You have to be joking if you don't think arbitration is a massive gift to moneyed interests. Why are they all cramming it down everyone's throat if not?
An example of pro-consumer arbitration is the Tenancy Deposit Scheme in the UK. All tenancy deposits must be either stored with the UK-wide scheme, or at least insured by the scheme (at the landlord's expense). This is a non-governmental body, but use of it is mandated by legislation.
When it comes time to get your deposit back, if the landlord decides to keep some, the tenant can challenge that, and what happens is essentially just arbitration. It doesn't go to court, it's decided by the TDS.
The benefits are that the whole process is designed around deposit resolution, so it's much more streamlined than going to court. Also it doesn't require any outlay by either side to initiate a challenge, so it's effectively free. Both of these are much better for tenants and indeed for many landlords than navigating a costly court process.
The TDS happens to be considered very pro-tenant, but ultimately this is just perception. I strongly suspect that the only reason it is considered so is because landlords tend to over-state damage or attempt to keep deposits for unreasonable things, and therefore the TDS ends up siding with the tenants more (I've heard ~80% anecdotally).
Is there any difference here? I guess it's government mandated and funded by mandated fees, rather than needing to appeal to or sell to companies, and therefore the incentive structure is better?
The difference is that the government requires that landlords use them, they don't have a choice, and I believe TDS is under contract from the govt so is incentivised to effectively implement the legislation, not to pander to landlords.
> It also negates the possibility of class-action suits, which are the only reasonable way anyone can get slapped for small harms to many people.
If the arbitration is effective then this would be unnecessary though. I'm not saying that arbitration is always, or even often good, but I don't think it's by-definition a bad idea, and I think TDS is a great example of where it can be quite pro-consumer.
Another pro-consumer idea is small-claims courts. They typically have a small fixed fee, explicitly don't require a lawyer for the claimant and have processes designed to be manageable by non-lawyers, and usually claim back the fee if the claimant wins. This would also make class-action lawsuits unnecessary.
Stepping back a bit... I think this might all be being viewed from a US-focused lens where class-action suits are the only option, small claims courts are less effective, and arbitration is near universally poorly implemented. This isn't how it needs to be though, and many countries make these concepts work fine and don't need to rely on things like class-action lawsuits (I'm not even sure we have them in the UK).
In many (if not most) cases, loosing at a fair arbitration would be cheaper for the company than winning in court by outspending on lawyers.
Of course, there's also the 'stopping class actions' thing.
I guess I can avoid the shorthand and say we all agreed except for monastic hermits and people who fled the country in search of the land of milk, honey, and unlimited jury trials.