文化传统的发展问题是重要的时代课题，当下进步儒学的讨论便是推进儒家传统的一种尝试。在其中儒家民主派与儒家贤能派相与争锋，争论之一便是君子与小人在政治上平等与否。《荀子》文本因其丰富的政治思想论述成为双方争抢的理论资源。基于对《荀子》文本的解读，作为儒家民主派代表人物的金圣文论证了君子与小人是政治平等的。但是，本文分析，金圣文的论证很难站得住脚。本文将金圣文的论证重构为两个版本，一个是基于道德平等的非工具主义版本，另一个是政治平等的工具主义版本。通过重构指出非工具主义版本在理论上面临质具论还是性恶论的两难挑战，因此，非工具主义论证不成功。而工具主义版本的成立主要是基于对《荀子》文本的误读，因此，工具主义论证也不成功。

The development of cultural traditions is an important issue of the age, and the current discussion on Progressive Confucianism is an attempt to promote the excellent tradition of Confucianism. In this context, the Confucian democrats and the Confucian meritocrats disagree with each other. One of the debates between them is on the issue of the political equality of the gentleman and the petty man. Due to the rich exposition of political thoughts, Xunzi's text has become a theoretical resource for both sides. Sungmoon Kim, as a representative of the Confucian democrats, argues that thegentleman and the petty man are politically equal based on the interpretation of Xunzi's text. However, this paper argues that Sungmoon Kim's argument is hardly tenable. This paper reconstructs Sungmoon Kim's arguments into two versions, a non-instrumentalist version based on moral equality and an instrumentalist version ofpolitical equality. Through the reconstruction, it is pointed out that the non-instrumentalist version is theoretically challenged by the dilemma of zhi and ju theory and xing-e theory, and therefore, the non-instrumentalist argument is unsuccessful. The instrumentalist version is mainly based on a misreading of Xunzi's text, and thus the instrumentalist argument is also unsuccessful.