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The problem is that corporations pushed for Tort law as a mechanism for protecting the public from harm rather than regulations “if we do something wrong, we wi
by 542354234235 1y ago
The problem is that corporations pushed for Tort law as a mechanism for protecting the public from harm rather than regulations “if we do something wrong, we will get sued and lose money and that will motivate us to not do harm”. So it means that there is much less proactive harm reduction by regulators (compared to many other first world countries) as well as much less regulators can do if a complaint is made.
The second issue is our lack of universal, affordable healthcare (and other basic safety nets). If you are injured and don’t want to go bankrupt, you have to sue to pay for your treatment, loss of income, etc.
The result is that we have lawsuits constantly all the time for everything. Not only does it clog up the courts, but it also helps the powerful to outspend “the little guy” to avoid accountability. Fighting a government regulatory body with actual powers and authorities is much harder to outspend/outlast than some random person one lawyer working on contingency.
And that doesn’t even get into how corporations have been pushing “tort reform” to neuter how much they can be sued for, therefore the amount they can be punished for wrongdoing. As well as their decades long propaganda campaign to paint tort lawsuits as frivolous, baseless, shameless cash grabs by greedy people attacking the poor helpless business.
- talkingtab 1y agoYes. It seems to me important that we correctly understand the problem. It is like your car won't start. If you fail to diagnose your battery is dead, then you keep putting gas in and it still doesn't work. The question is what needs to change to fix the problem AND why. My diagnosis is Citizens United vs F.E.C. That bizarre has allowed corporations to control the laws that are enacted. So we see "tort" reform - but who benefits? It is not the People. There is another factor that amplifies this, targeted advertising. Targeted ads, you know like the ones that pay for our "free" internet services are as toxic or more than the pollutants in coal and gas. They have destroyed trust in the internet. And they allow corporations to "fund" candidates for public office. And question. Do the media such as the Washington Post, owned by Amazon's Jeff Bezos, address these issues? Nope.