Political Equality and Democracy: Masses and the Select…

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For many centuries, human beings have lived under many forms of rule: god-like rulers, tribes, kings, aristocracies, and more. Of all the systems we have tried, democracy seems to be the best one we have come up with, or at least the one that appears to work best. We defend it fiercely.
And yet, we still struggle.
There is hardly a Socrates Café meeting where we do not end up talking about Trump. That is not necessarily a bad thing, nor is it something to avoid. The uncomfortable truth is that it now affects us directly.
So the same question returns again: Can the decision of the masses really govern an entire society and create a better future? Does equality in voting truly make sense in the real world? Or should we instead be guided by a select few? Is the system we are defending actually working in the first place?
The dilemma can be stated like this:
If all votes are equal, democracy may ignore differences in knowledge.
If votes are unequal, democracy may destroy political equality itself.

1. What do we mean by political equality?
2. What is its promise for the citizen?
3. Why is political equality important for democracy?
4. Does one person, one vote achieve political equality?
5. Can citizens be politically equal even if they are socially and economically unequal?
6. Should all votes be counted equally if citizens are not equally informed?
7. Are we still politically equal if everyone can vote, but some people have more influence?
8. If elections depend on money from companies, are they still truly elections and create a legitimate government?
9. Is political equality fulfilled when everyone has the right to vote, or only when people are also prepared and motivated to use it?
10. Why do higher levels of economic inequality often lead to lower democratic participation?
11. Can a society remain just if it stops treating its citizens as political equals?
12. If we reject equal voting, do we inevitably move toward elitism?
13. Are we willing to accept bad decisions in order to preserve equality? How can we make the equal votes to create good decisions?
14. How can we restore the original meaning back to political equality beyond voting?
15. Does the power and responsibility of a citizen ends with voting?