Yes, the U.S. has gone to great length to ensure the smooth operation of business. In fact you might say this is essentially the primary purpose of U.S. legal s

Yes, the U.S. has gone to great length to ensure the smooth operation of business. In fact you might say this is essentially the primary purpose of U.S. legal system. As an example, one researcher looked at all the Supreme Court cases involving the 14th amendment between 1870 and 1940. The 14th amendment as you'll recall is an amendment focused on the individual equal protections people have under the law. I cannot recall the figures exactly, but of some 100+ cases ~70% pertained to business and around a dozen were focused on violations of individual's rights. Property rights are an especially important tool when it comes to the operation of a materially wealthy society. But their imposition does not somehow guarantee that a society is more just or fair and less corrupt than any other. Edit: I looked up the figures in my notes. The paper involved all Supreme Court cases involving the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The court struck down 232 state laws, 179 of the decisions were in favor of corporations, 55 were in favor of the growing railroads and 9 were in favor of individual black petitioners. The paper isn't online and I don't have access to it anymore to check but I believe it is this paper. "Protecting Corporations Instead of the Poor" by Alec Karakatsanis in Harvard Law Review 275.