Power politics? That seems a bit extreme. I’m just advocating for free access to more of the legal system.

I gave the example of museums and libraries which I assume we all agree are public goods and worth funding with tax dollars. In your example with criminal justice, we fund public defenders as well.

Knowledge as a whole is a supply side constrained system (maybe changing with llms??). As we have experienced, parents are more than willing to pay any price to send their kids to the most expensive (exclusive) college they can afford, to include going into debt. Yet we still find it useful as a society to fund public school and libraries so we can democratize knowledge to those with the interest to do so.

I think it’s been quite obvious for the past twenty years that any additional cost ultimately is passed to the customer. In the early 2000s the “fuel surcharges” started slipping in. Then telco companies started adding on fees for any compliance regime they were subject to. And so on it goes.