The FAA's approval process was the outcome of ideology that government should not work the way it had been working. That there were too many regulations and too

The FAA's approval process was the outcome of ideology that government should not work the way it had been working. That there were too many regulations and too much oversight, and now it was time for businesses (Boeing in this case) to have a stronger role in certification and FAA a reduced role. Whether this ideology is about protecting corporate masters, supporting a sort of neo-feudalism where big companies are the new aristocrats, or whether it's sincere belief that free markets always produce better results - almost doesn't matter. The consistent theme is that public servants should not really have the final say on airplane certification. Say they have the final say but ensure they don't have the funding, political, or legal capital to consistently actualize it. The reality is one party long believes in giving business a lot of slack, and then only speaks in grumpy platitudes about the limits of business free-for-all when people die. They don't want a bullshit idea to be seen as bullshit. They just want to profit as much as possible with a number of deaths that the public finds acceptable enough to not call b.s. on the system itself. If any event involving hundreds of deaths at the same time could be pinned on a person, they'd go to prison. This system is expressly designed to spread the blame and obfuscate just enough that fines will be paid, and life goes on. Except for those who died.