Abstract
The departure point of this article is a story by J. L. Borges about an imaginary city, Babylon, where everyone's activities are determined by a lottery. The disguised but omnipresent role of chance in liberal-democratic society is considered, and its implications for justice in such societies is discussed. ‘Babylonian justice’, the allocation of roles and resources by lottery, is then considered, and the parallels between Borges's fable and social contract theories are elaborated. Finally, a case is made for the use of lottery and rotation in societies where stratification and scarcity exist. Given such conditions, the lottery principle, organized chance, is shown to be a necessary part of any mechanism of distribution and any theory of justice.
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