Too Many Laws: The Poor
Our society has many laws. Too many laws. This makes a mockery of that ‘ignorance of the law is no excuse’ but, even more, it makes a mockery of the idea of ‘equality under the law’.
The more laws a society has, and the more complex the administration of those laws is, the harder the laws are on the poor.
Suppose there is a small chicken farmer. Like, small. One house, one barn, one flock of chickens… poor. And suppose the government, in its infinite wisdom, passes a law concerning chicken farms. Something about labelling, or feed, or the like. Well, the large factory farm down the street, the one covering hundreds of acres with dozens of employees, might be annoyed when their lawyer (the one they have as part of their permanent staff) calls them up to tell them about it. Their compliance officer (ditto) might have a bit of work figuring out exactly how the labelling is supposed to work, or what new feed they have to buy. Their employees might have to put in a bit of overtime working it all out. But, in the end, they’ll get it done.
The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
Anatole France
But that poor chicken farmer will probably not even have heard of the new law! The first they will find out about it will be, months later, when someone turns them in. Perhaps some government inspector. Or perhaps an official from the big chicken farmer turned them in. Anyway they got turned in, and got prosecuted. And, of course, ignorance of the law being no excuse, they were found guilty and fined or shut down.
And even if they found out about the law before they broke it, there is still a matter of the compliance costs. What costs a large firm a bunch of hassle, might be beyond the capacity of a small firm or individual to manage.
When we look at laws as merely an expression of our will or desires, then it makes sense to pass more laws. When we look at laws in terms of the expense they put other people, then it makes sense to pass fewer laws, or repeal the ones we already have.
But the real way we should be looking at laws is in their connection to actual justice. Whenever we pass, or update, or repeal a law we should be (but almost never are) asking ourselves if this change brings us closer to actually dealing justly with people. And one way we need to analyse that is by asking if people will hear of, understand, and be able to comply with this law.