Democracy as Heuristic: The Ecological Rationality of Political Equality

In this paper, Landemore explores one defense of political equality: that uncertainty about the nature of the political questions a polity will face require not only maximal inclusion but also egalitarian inclusion. While experts have an advantage in cataloging and quantifying known risks, there is no expertise in enumerating outcomes under uncertainty, when the very number and probability of possible outcomes are unknown. Democratic equality is thus “ecologically” rational, because best suited to this radical uncertainty.