This article engages with two prominent defenses of unequal power from the standpoint of social equality, by Daniel Viehoff (2019) and Ryan Cox (2022), which aim to debunk the Constitution Claim, or the idea that equal power is constitutively necessary for social equality. This paper shows that the Constitution Claim is not defeated by the proposals such as the ones mentioned to tease apart power equality and social equality. Adequate social justification of power inequality, understood by Viehoff (2019) as moral-equality-respectful social justification, is not sufficient to ground social equality. If understood as the “best interpretation available,” adequate social justification either collapses into the actual justification of society lacking a normative framework for determining the best interpretation or comes closer to an objective interpretation, which loses the social character of social inequality. Pace Cox (2022), power inequality is not objectionable only because it gives rise to consideration inequality (when it does) or only when it is known about. Relational egalitarians should worry about power inequality even when it is secret because those with lesser power are vulnerable to those with greater power, which can, in certain conditions, raise the worry of domination. I conclude that the Constitution Claim is not proven wrong.
