Looking from the outside, dealing with problems of this scale have a number of aspects to them: remediation of the issue, understanding, prevention, and account

Looking from the outside, dealing with problems of this scale have a number of aspects to them: remediation of the issue, understanding, prevention, and accountability. In this list, accountability stands out. A person or organization that makes a mistake that has already been taught the other pieces of understanding and prevention of an accident has limited need for accountability. This is not how our society works or thinks, though. There is a strong current of punitive accountability. From a financial perspective, someone might argue that this makes sense: someone who causes harm to many others shouldn't be allowed to remain rich. However, implementing such a system means that organizations within will defend themselves vociferously. This is why many businesses are starting to use low or no accountability systems to make sure that root cause analysis and mistakes are brought to the forefront after issues. I'm not suggesting that such a system would be easy to implement on a much larger level, especially with our level of inequality in the US, but perhaps the solution is just not to be so damn punitive, and perhaps the other aspects of issue remediation wouldn't be so damn bad. Perhaps there wouldn't be lawyers informing business owners that they can't apologize, because that is opening the doors to being completely destroyed by accountability.