'Sociology has always been critical of social inequality, viewed it as a disturbing reality in need of change; not only as a social pathology threatening the integration of society but also as normatively questionable, as illegitimate, as a phenomenon that cannot be justified or that is at least in need of a strong justification. Neither of these views is (sociologically) self-evident. The former appears to be invalidated by the observation that (modern) societies are capable of tolerating remarkable degrees of inequality without seriously endangering their stability. The latter view is problematic even at the conceptual level as sociology, qua sociology (i.e., through being an empirical discipline), lacks the very means by which it could be theoretically supported. Furthermore, there are many inequalities, not all of which can be addressed simultaneously, because doing so would require resources that may be limited and because trade-offs often exist between reducing one form of inequality as against another which need be no less serious and may in fact grow as a result of tackling the first. Thus, even if there was a sound basis for sociology's critical stance toward (some forms of) inequality, we would still have to set priorities, to rank the various inequalities according to their relative significance vis-ˆ-vis others in order to know what comes (or should be done) first, which concessions have to be made (and accepted) at the price of what kinds of improvements and benefits. The sociological literature on inequality rarely acknowledges such difficulties. Instead, it keeps discovering ever more inequalities and, focusing on each of them individually, demanding that they be reduced without considering the consequences for "the rest", including other societal concerns which, once more, may stand in the way of pursuing the requisite policies. So if sociologists want to make a serious contribution to the debate about (in )equality, they must address their own limitations and weaknesses, as well as come to terms with the priority problem. Proposals are invited for papers dealing with these problems. If you are interested, please send an abstract of no more than one page to Volker Schmidt: socvhs@nus.edu.sg.