09-10-2026IMPACT COUNCIL

250 years of business shaping justice

How businesses can build a fairer future

[Photo: Getty Images]

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It is not altogether surprising that during this 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, we also commemorate a similar milestone in the rise of capitalism: the 250th anniversary of Adam Smith’s foundational text, The Wealth of Nations. Not surprising because the history of the United States is deeply intertwined with the business community’s impact on so much of American life, including our systems of justice.

Smith believed that business best serves society when guided by the fair administration of justice, constrained only by the rule of law. But the relationship between justice and business does not travel in one direction, with the former solely shaping the latter. In fact, from the earliest days of our republic, the reverse has also been true; many of the constitutional framers were themselves businessmen who carried their own economic interests into the architecture of American law.

And in the centuries that followed, the business community only further cemented that influence. At times, the private sector’s pursuit of profit led to justice policies that dehumanized, over-criminalized, and trapped people in inescapable cycles of punishment and poverty. In other periods, business interests served as a genuine force for fairness, rehabilitation, and reform. Often, both were true at once.  

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