How America's corporations got their own private legal system

In 1925, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations of similar size and bargaining power could use arbitration, rather than courts, to settle their differences; today, corporations demand that customers and employees agree to use the arbitration system for redress of any grievances, while reserving the right to use the courts to attack humans who offend them. [...]

The largest arbitration company in America, the for-profit National Arbitration Foundation, is owned by investors who also own one of the country's largest debt-collection agency -- and many debt-collection cases get settled in arbitration.

How unbalanced is arbitration? Out of 18,075 debt-collection cases handled in California by the NAF, just 30 were settled in favor of humans. When humans do win against companies, they collect much smaller settlements than they would in court, too.