  Recent observations of the galaxy population within rich clusters have found
a characteristic luminosity distribution described by a flat (alpha = -1.0)
Schechter function which exhibits an upturn at faint absolute magnitudes (B Mag
= -18). Here we discuss whether such a form for the field luminosity
distribution is ruled out by local and/or faint magnitude limited redshift
surveys (MLRS).
  Our conclusions are that existing redshift surveys provide little constraints
on the volume-density distribution of field galaxies faintwards of B Mag = -18.
The local MLRS suffer from poor statistics over inhomogeneous volumes, while
the faint MLRS are ambiguous because of the unknown nature of the ``faint blue
excess'' and the ``normalization'' problem.
  Adopting a functional form similar to that seen in rich clusters we find that
the maximum allowable faint end slope, based on the Mt Stromlo-APM redshift
survey, is $\alpha \approx -1.8$ faintwards of B Mag = -18.0 (Ho = 50
km/s/Mpc^{3}).
