Dell and a Loaf of Bread - Justice in the 21st Century

Without acknowledging innocence or guilt - $100 million is set aside by Dell to "cover settlement costs". This in today's Wall Street Journal, or Oregonian - take your pick. For their complicitly going along with Intel's "rebate" program, and taking "rebate payments" - for some quarters more than their actual income, if they were to remain loyal and install Intel microprocessors, and not any competitors'.

Do we ever dig into whether corporations are guilty or not? Or are we content if they pay their fine and promise to play nice.

If corporations are people now, according to the IRS tax code, and per the Supreme Court can contribute unlimited funds to express their freedom of speech in political campaigns, it seems that rich corporations are offered the freedom to buy their way out (provided their pockets are deep enough to appease their opponents).

What then of the penniless individual? Ruled guilty by virtue of empty pockets? First amendment rights to rich corporations but not indigent clients?

I don't think the founders in their wisdom intended this (you know, George, Alexander, Benjamin). They may have thought the propertied class and white slave holders had more freedoms such as voting power (than others such as women, slaves). But we're beyond that.

Today we know every individual has freedom of speech, and there are even protected classes who enjoy special protections under the law, preventing their being discriminated against in housing, employment, and even sitting at Walgreen's lunch counters (if there are still such things).

Compare Dell's situation with Jean Valjean, who stole a loaf of bread in ancient French literature [*]. Take his situation today. Suppose the loaf of bread was for his hungry child who hadn't eaten in two days since his dad's unemployment benefits terminated, his food stamps for the month had run out, and his wife had gone to live with her mother.

Is stealing a loaf of bread the guilty act?

Yet, without $100 million in reserves, or a competent public attorney, will he be able to defend himself to stay out of jail? Or is justice only awarded to the rich these days?

[*] Thank you to Wikipedia (not a credible source, though even the federal government refers to it these days) for reminding me the story of Jean Valjean, and thank you to my 12th grade French teacher for forcing me to read this, and for insisting I take French instead of physics, which changed my life in some ways that I am only now understanding.