Equal legal penalties produce radically unequal material consequences

Evidence

A constitutional state can create certain external conditions, and put them at the disposal of individuals or of individual classes of the population, for better or worse. It can do nothing more than that. It can ensure, for example, that the son of a rich man, who has come into conflict with the police and the traffic regulations with his motor vehicle on three occasions, has his driving licence withdrawn, just the same as a chauffeur with four children. The fact that the one loses a form of amusement and the other his livelihood is irrelevant in the eyes of the law. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 253

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes Anatole France’s ‘majestic equality of the law’ and the Weberian formal-rational legality tracked elsewhere in Frankfurt School material. — connects to: No-fault divorce laws unintentionally worsened women’s economic status after divorce. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1120; Universal equality makes equal enforcement rights logically unavoidable — , Second Treatise of Government, 18; Formal legal equality masks substantive inequality between rich and poor (+8 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: No-fault divorce laws unintentionally worsened women’s economic status after divorce. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1120; Universal equality makes equal enforcement rights logically unavoidable — , Second Treatise of Government, 18; Formal legal equality masks substantive inequality between rich and poor (+8 more)