Formal legal equality cannot deliver justice without social equality

Evidence

It does not accord with the sense of the Weimar constitution for laws which are apparently a burden on an economically stronger class to be rejected in the name of justice as arbitrary. It is precisely this apparent injustice which fulfils the demand for justice that is contained within the social system of the Weimar constitution. It is precisely when equality is to be conceived of as a material value that it must be recognized that the principle of equality before the law will remain merely a right on paper until social equality creates conditions which will make it possible for the law genuinely to apply to all equally … 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conflict with the police and the traffic regulations with his motor vehicle on three occasions, has his driving licence withdrawn, just the same as a chauffeur with four children.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, 958

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distinguishes formal equality before the law from material/social equality — a key Critical Theory distinction.
• XREF: Connects to Marxist critique of bourgeois formal rights; echoes Marx on equal right as bourgeois right in Critique of the Gotha Programme. — connects to: Formal legal equality leaves substantive social inequality untouched — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 959; Formal legal equality obscures real inequality because equivalence as a legal norm ignores difference — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 786; Formal legal equality masks substantive inequality between rich and poor (+15 more)

Broader Connections

• Formal legal equality alone cannot produce fair outcomes after generations of structural disadvantage. #corroborates (0.95) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 986
• Formal legal equality obscures real inequality because equivalence as a legal norm ignores difference #expands (0.90) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 786
• Formal equal right applied to unequal individuals necessarily produces inequality. #corroborates (0.90) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 416
• Formal legal equality masks substantive inequality between rich and poor #expands (0.88)
• European continent substituted formal legal equality for real equality of condition #exemplifies (0.85)
• The Rule of Law values predictability and uniformity over individual justice #qualifies (0.85) — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 61
• Formal equality in the right to communicate masks actual communicative injustice #exemplifies (0.80) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 992
• Formal citizenship equality coexists with inequality that provokes social conflict #expands (0.78) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 824
• Colonial discourse distinguishes legal equality from factual inequality to justify hierarchy #expands (0.78) — Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, 236
• Freedom and equality form a fundamental, unresolved antinomy #expands (0.75) — Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 2567
• The formal principle of justice requires treating relevantly similar cases alike #qualifies (0.75) — HLA Hart, The Concept of Law (Clarendon Law…, 418