Despite what the judicial branch's responsibilities to the people and what it allegedly does, a detailed look at the Supreme Court's history proves otherwise. For the majority of its history, it has constantly supported the wealthy, corporate rights, and the protection of private property. The Supreme Court justices in the 19th century largely supported laissez-faire and social Darwinism over the rights and workers and the middle-class.
One of the tools that conservative judges and lawyers used and manipulated to increase the rights of corporations and deny them to workers was fear. Specifically they used the fear of communism, socialism, and the fear of the overthrow of democracy and revolution to their advantage. A lawyer wrote in the American Law Review, that it is "perfectly clear that the Granger movement was rank Communism". Justice Brown of the Supreme Court once said, "even the spectre of socialism is conjured up to frighten Congress from laying taxes upon the people in proportion to their ability to pay them" . Even after the Lochner case, the majority opinion warned of laws that duplicated socialism .
In 1913, the Socialist Party elected a Milwaukee congressman, ten New York legislators, and 73 mayors . The conservatives warned of socialism and won the presidential election. The judicial branch, especially the Supreme Court, constantly used the fear of socialism to protect corporate rights to ensure capitalism.
This solution, however, would be a major structural change in the Supreme Court and this cannot be changed easily as it would have to be by amendment of the Constitution that this change could occur. Knowing this, the people will have to fight for changes in the judicial branch of the government. "Americans were never `given' their freedoms; they had to organize, agitate, and struggle fiercely for whatever rights they won" (Parenti, 1995).