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The free market answer would be insurance. As an individual, you probably want some kind of life insurance in the event of catastrophe. Your insurance carrier

The free market answer would be insurance. As an individual, you probably want some kind of life insurance in the event of catastrophe. Your insurance carrier may require you only ride in such and such certified aircraft (eg, an aircraft that is insured against loss of life). An aircraft may only obtain insurance if it meets certain requirements, etc. Unfortunately, we've got a regulatory body asleep at the wheel, telling people things are safe when they're not. This is distorting the insurance marketplace. In a system with regulations, there has to be some meaningful method of enforcing penalties, and IMO this is particularly needed in the are of liability. It shouldn't matter if Boeing got a defective part from a manufacturer, or bad software, or what have you from a 3rd party. It's still their primary responsibility to ensure safe travels. If that means certifying each and every nut and bolt that comes into their supply chain, then so be it. $50m per dead passenger should be a suitable amount. We'll see just how confident they are in this MCAS and all this automation nonsense then.

ineedasername 8y ago
Looking back a hundred or more years when the market was more free, your vision of how things might work does not hold. There were no insurance markets for potential injury due to riding a horse, no private certification of stables that lent horses to ensure animals were fit and free of issues of temperament that might cause them to throw a rider. The free market is not a panacea that solves every problem. It does solve some problems. Arguably for a very long time some degree of freedom has been better than the alternative of centrally controlled economies, but that doesn't mean that no better alternative or balance of the forces exists.
- chrismeller 8y ago
  A horse was also a much less complex animal (literally) than a 737. Using that as a justification for the lack of an insurance market is just wrong...
  - CamperBob2 8y ago
    I don't know about that. We could build 737s 50 years ago, but no one has yet built a horse.
  - ineedasername 8y ago
    By that theory it should have just made it all the simpler for a horse to be inspected and certified.
- WalterBright 8y ago
  > no private certification of stables that lent horses to ensure animals were fit and free of issues of temperament that might cause them to throw a rider. Probably because the culture of the time was that everyone knew horses were dangerous and if you borrowed a horse and it threw you, it was your fault, not the lender's.
  - ineedasername 8y ago
    Really? Because at the time "everyone knew" sea-bound shipping was dangerous and if you were directly tied to that industry the "culture of the time" was very much bound up in insurance markets that protected against loss. There, the free market did provide a solution, but not for my original example. Because a free market does not solve all problems, even those that might theoretically be solved by a free market.
    - WalterBright 8y ago
      As far as I know, the insurance for shipping was for loss of the cargo, not liability for injury or death. As for the free market resulting in utopia, that's an impossible standard. What the free market does do, however, is solve problems in an efficient way thereby bringing prosperity to every country that tries it.
    - linuxftw 8y ago
      Well, we don't have the department of horse safety, do we? I'm sure operators of business that do horse rides have general liability insurance. So, in effect, the free market did solve this problem. > Because a free market does not solve all problems, even those that might theoretically be solved by a free market. If it's a solvable problem, it can be solved with the free market. If a solution is possible that is merely not implemented, that means the market decided it wasn't of sufficient utility.
      - ineedasername 8y ago
        Your counter is that now, a hundred years after they ceased to be widely used for personal transport, the free market has a solution? After centuries of their use where it did not solve the problem? That is pretty weak reasoning. I'm honestly not sure if you're just trolling me now. It amounts to saying something like "evolution can solve all problems". Even if true, the timeline leaves a bit to be desired, and a bit of manual intervention can do better. Not only that, but insurance happens to be a regulated industry, so your argument is flawed on that account as well. My argument doesn't say the free market can't solve problems. It's not terribly difficult to think of theoretical free-market solutions to many problems. My argument is that the free market doesn't solve all problems. Or if I grant your reasoning on the horse problem, they don't appear anything like as quickly as we'd want.
- linuxftw 8y ago
  Large ships did have insurance. > There were no insurance markets for potential injury due to riding a horse, no private certification of stables that lent horses to ensure animals were fit and free of issues of temperament that might cause them to throw a rider. Insurance markets have appeared for all manner of things now. This argument doesn't really make any sense. > The free market is not a panacea that solves every problem. It does solve some problems. I haven't heard of a problem it doesn't solve yet. How much safety regulation (via insurance) would an airline industry need? I don't know, but the market would surely tell us. It may decide that more or less safety is optimal, based on market inputs. Surely there are proponents of more regulation and surely there are proponents of less regulation, how do we decide who's right?
  - Rebelgecko 8y ago
    Was that insurance for the cargo, the ship itself, or the lives of the crew?
  - ineedasername 8y ago
    Your right, insurance markets have appeared for many things. I'm not sure why you think that's evidence against my argument. I cited an example where they did not, where the free market did not come up with a solution. Your argument amounts to an article of faith. "The free market solves all problems, because if we let it, it would find a way." The crux of your comment when given an example where there was no such solution was to repeat your article of faith.
    - linuxftw 8y ago
      Just because the marketplace didn't do something 100 years ago doesn't mean that it never would. Obviously, there wasn't a need for such a thing, so what problem is being solved here? You just contrived some set of circumstances that you believe fits your hypothesis; in no way is this a reflection on the free market's capabilities.
      - ineedasername 8y ago
lutorm 8y ago
Totally unrealistic. Insurance companies typically assess risk with actual data, they are very reluctant to insure completely unknown risks without a loss history that can be evaluated. Who's going to be the initial ones dying so that the risk can be estimated?

ineedasername 8y ago

Looking back a hundred or more years when the market was more free, your vision of how things might work does not hold. There were no insurance markets for potential injury due to riding a horse, no private certification of stables that lent horses to ensure animals were fit and free of issues of temperament that might cause them to throw a rider. The free market is not a panacea that solves every problem. It does solve some problems. Arguably for a very long time some degree of freedom has been better than the alternative of centrally controlled economies, but that doesn't mean that no better alternative or balance of the forces exists.

chrismeller 8y ago
A horse was also a much less complex animal (literally) than a 737. Using that as a justification for the lack of an insurance market is just wrong...
- CamperBob2 8y ago
  I don't know about that. We could build 737s 50 years ago, but no one has yet built a horse.
- ineedasername 8y ago
  By that theory it should have just made it all the simpler for a horse to be inspected and certified.
WalterBright 8y ago
> no private certification of stables that lent horses to ensure animals were fit and free of issues of temperament that might cause them to throw a rider. Probably because the culture of the time was that everyone knew horses were dangerous and if you borrowed a horse and it threw you, it was your fault, not the lender's.
- ineedasername 8y ago
  Really? Because at the time "everyone knew" sea-bound shipping was dangerous and if you were directly tied to that industry the "culture of the time" was very much bound up in insurance markets that protected against loss. There, the free market did provide a solution, but not for my original example. Because a free market does not solve all problems, even those that might theoretically be solved by a free market.
  - WalterBright 8y ago
    As far as I know, the insurance for shipping was for loss of the cargo, not liability for injury or death. As for the free market resulting in utopia, that's an impossible standard. What the free market does do, however, is solve problems in an efficient way thereby bringing prosperity to every country that tries it.
  - linuxftw 8y ago
    Well, we don't have the department of horse safety, do we? I'm sure operators of business that do horse rides have general liability insurance. So, in effect, the free market did solve this problem. > Because a free market does not solve all problems, even those that might theoretically be solved by a free market. If it's a solvable problem, it can be solved with the free market. If a solution is possible that is merely not implemented, that means the market decided it wasn't of sufficient utility.
    - ineedasername 8y ago
      Your counter is that now, a hundred years after they ceased to be widely used for personal transport, the free market has a solution? After centuries of their use where it did not solve the problem? That is pretty weak reasoning. I'm honestly not sure if you're just trolling me now. It amounts to saying something like "evolution can solve all problems". Even if true, the timeline leaves a bit to be desired, and a bit of manual intervention can do better. Not only that, but insurance happens to be a regulated industry, so your argument is flawed on that account as well. My argument doesn't say the free market can't solve problems. It's not terribly difficult to think of theoretical free-market solutions to many problems. My argument is that the free market doesn't solve all problems. Or if I grant your reasoning on the horse problem, they don't appear anything like as quickly as we'd want.
linuxftw 8y ago
Large ships did have insurance. > There were no insurance markets for potential injury due to riding a horse, no private certification of stables that lent horses to ensure animals were fit and free of issues of temperament that might cause them to throw a rider. Insurance markets have appeared for all manner of things now. This argument doesn't really make any sense. > The free market is not a panacea that solves every problem. It does solve some problems. I haven't heard of a problem it doesn't solve yet. How much safety regulation (via insurance) would an airline industry need? I don't know, but the market would surely tell us. It may decide that more or less safety is optimal, based on market inputs. Surely there are proponents of more regulation and surely there are proponents of less regulation, how do we decide who's right?
- Rebelgecko 8y ago
  Was that insurance for the cargo, the ship itself, or the lives of the crew?
- ineedasername 8y ago
  Your right, insurance markets have appeared for many things. I'm not sure why you think that's evidence against my argument. I cited an example where they did not, where the free market did not come up with a solution. Your argument amounts to an article of faith. "The free market solves all problems, because if we let it, it would find a way." The crux of your comment when given an example where there was no such solution was to repeat your article of faith.
  - linuxftw 8y ago
    Just because the marketplace didn't do something 100 years ago doesn't mean that it never would. Obviously, there wasn't a need for such a thing, so what problem is being solved here? You just contrived some set of circumstances that you believe fits your hypothesis; in no way is this a reflection on the free market's capabilities.
    - ineedasername 8y ago

lutorm 8y ago

Totally unrealistic. Insurance companies typically assess risk with actual data, they are very reluctant to insure completely unknown risks without a loss history that can be evaluated. Who's going to be the initial ones dying so that the risk can be estimated?