Many take it as an unquestionable, nonnegotiable axiom that everyone ought to have an equal share of political power. Unequal political power is a marker of injustice. They have a point. For most of civilized history, political power was distributed unequally, on the basis of morally arbitrary, repugnant, or evil reasons. We’ve made progress, and we’ve realized what our past mistakes were. We shouldn’t imbue someone with power just because they are white, Protestant, or male. We shouldn’t forbid someone from holding political power just because that person is black, Catholic, Irish, Jewish, or female, because they don’t own a house, or because their parents were street sweepers. A person doesn’t have the right to rule just because they are the great-grandchild of a conquering warlord. In the past, inequality in political power was almost always unjust. Past movements toward democracy were usually
a step in the right direction.
That said, even if past political inequality was unjust, it does not
follow that political inequality is inherently unjust. Even if, in the
past, people were excluded from holding political power for bad reasons, there might be good reasons to exclude some people from holding power or grant them a smaller share of political power.
In comparison, we should not exclude citizens from driving because they are atheists, gay, or Dalits. Yet that does not mean that all restrictions on the legal right to drive are unjust. There might be just reasons to forbid some people from driving, such as that they are incompetent drivers who impose too much risk on others when they drive.
So it might be with political rights as well. Countries used to exclude citizens from holding power for bad reasons, such as that they were black, female, or didn’t own land. But though this was unjust, it remains open that there could be good grounds for restricting or reducing some citizens’ political power. Perhaps some citizens are incompetent participants who impose too much risk on others when they participate. Perhaps some of us have a right to be protected from their incompetence.
Sayfa 18 - Arbitrary versus Nonarbitrary Grounds for Political Inequality
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