The ways in which rights are restricted or how the rich and poor are treated differently in our society are often overlooked by those who have grown up taking for granted certain common practices. I hope these examples will help people "look behind the curtain" at how things really work.
1. Suppose a father learns a neighbor has molested his 8-year-old daughter. The father beats up the neighbor, breaks his arm and threatens to kill him if he goes near the daughter again. I'm not saying this is the right way to respond, but many of us can understand. Our feelings about it have to do with the fact the father intended to protect a child who is less able to protect herself - the father wasn't committing a crime of selfishness or maliciousness. The father is arrested and convicted. Because that is a felony, the father loses his right to vote in elections even after he has finished serving his sentence. (Depending on the state there will probably be some process he can go through to eventually regain the right to vote, but he will definitely lose the right to vote at least for a while.)
In the final analysis, the right to vote is the most essential right in a democracy - all other rights are dependent on voters and the officials they elect. Yet, there are conditions under which this right is taken away from citizens.
On the other hand, there are no criminal acts that a businessperson can commit which will result in them losing the privilege to own or operate any business whatsoever. Some criminal acts might result in a specific company being closed, but the businessperson can open a new company perhaps in the same industry but certainly in another area when he gets out of jail. In effect, the privilege to do business is treated as more unassailable than the right to vote. The crime that results in loss of voting rights need not have anything to do with voting, politics, government or the like - the loss of the right has nothing to do with the crime being related. Yet, a businessperson's crime may precisely be about running a business illegally - but that doesn't result in not being allowed to run businesses in the future.
2. Much of our criminal justice system is based on the concepts of deterrence. Bail is used to deter a defendant from fleeing to avoid trial. Fines and sentences are supposed to be severe enough to discourage people from committing the crime, etc. How is this practiced with business? Suppose a businessman becomes a billionaire running a company. A court determines this was done by committing serious crimes. In the unlikely event that the billionaire was fined 99% of his total assets, he would be left with many millions of dollars. No doubt, he would be unhappy, but would other businesspeople considering committing the same offenses be deterred by the prospect that if caught and convicted they might be left with "only" millions and millions of ill-gotten gains to their name? Yet, what are the chances of a business or businessperson being fined even 25% or 50% of their assets? Just the other day, a company was fined $45 million for marketing a medicine to types of patients without FDA approval and against FDA requests to stop - for years. It seemed most likely, the company had made more than $45 million from their illegal activities - the company was better off even after the fine than it would have been if it acted legally. And, of course, penalties don't apply to banks that are "too big to jail". Is that deterrence?
3. You're required to get a driver's license to use a car. Later, there are conditions under which it can be taken away. If you're a working person in various occupations, you're required to have a government license to hold a job in that field. In some states, you even need to have a license to be a manicurist. Apparently, you don't have to have a license to be an executive at a "too big to fail" Wall Street firm. So, there is no amount of recklessness harming the world economy that can result in losing the privilege of being an executive.
4. Avoiding responsibility is a basic element of corporations. The legal form of a corporation provides limited liability for the corporation's owners (shareholders). A shareholder can see the value of his stock drop to zero - he can lose all the money he paid for the stock. However, a corporation's debts can exceed the amount of money the shareholders paid for their stock. When that happens, the shareholders have no legal obligation to pay the remainder of their company's debts out of their own funds. As we've seen, when the shareholders allow their company to be recklessly irresponsible, those additional corporate debts may be paid by a government bail-out. If you had a small privately owned business and you ran it so the company owed more money than the value of the company, you'd have to pay the difference out of your own pocket. Big Business - corporations - live by different rules.
5. Consider injuries on the job. Suppose a pedestrian is walking down a sidewalk near a construction site. At the same time, a construction worker is going to get some tools out of a truck. The two pass by each other just as something falls off the construction site, injuring both the pedestrian and the worker. The pedestrian has the right to sue the construction company and potentially get millions of dollars in the settlement. The construction worker is eligible for workers compensation, but is forbidden to sue his employer. There are basically two arguments used to justify this. First, workers give up their right to sue because they have coverage for medical expenses and income loss in their workers compensation insurance. (It should be noted, though, the pedestrian can sue to recover 100% of his lost income, workers compensation will only pay the worker about 50% of his usual pay from that job and will probably not cover him for lost wages at a second job.) Second, employees voluntarily enter into an employee-employer relationship in which some limitations are inherent.
The first point is rather flimsy. As a private citizen, I can purchase insurance policies from the ABC Insurance Co. which will cover me for medical expenses and loss of income. The fact I have such insurance will not mean I am forbidden to sue if I was the pedestrian. Nor would it prevent me from suing in the case of an accident in which the ABC Insurance Co. was the negligent party. So neither the possession of the insurance nor who you received the insurance from forbids one to sue.
The only explanation is, in fact, that employees by virtue of being employees lack rights anyone else has. While an individual may enter into employment voluntarily, taking a job is something which is necessary for most people. It is not possible in the modern world for most people to be self-employed. It is not practical for our economy to provide cars, TVs, refrigerators, etc. by means of every citizen having his own small business. Nor is it desirable to have large numbers of people who are unemployed rather than employed. Therefore, it is in society's best interests for people to be entering into employment. Should society punish those people who do take employment by taking away rights from them?
6. In many states, there are laws which forbid employees from exercising majority rule by voting to choose to have union membership apply to all who work there. Majority rule is a central part of our concept of democracy and fairness. But it doesn't apply to employees. A boss may be allowed to undemocratically require all his workers to be a member of the Elks Lodge, but a majority of workers can't decide about every worker being a union member.
7. The super-rich aren't expected to pay the same tax rates the rest of us do. A high-paid professional whose job pays him $400,000 will be in the 39% tax bracket. An idle rich person doesn't work and lives off his family fortune - if he lives off of $40 million in capital gains, his tax rate will be 20% (starting in 2013 a 3.8% investment income tax can be added to that). Meanwhile, a working person has to pay a Social Security tax on top of his income tax - the idle rich don't. Huge income + no work = lower tax rate. Clearly, class has its privileges.
This is the way our legal system operates today. It's a double standard. Or if you prefer, it's the golden rule ("He who has the gold rules"). Business following the undemocratic logic of business overrules the rights and wishes of the majority.
It's worth considering the political influence of corporations today and the decision-making process of a corporation. The final decision-making authority of a corporation is the shareholders. Their voting is on a one-share-one-vote (or one might say one-dollar-one-vote) basis. That may be reasonable within the logic of business - but it's not a healthy source of influence on a political system which is supposed to be one-person-one-vote. But in reality, these corporations with their one-dollar-one-vote rules have a great deal of influence.
Are we to live in a society where "some people are more equal than others"? Or will we rebuild this society on the basis of true equality and true democracy?