Advertisement

Supported by

Guest Essay

By Seth Frotman and David Seligman

Mr. Frotman was general counsel of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from 2021 to 2025. Mr. Seligman leads the economic justice nonprofit Towards Justice.

For too many Americans, the economy has become an unaffordable racket in which corporate interests seem always to have their way. This increases the disaffection that many Americans have with our democracy and the rule of law. It is hard to blame people for losing faith in a legal system that has allowed the powerful to trample their rights with impunity.

The good news is that many key protections — against fraud, wage theft, junk fees, abuses of monopoly power, union busting, corporate pollution, discrimination and much more — already exist. But a yawning gap has emerged between what the law promises and what it delivers. In our work, we’ve seen how a system of elite impunity has become the norm in the marketplace — a direct consequence of the underfunding of government agencies charged with enforcing the law and the myriad ways people are often functionally barred from taking legal action on their own.

If we want to restore........

© The New York Times