Iconic authors
Themes
Bibliography of the day
Twenty Million Pounds for the Masters, How British Emancipation Chose Its Injured Party
In ending colonial slavery, Britain admitted that freedom came with a debt, then paid twenty million pounds to the slaveholders. Against it, a rival ledger insisted that the true creditor was the one who had worked a lifetime without wages.
Paid justice and the power to choose the judge
Adam Smith praised courts paid by fees for their diligence; Bentham and the reformers saw a tax on justice and a judge with a stake in each case. Behind the quarrel lies a third question: who decides that a case comes to court, and where.
