also applied equally to everyone else in society."As a government ought to make no distinction of persons or classes in the strength of their claims on it, whatever sacrifices it requires from them should be made to bear as nearly as possible with the same pressure upon all [...] Equality of taxation, therefore, as a maxim of politics, means equality of sacrifice." John Stuart Mill. 1848. Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy, p. 804, as cited in Political theorist Margaret Levi applied the term to the perceived fairness of conscription in democracies, to which citizens may consent as long as conscription is enforced as a universal duty – as opposed to elitist and exceptionalist policies, as it will sometimes occur in partial mobilization.Levi, Margaret. 1997. Consent, Dissent and Patriotism. Cambridge University Press () p. 26
The term was also adopted by Lee IacoccaIacocca and Novak. 1984. Iacocca: An Autobiography. New York: Bantam Books. Chapter 20. who, as the president of Chrysler, lowered his salary to less than a dollar a year before asking union members for radical wage cuts in order to deal with the company's financial difficulties. During the 2008 financial crisis, Iacocca's example has often been mentioned in opposition to "unconditional" government bail-out of failing companies. In a letter to the leaders of the big three U.S. automakers, Senator Chuck Grassley said that before receiving a government bailout executives should follow the example of former Chrysler head Lee Iacocca and cut their own pay:
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