Comment on Why is the legal system so expensive?

Rodeo@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

• bighi@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

  Exactly. If you can’t afford an expensive lawyer, the US wants you to lose.

  Actually, it’s not only that they want you to lose. It wants the entire system to be so expensive that you can’t even afford to go to court and lose. You have to settle, and don’t have a lot of power determining the terms.

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  • Quill7513@slrpnk.net ⁨3⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

    Your best bet as a member of the 95% is a class action suit. The problem is that “enterprising” members of the 1% will take most of the winnings from your class action suit for representing you against other members of the 1%. No matter what, even if you win as a poor person in the American legal system, you’ve still lost

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    • jpreston2005@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

      I have personal experience in this. once had a small business, where a 1%er approached me with the biggest order I’d ever received. before I started we had to negotiate the price, and sign a contract. they agreed on $60k as the price of their order. then they added to the order, despite me telling them it was inadvisable. so they eventually racked up closer to $100k of services. I wasn’t silly, I got 20k upfront so I actually had enough money to make this order possible.

      then, after months of work, I’m about to finish, so I hand them the final bill, which was about $80k. they said no. I bent over backwards trying to find a reasonable price, offered as much as a 70% discount if they would just pay and fuck off. nope. they offered 10k. Went to a bunch of lawyers with our signed contract that had the price negotiated and asked what my options were.

      you know what every single one of them said?

      “Too rich to sue.”

      “sure, you could sue, they would extend the suit out for probably a decade, and then even after all the heartache, headache, and legal bills, even if I won they still wouldn’t pay. because they’re rich enough to not have anything in their name. it’s all in their wives names, some other company.”

      “you cannot win.”

      it’s a group of rich, entitled, evil people that our society is catered to providing for, and the other 99% are the ones subsidizing their lives.

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      • abbadon420@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

        The term “banana republic” was invented for latin american countries, where companies like Chiqita had a ridiculous amount of political power, because they were the sole driving force behind the entire country’s economy. These companies (often banana, but could be any resource) had so much power that they pocketed and corrupted the entire system. They removed farmers, forests, civilians, politicians, competition, villages, anything that stood in their way, they just moved it out of their way, the easy way or the easier way. They could do whatever they wanted, because they pretty much were the government. (Fun fact: This led to massive monocultures and the virtual extinction of the Gros Michel banana)

        It originaly applied to latin american countries, but it can apply anywere. It also doesn’t have to be one particular company who controls the government, it can be a bunch of them.

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      • avattar@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

        That’s revolting, and would make me lose faith in humanity. What would you do differently today, if you were offered a similar order? Other than refusing, that is.

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      • andrewta@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

        This story sounds very familiar. Was it for a certain casino owned by a certain well known individual?

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    • JustZ@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

      Of course if the lawyers lose they don’t make a single cent and have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars.

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• ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

  This point can’t be understated. A main feature of a developed economy is a strong legal system, meant to handle business and property disputes. A strong legal system protects investments.

  For example, Iran is a country with a ridiculous amount of natural resources, yet their primary exports are nuts and rugs. This is becuase they don’t have a great legal system (and also they have the dubious honour of being the most sanctioned country in the world). Their government does what they want, when they want. If that means they jail you and seize all your assets on some made up grounds, then that’s what happens. The legal systems in developed nations is designed to prevent this from happening. That’s why it exists.

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  • Rodeo@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

    So what you’re saying is … legal systems are designed to protect the rich.

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    • ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

      Yes but with arguments to back up my point so I don’t just sound like an angry teenager on reddit.

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      • Rodeo@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

        Ah, somehow it came off like you were saying the general population was the intended recipient of such benefits

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  • Fried_out_Kombi@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

    And thus the question becomes how we can craft a fairer legal system that isn’t so pay-to-win, but still maintains the core principles of property rights that allows business to, ya know, happen. Sure we could do what many naïve people on the internet want and seize the means of production, but who on earth would want to start a productive business or make productive investments in a country where the government can just up and seize your assets without justification? Just as we need protection against businesses screwing us over, we also need protection against government screwing us over. Anyone who says we should just seize assets and nationalize industries willy nilly should ask themselves if they wanna risk some ghoul like Ron DeSantis being the one with the power to do that.

    As to actual answers on how to make such a system that isn’t pay-to-win but still maintains a stable system and rule of law, I don’t actually know. I’m no expert in the legal system. But I’m sure there are experts out there who have spent a lot of time thinking about these sorts of questions and have ideas on how to improve/reform.

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    • Nemo@slrpnk.net ⁨3⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

      The right wing fears governments and the left wing fears corporations but really it’s ALL metahuman entities that are suspect and should be regarded as predatory until they can show otherwise.

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    • SuddenDownpour@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

      Sure we could do what many naïve people on the internet want and seize the means of production, but who on earth would want to start a productive business or make productive investments in a country where the government can just up and seize your assets without justification?

      That’s why you don’t create a legal system where “the government can just up and seize your assets without justification”. You create a system where it is clearly defined when it becomes acceptable to socialize a company, and what forms of organization and management it is going to take, and what compensation is the entrepreneur entitled to in exchange.

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• traveler@lemdro.id ⁨3⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

  That’s why I get mad when I see people asking to regulate X thing.

  Most of the times the regulation only helps a small group of people, and most times these are the rich folks who can afford to either circumvent or to abide by it.

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  • Rodeo@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

    It’s because most of the regulations are also made by the rich. Look up regulatory capture.

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    • traveler@lemdro.id ⁨3⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

      When only rich people are able to get to government because dumb people only vote the ones that show up on tv.

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