They hate the one who reproves in the gate, and they abhor the one who speaks the truth. If you wanted justice in Amos' day you went to the elders who sat in the city gate and presented your case to them. If one of the elders gives a judgement that reproves a wrongdoer, he gets frowned upon by his peers, that is by the other rich and powerful elders. If someone speaks the truth he earns their hatred. They justify their oppression of the poor by levying taxes of grain, so it sounds above board.
Political expediency takes precedence over justice.
The rich, those who can afford a bribe get away with murder, while the needy are punished or simply excluded from the courts. Let sleeping dogs lie. No-one likes a dobber. And so morality goes out the window, blown by the winds of pragmatism and expediency. The trouble is, this has got to such a stage of structural evil that it seems like there's no solution.