Justice for Sale: How Wealth Turns Accountability into Symbolism
Justice, in its ideal form, operates on principles of equality, impartiality, and truth. Yet, in modern democratic societies, the experience of justice diverges dramatically across socioeconomic lines. For the wealthy and powerful, accountability often becomes symbolic; a negotiation of image, reputation, and influence rather than a reckoning of guilt and harm. This essay explores the phenomenon of symbolic and transactional justice through two prominent case studies: Prince Andrew, Duke of York, and U.S. President Donald Trump. Both figures have faced serious allegations, ranging from sexual misconduct to financial and constitutional violations without facing proportionate legal consequences. Their cases reveal a dual system of justice: one that punishes ordinary citizens materially and legally, and another that disciplines elites through symbolic gestures and monetary settlements.
Symbolic Justice: The Monarchy and the Case of Prince Andrew
Prince Andrew’s fall from grace illustrates how institutional and reputational mechanisms substitute for formal legal accountability among the elite. In 2022, Andrew settled a civil lawsuit brought by Virginia Giuffre, who alleged he had sexually assaulted her while she was trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein. The settlement (reportedly exceeding £12 million) was accompanied by a statement denying guilt but expressing regret for his association with Epstein. The payment functioned as a transactional form of justice: money replaced truth, allowing all parties to withdraw from legal exposure without the scrutiny of cross-examination or trial.
In 2025, King Charles III formally stripped Andrew of his royal titles and the style “His Royal Highness,” citing the need to protect the monarchy’s integrity. While constitutionally significant, the move was fundamentally symbolic: it cost Andrew status, not freedom. He remained wealthy, protected, and beyond the reach of ordinary prosecution. The monarchy’s act communicated moral distance; “He is not one of us”, but it did not uncover the truth or redress harm.
From a legal-sociological perspective, this episode demonstrates the substitution of symbolic sanctions for material justice. The removal of titles creates the appearance of accountability while avoiding the adversarial risk of a public trial. Psychologically, such symbolism serves both the institution and the audience: it satisfies public anger through spectacle while preserving systemic stability. The monarchy’s legitimacy depends on the illusion of moral rectitude; symbolic punishment sustains that illusion without exposing the Crown to destabilizing transparency.
Transactional Justice: Donald Trump and the Commodification of Accountability
Donald Trump’s legal odyssey provides a parallel in a republican context. Across dozens of civil and criminal cases, from sexual assault allegations to charges of business fraud and election interference Trump has consistently transformed the courtroom into a stage for negotiation and political theater. When found liable for sexual abuse and defamation in Carroll v. Trump (2023), he paid millions in damages but publicly denied wrongdoing. In financial cases, such as the New York civil fraud trial (People v. Trump Org, 2024), penalties were translated into fines, not imprisonment.
Trump’s wealth, celebrity, and political base create a self-reinforcing shield. Legal accountability becomes a market transaction: he pays, delays, appeals, and fundraises off the process itself. His supporters interpret legal pursuit as persecution, while opponents read settlements as proof of guilt. Both readings operate in the realm of symbolism. In effect, Trump weaponizes the legal system’s procedural complexity to convert justice into performance.
The psychological dimension here is crucial. Research on moral licensing and elite entitlement suggests that wealth and power can foster a sense of invulnerability. When individuals perceive themselves as exceptional, they rationalize misconduct as justified or trivial. Trump’s repeated reframing of legal accountability as partisan victimization exemplifies this defensive narcissism. The justice system, constrained by due process and resource disparity, struggles to penetrate the armour of wealth and influence.
The Political Economy of Inequality and Justice
Both Andrew and Trump exemplify how economic capital translates into legal and symbolic power. Legal scholar Anatole French once remarked that “the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges.” Contemporary justice systems still reflect that irony. Legal representation, settlement leverage, and public-relations infrastructure all function as resources that can purchase distance from punishment.
In neoliberal societies, justice itself is partly commodified. Settlements, nondisclosure agreements, and confidentiality clauses create a marketplace of silence. Institutions, be they the monarchy or the state participate in this marketplace because it preserves stability. Trials threaten exposure; settlements preserve order. Thus, the system trades truth for tranquillity.
The case of Prince Andrew reveals monarchical capitalism: the Crown protects itself by sacrificing appearance rather than substance. Trump’s example reveals populist capitalism: the defendant monetizes victimhood and turns litigation into brand reinforcement. Both paths show that accountability becomes performative currency rather than ethical reckoning.
Moral and Psychological Implications
The moral consequence of symbolic justice is erosion of collective faith in fairness. When elites escape tangible punishment, citizens internalize cynicism and fatalism about the rule of law. Philosopher John Rawls (1971) argued that justice is the first virtue of social institutions; once its credibility collapses, legitimacy follows. Symbolic justice, therefore, risks breeding moral disengagement: if the powerful can buy absolution, why should anyone else obey the law?
Psychologically, both the punished and the spectators undergo distortion. For the punished elite, symbolic sanctions can reinforce narcissistic victimhood; “I am being targeted because I am important.” For the public, symbolic penalties may provide brief moral catharsis but deepen long-term resentment. The spectacle of Andrew losing titles or Trump paying fines satisfies outrage temporarily but leaves the structural inequalities that enable such outcomes untouched.
Moral philosophers like Hannah Arendt warned that the collapse of genuine accountability transforms wrongdoing into banality: when evil or exploitation is managed bureaucratically rather than confronted morally, societies habituate to corruption. Symbolic justice thus normalizes the idea that reputation management is an acceptable substitute for moral repair.
Legal Structures That Enable Transactional Justice
At a structural level, both British and American legal frameworks unintentionally facilitate transactional outcomes.
Civil settlements allow parties to resolve disputes privately without admission of guilt. While efficient, they enable the wealthy to silence victims through financial compensation.
Defamation and privacy laws can be weaponized by the rich to deter media scrutiny, limiting transparency.
Political discretion and constitutional sensitivity (as with the monarchy) discourage full investigation of elites to avoid institutional crisis.
Resource asymmetry in litigation top lawyers, procedural delays, and strategic appeals tilts outcomes toward negotiation over verdict.
Reform would require stronger transparency provisions in settlements, limits on nondisclosure clauses in cases of public interest, and independent oversight of elite misconduct investigations. Yet such reforms challenge the very systems that benefit from opacity.
Toward a Moral Reframing of Justice
True justice demands more than punishment; it requires restoration of truth and moral clarity. For elites, however, truth is the most dangerous currency; it cannot be controlled once released. That is why symbolic gestures (title removals, fines, settlements) replace truth-telling.
A moral reframing would insist that accountability must be experiential, not merely representational. This could mean:
Public inquiries into elite wrongdoing that separate personal culpability from institutional loyalty.
Legal reform ensuring that civil settlements cannot obscure evidence of criminal behaviour.
Cultural re-education that treats apology, transparency, and truth as markers of honour rather than weakness.
Only by dismantling the transactional logic of justice can societies re-establish the principle that the law’s purpose is not to price wrongdoing, but to reveal and repair it.
Simply Put
Prince Andrew and Donald Trump occupy different world one monarchical, one populist, but their stories converge on a single truth: in the economies of modern power, justice is not blind but branded. For the wealthy, punishment manifests as public symbolism and negotiated payment, not deprivation of liberty. These outcomes reassure institutions and momentarily placate the public, yet they corrode the moral foundations of justice itself.
When titles are stripped or fines are paid, society witnesses not accountability but ritual; justice as theatre. The deeper harm lies in habituation: once we accept that wealth buys exemption, equality before the law becomes a myth recited for ceremony rather than lived in practice. Restoring genuine justice requires more than outrage; it requires structural courage to treat power as subject to truth, not protected from it.
References
Andrew to be stripped of his final military title by King, minister says - BBC News
Social class, solipsism, and contextualism: how the rich are different from the poor - PubMed
Rawls, J. (1971). A theory of justice. Harvard University Press.
Arendt, H. (1963). Eichmann in Jerusalem: A report on the banality of evil. Viking Press.
