How the Corporate Right Hijacked America's Courts to Enrich the Top 1 Percent

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet
Posted on May 10, 2012, Printed on May 14, 2012

For a generation, America's political-economy has been gripped in a vicious cycle. Those at the top of the economic pile have taken an ever-growing share of the nation's income, and then leveraged that haul into ever-greater political power, which they have in turn used to rewrite the rules of “the market” in their favor. Wash, rinse and repeat.

It's the result of years of institutional investments by the corporate Right to advance a reactionary legal regime in America's courts. In the process, the richest Americans now have their hands in both our legislative and judicial branches, while working America has become a voiceless stepping stone.

“The more pernicious effect of economic inequality comes indirectly through its impact on political inequality,” says MIT economist Daron Acemoglu, co-author of Why Nations Fail.