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> Doing a good job of maintaining capital is one of the core tenants of capitalism as practiced. Even if you assume they are rational actors with complete info

> Doing a good job of maintaining capital is one of the core tenants of capitalism as practiced. Even if you assume they are rational actors with complete information, it may be rationally in their interests to double their profit in exchange for doubling their risk. Capitalists balance risk against profit all the time. Also their liability only extends to their own capital. A risk of losing twice as much is rationally no less attractive. The excess cost is borne by the community who has to clean up.

roenxi 7y ago
If the plant melts down you lose the plant and the income stream. Since the plant costs multi-millions, it would almost always be more sensible to sell the plant to someone who wants to keep it for the long term. Even running capital down purposefully is a pretty desperate strategy when every other possible option has been closed off. Letting it fail in an uncontrolled and expensive manner when you could just hire a capable full time maintenance team is just a no brainer of a decision - you hire enough engineers to understand what it is doing and you keep control of the situation. That will equal or beat the safety performance of any other system you care to think of. So what if they aren't bearing the full cost of the disaster? The incentives are still pretty much all in the direction of keeping the plant in good condition, and direction matters more than magnitude for incentives. The costs are unimaginable once they get past a couple of million anyway. Engineering perspective, I think the official guidance on a human life is ~$10 million for cost/benefit analysis, and I'd be pretty motivated well before that to do the right thing. This isn't a radical idea; the only time I've seen something that expensive be run down is when the government (or other political forces, I suppose) is somehow mandating a shutdown. I've seen a lot more examples of extremely well maintained bits of kit, and I've seen a lot of very expensive machines that still cost nowhere near as much as a power plant. I know engineers who work in coal power plants too, they are not risk takers in any sense. We've oodles of evidence on this one; the costs are high enough that capitalists will keep the thing maintained at least as well as any other system you care to name. No system is perfect, but there isn't going to be one more systemically capable of maintaining capital than capitalism.
- cheerlessbog 7y ago
  With respect the record demonstrates this Pollyanna perspective is naive. There is extensive precedent for commercially run operations causing serious accidents by cutting corners. Just read a few accounts of major historical industrial accidents through history.

roenxi 7y ago

If the plant melts down you lose the plant and the income stream. Since the plant costs multi-millions, it would almost always be more sensible to sell the plant to someone who wants to keep it for the long term. Even running capital down purposefully is a pretty desperate strategy when every other possible option has been closed off. Letting it fail in an uncontrolled and expensive manner when you could just hire a capable full time maintenance team is just a no brainer of a decision - you hire enough engineers to understand what it is doing and you keep control of the situation. That will equal or beat the safety performance of any other system you care to think of. So what if they aren't bearing the full cost of the disaster? The incentives are still pretty much all in the direction of keeping the plant in good condition, and direction matters more than magnitude for incentives. The costs are unimaginable once they get past a couple of million anyway. Engineering perspective, I think the official guidance on a human life is ~$10 million for cost/benefit analysis, and I'd be pretty motivated well before that to do the right thing. This isn't a radical idea; the only time I've seen something that expensive be run down is when the government (or other political forces, I suppose) is somehow mandating a shutdown. I've seen a lot more examples of extremely well maintained bits of kit, and I've seen a lot of very expensive machines that still cost nowhere near as much as a power plant. I know engineers who work in coal power plants too, they are not risk takers in any sense. We've oodles of evidence on this one; the costs are high enough that capitalists will keep the thing maintained at least as well as any other system you care to name. No system is perfect, but there isn't going to be one more systemically capable of maintaining capital than capitalism.

cheerlessbog 7y ago
With respect the record demonstrates this Pollyanna perspective is naive. There is extensive precedent for commercially run operations causing serious accidents by cutting corners. Just read a few accounts of major historical industrial accidents through history.