Economic Inequalities are Legal Inequalities

Economic inequalities then—inequalities in freedom as producer and as consumer—are embodied in unequal legal rights. In assigning and enforcing legal rights to the fruits of transactions, the law is doing more than protect the winnings in the game of production and exchange. It is dealing unequal hands to the players. Further state intervention to alter the distribution of rights and liberties, to the advantage of those whose liberty is most restricted as a result, in part, of state action cannot be properly described as “statism” in any obnoxious sense. There may, however, be good reasons of policy against disturbing many of the present inequalities. But elucidation of this matter will require another chapter.

Freedom Through Law: Public Control of Private Governing Power, Robert Hale

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