Govt claims authority to restrict rights based on potential harm not actual harm. Yet this power is applied selectively not equally.

The Preventive Justice Paradox and Power

Core Argument

There is a fundamental inconsistency in how we apply preventive justice.

The Drunk Driving Principle: A person has harmed no one and taken nothing from anyone. But because their behavior statistically increases the likelihood of harming others we criminalize it. Society broadly accepts this as justified.

The Logical Extension: If we accept that principle then it must apply consistently. Consider a person who has documented reduced capacity for empathy whether through wealth-induced neurological changes personality disorders or systemic insulation. They are placed in authority over thousands or millions and make decisions that statistically and demonstrably increase harm at massive scale. They should face at least equivalent scrutiny if not greater.

The Comparison:

A drunk driver has no direct intent to harm. Neither does an empathy-deficient authority figure. The drunk driver has partial awareness of risk. The authority figure often has even less due to insulation. The drunk driver may harm a few people. The authority figure may harm thousands to millions. The drunk driver faces elevated statistical likelihood of harm. The authority figure faces significantly elevated likelihood per established research. The drunk driver faces criminal charges. The authority figure faces virtually none. The drunk driver has low ability to avoid accountability. The authority figure has extremely high ability.

The disparity is staggering.

Why This Inconsistency Exists

The law was written by people with power. Those who hold authority and wealth directly influence what gets criminalized. Drunk driving laws don't threaten their interests. Laws holding powerful people accountable for systemic harm do.

Harm visibility. A drunk driving crash is visceral and immediate. A CEO suppressing wages across 50,000 employees or a politician gutting safety regulations produces harm that is diffused across millions delayed in its effects and statisticalized into abstraction. But the harm is no less real. People die from poverty lack of healthcare unsafe working conditions and environmental destruction every single day.

We criminalize individual risk but protect institutional risk. Individual recklessness is criminal. Institutional recklessness is a business decision or policy disagreement. This is not a principled distinction. It is a power distinction.

The Deeper Question

If the justification for preventive law is protecting people from elevated risk of rights violations why do we only apply it downward in the social hierarchy and never upward?

There is no principled justification for that asymmetry. Money buys legal frameworks that protect the powerful. Complexity is used as a shield. Cultural narratives glorify the powerful as job creators while framing individual offenders as morally deficient. The people who would need to enforce accountability are often dependent on or influenced by the very people who should be held accountable.

What Consistent Application Would Look Like

If we genuinely applied the drunk driving principle upward we would require empathy assessments and psychological fitness evaluations for people in positions of authority over large populations. We would apply strict liability for decisions made while insulated from their consequences. We would enforce criminal negligence standards on executives and officials whose decisions foreseeably increase mortality poverty or suffering. We would remove people from positions of authority when indicators suggest diminished capacity for considering others welfare just as we revoke a drunk drivers license.

The Uncomfortable Conclusion

This argument is not radical. It is the most conservative possible position. It simply asks that existing legal principles be applied consistently. The fact that this feels radical reveals how deeply the inconsistency is embedded in our systems.

Research confirms that wealth and power measurably reduce empathy and increase harmful decision-making. We have the data. We have the principle. The only thing missing is the will to apply it equitably and that will is missing precisely because the people it would affect are the ones who shape the rules.