Sufficientarianism holds that once everyone has sufficient goods and opportunities for a good life, further pursuit of equality is unnecessary. Schuessler argues that goods and opportunities are governed by distinct sufficiency principles and that social classes require different sufficiency thresholds. Justice is fulfilled when individuals can relate as equals in dignity and when members of the lower and middle classes possess the means for good lives and social mobility. Beyond these thresholds, further egalitarian demands lack justification. The theory develops sufficientarian alternatives to Rawls’s principles of justice: the principle of equal rights becomes one of equal respect and dignity, which does not require equality of goods or opportunities. Rawls’s Difference Principle is replaced by sufficiency thresholds for social classes, and his Principle of Fair Equality of Opportunity by a principle of sufficient opportunity for all—one that better serves the disadvantaged by expanding overall opportunity, even with differing costs of access.

The resulting theory, based on philosophical argument but oriented toward practical application, provides a new framework for reconciling fairness, efficiency, and human dignity in contemporary debates on inequality.