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Not really, it's just bad management, they took unjustified risks for cost-cutting, and the system, both government and market, is punishing them for it at the

Not really, it's just bad management, they took unjustified risks for cost-cutting, and the system, both government and market, is punishing them for it at the first sign of something bad happening. You could argue that the punishment is not harsh enough for deterrence, or not fast enough, but that's an issue with the government, not the market. Furthermore, the main reason why they are not more afraid of market repercussions is because they know the government needs them, they created a monopoly. The system is mostly working as it should. The malicious players were found relatively quickly, through a mix of whistleblowing and the first relatively minor accidents getting a lot of attention (fourth estate and all). Don't get me wrong, we need to keep making things better, there's so much work to do. But if the system were not working we would just have not heard about any of this and accidents would keep happening routinely while robber barons get filthy rich (literal violent monopolists, not plain billionaires), like 100 - 150 years ago.

fransje26 2y ago
> It's just late-stage capitalism at work. >> Not really, it's just bad management I believe the argument being made is that in "early-stage" capitalism a company could not afford that type of management, as it would immediately loose the market due to "true" competition and other "quality" options being available.
- oersted 2y ago
  I agree. Perhaps I don't have a good understanding of "late-stage" capitalism. I think that the current version of capitalism is "working" (very relatively), exactly because there is substantial oversight from the government and the media, and there should be more. An open and fair marketplace generally seems to be good at improving lives at scale. But I don't understand why so many people have this idea that it is a fundamental law of nature, that if you remove government intervention it will naturally become a more open and a more fair market. An open and fair marketplace is quite artificial and needs so much enforcement to keep alive. Futhermore, even if it is good in general, there are a huge number of exceptional emergent behaviours that are bad and require intervention. We clearly see from history that without oversight, the economy does not become an efficient market. It consolidates into rent-seeking monopolies, often defended and expanded by violence, controlled by an elite with a self-reinforcing long-lasting hold on power. In other words, different flavours of Feudalism, not always focused on land assets.
whatifitoldyou 2y ago
Do you think that issues being discovered in 2018 with 2 planes and 346 people lost and systemic safety issues persisting since then qualifies as "relatively quickly"?
- oersted 2y ago
  You are right, that is not remotely "relatively quickly", it should have been prevented. My point was generally that the system (and specifically the current flavour of capitalism) is not fundamentally broken, it has the right shape of components and they are working roughly how they are supposed to, to balance each other. If it was broken, things would be way worse, as we have seen throughout history. But there's so much to improve. I guess I am looking at it from a too wide lens. Sure things are working much better than they used to a century ago, such disasters were largely accepted as a normal cost of being productive, there was no system to correct them. But that's no excuse, I do agree with you, this Boeing mess was not acceptable, the system needs to do better.
nickserv 2y ago
The market can't do much in this case, as within the US, Boeing has a monopoly, and internationally its only competitor is Airbus. And there is a very strong "lock-in" in regards to pilot type rating. So while there is some competition, the airline industry is very much controlled and regulated by government. And here in particular there was a lot of failures in particular with the FAA allowing Boeing to self-regulate (when has that ever worked?) and then the DOJ failing to prosecute after the two deadly crashes. It really seems like a systematic problem, not an exception to an otherwise healthy situation. Time and time again we see a lack of consequences to corporate greed when those actions are literally killing people. You're quite correct that things are not as bad as during the robber barons era, but that is a pretty low bar. We can do much better.
- oersted 2y ago
  I agree with all your points. And there is indeed a fundamental systemic issue with how private companies that deliver critical social services interact with the government: healthcare, education, energy, banking, logistics, real-state... In my anecdotal experience, the EU social-democratic model seems to be the most competent one right now specifically for this problem: more of these should be state-owned. Don't get me wrong, this is a crappy solution too, you are making a lot of sacrifices for it, but generally, these state-owned corporations do seem to be better at delivering critical services, and often (unintuitively) more efficiently than private ones. My point was that this is not necessarily about "late-stage capitalism" (as I understand it), this was not a case of the open market harming society. Because indeed Boeing is a state-supported monopoly and that's the root of the issue, at least in theory capitalism abhors monopolies. This happened because Boeing has both the duty to make the most money possible, and is protected by the government because they offer a critical service. There is something fundamentally broken in this incentive model. Either let them play in the open market and encourage competition, or make it non-profit and serve the state directly. A mix of both is a recipe for disaster.

fransje26 2y ago

> It's just late-stage capitalism at work. >> Not really, it's just bad management I believe the argument being made is that in "early-stage" capitalism a company could not afford that type of management, as it would immediately loose the market due to "true" competition and other "quality" options being available.

oersted 2y ago
I agree. Perhaps I don't have a good understanding of "late-stage" capitalism. I think that the current version of capitalism is "working" (very relatively), exactly because there is substantial oversight from the government and the media, and there should be more. An open and fair marketplace generally seems to be good at improving lives at scale. But I don't understand why so many people have this idea that it is a fundamental law of nature, that if you remove government intervention it will naturally become a more open and a more fair market. An open and fair marketplace is quite artificial and needs so much enforcement to keep alive. Futhermore, even if it is good in general, there are a huge number of exceptional emergent behaviours that are bad and require intervention. We clearly see from history that without oversight, the economy does not become an efficient market. It consolidates into rent-seeking monopolies, often defended and expanded by violence, controlled by an elite with a self-reinforcing long-lasting hold on power. In other words, different flavours of Feudalism, not always focused on land assets.

whatifitoldyou 2y ago

Do you think that issues being discovered in 2018 with 2 planes and 346 people lost and systemic safety issues persisting since then qualifies as "relatively quickly"?

oersted 2y ago
You are right, that is not remotely "relatively quickly", it should have been prevented. My point was generally that the system (and specifically the current flavour of capitalism) is not fundamentally broken, it has the right shape of components and they are working roughly how they are supposed to, to balance each other. If it was broken, things would be way worse, as we have seen throughout history. But there's so much to improve. I guess I am looking at it from a too wide lens. Sure things are working much better than they used to a century ago, such disasters were largely accepted as a normal cost of being productive, there was no system to correct them. But that's no excuse, I do agree with you, this Boeing mess was not acceptable, the system needs to do better.

nickserv 2y ago

The market can't do much in this case, as within the US, Boeing has a monopoly, and internationally its only competitor is Airbus. And there is a very strong "lock-in" in regards to pilot type rating. So while there is some competition, the airline industry is very much controlled and regulated by government. And here in particular there was a lot of failures in particular with the FAA allowing Boeing to self-regulate (when has that ever worked?) and then the DOJ failing to prosecute after the two deadly crashes. It really seems like a systematic problem, not an exception to an otherwise healthy situation. Time and time again we see a lack of consequences to corporate greed when those actions are literally killing people. You're quite correct that things are not as bad as during the robber barons era, but that is a pretty low bar. We can do much better.

oersted 2y ago
I agree with all your points. And there is indeed a fundamental systemic issue with how private companies that deliver critical social services interact with the government: healthcare, education, energy, banking, logistics, real-state... In my anecdotal experience, the EU social-democratic model seems to be the most competent one right now specifically for this problem: more of these should be state-owned. Don't get me wrong, this is a crappy solution too, you are making a lot of sacrifices for it, but generally, these state-owned corporations do seem to be better at delivering critical services, and often (unintuitively) more efficiently than private ones. My point was that this is not necessarily about "late-stage capitalism" (as I understand it), this was not a case of the open market harming society. Because indeed Boeing is a state-supported monopoly and that's the root of the issue, at least in theory capitalism abhors monopolies. This happened because Boeing has both the duty to make the most money possible, and is protected by the government because they offer a critical service. There is something fundamentally broken in this incentive model. Either let them play in the open market and encourage competition, or make it non-profit and serve the state directly. A mix of both is a recipe for disaster.