05 October 2012

Zinn: Rule of Law




The rule of law does not do away with unequal distribution of wealth and power, but reinforces that inequality with the authority of law. It allocates wealth and poverty (through taxes and appropriations) but in such complicated and indirect ways as to leave the victim bewildered. To protect everyone’s contracts seem like an act of fairness, or equal treatment, until one considers that contracts made between rich and poor, between employer and employee, landlord and tenant, creditor and debtor, generally favor the more powerful of the two parties. Thus, to protect these contracts is to put the great power of the government, its laws, courts, sheriffs, police, on the side of the privileged - and to do it not, as in premodern times, as an exercise of brute force against the weak but as a matter of law.

To protect everyone’s contracts seem like an act of fairness, or equal treatment, until one considers that contracts made between rich and poor, between employer and employee, landlord and tenant, creditor and debtor, generally favor the more powerful of the two parties. Thus, to protect these contracts is to put the great power of the government, its laws, courts, sheriffs, police, on the side of the privileged - and to do it not, as in premodern times, as an exercise of brute force against the weak but as a matter of law.



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