In every political system, wealthy and powerful people will try to write the rules to favor themselves. Liberal democracies should use a range of policy tools to resist elite capture.
Liberalism does best when there are strong intermediate institutions between the state and the individual. The family is the oldest of them, and it still has no substitutes.
Indigent defense is a key part of any decent criminal justice system. But in many places, the incentives for public defenders don’t point toward justice.
