Open interest-group politics rewarded organized voices while poor law stayed backward and cruel

Evidence

The American system provided a voice, and a share in the economy, to more people, and to a greater percentage of the population, than most of the Old World countries. But decisively not everybody. Women lacked rights and were definitely the weaker sex, socially speaking. For blacks, for Native Americans, for the Chinese, for the unorganized and the powerless in general, this great democracy had little enough to offer. Their share was at best skimpy and begrudging. In a relatively open society, interest groups made politics, and politics made law. The squeaky wheels got the oil. Power led to privilege. … Tort law blossomed, corporation law swelled in pride, contract expanded, but the poor laws remained obscure, local, haphazard, backward, and cruel. — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 2786

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Forcing decisions into open view with informed residents converts hopelessness into winning power; The social forces pushing a statute explain its draftsmanship and form — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law: An Introduction, 482; Power-resource shifts between interest groups drove welfare-state citizenship expansion — Walter Korpi, The Iceberg of Power below the Surface:…, 12 (+1 more)