"but I can say that the benefit to individuals is irrelevant. " Again, never the original purpose, and while a good goal, class actions are surely ineffective

"but I can say that the benefit to individuals is irrelevant. " Again, never the original purpose, and while a good goal, class actions are surely ineffective at this. " The COLLECTIVE - the whole society - benefits in a big way when the behavior of a large corporation doing very small harm to thousands or millions of individuals is punished and deterred." Also as mentioned, I think this is very true, but class actions have pretty much not had that effect at all. There are very few areas where class actions have been effective at accomplishing this.