Corporate personhood is a centuries-old legal concept [1], finding first mention at the Supreme Court in the 19th century.
> then Boeing should be held criminally liable
They were charged in 2021, and entered into a deferred-prosecution agreement after paying a $2.5bn fine [2]. It appears the DoJ is already looking into the Alaska Airlines blow-out [3].
Because Boeing is so important to national security, everyone involved in leading this from the CEO to the board of directors should be treated as traitors and have all their assets seized and spend the rest of their life in a maximum security federal prison.
If it's really that important it should be government-owned, like Airbus. You can't give random people free reign and then punish them if you retroactively didn't like it.
This is what happens when monopolies are allowed to exist. In a competitive market if the CEO gives away market share to rivals due to reckless indifference to safety and becomes a liability, they will be fired or the company gets spun off to fend for themselves. When we as a society allow a monopoly to exist, then government assumes responsibility for whatever that monopoly does with its power. Government intervention ought to be a last resort, not the first. The only reason anyone's calling for government action here is because we allowed Boeing to become a monopoly to begin with, so now we have no other choice but to accept what Boeing has become or else break it up. All monopolies will eventually do something to harm the public in exchange for personal wealth. It is an inevitability.
You believe it's so traitorous to try to cut costs that it should result in life in prison for all members of the board and CEO? And why maximum security, do you believe they are going to be tunneling out with spoons?
Traitorous does seem strong. But gross negligence that can result in hundreds of deaths per mistake? Mistakes that may not happen if share prices weren't the number one priority? Yah something heavy should happen.
American business operates like a feudal system with lords and peasants. Management are the lords and everyone else are the expendable peasants.
Occasionally, the lords are forced to acknowledge that the peasants are just as essential as they are. Without them there is nothing and no one to "lord" over.
This is the abherrent phase that Boeing has just entered. The system will be forced to either return to normal or simply cease to exist a la GE.
> Management are the lords and everyone else are the expendable peasants
Boards are the lords. Management without a board seat are the bourgeoisie; Boeing engineers, too. To the degree we have peasants in modern America, it’s in agriculture and retail, not at Boeing.
I was quite surprised how authoritarian American/Canadian business environments were and subconsciously/covertly racist without saying it outright.
I still vividly remember when I was in my 20s, an American executive from a fortune 500 company forgetting to unmute himself and accidentally unmasking himself and the attitude of those around him.
They were at the forefront of "woke" and "diversity". This is when I learned it was just another slogan like "human rights" to make the citizens feel good about themselves.
As somebody from Eastern Block, it is not much worse. Government will forcibly create monopoly businesses, they have no reason to improve their products and to top it off, you can't create competing business, because government does not allow that.
Just look what was the result after 1989 - companies who could compete with western ones, because government did not required innovation last 40 years and 5 year plans were solved by throwing more people at the problem or outright lying. Result was that products were often obsolete long before manufacturing even started, what was made were poor quality (i.e. we called it finish it at home) and much more expensive than in the rotten West.
Capitalism killing people, nothing new or out of the ordinary here. Companies are innovative when growing and competing, but if they win they’ll reach the final form for a successful firm: monopoly. From then on, the only innovation will be in new ways to rebrand corruption and avoid regulation.
> the free market has taken care of them to some degree
It’s pricing in the risk of fines, the cost of groundings and the potential penalties thereafter. Put another way, the market is reacting to regulation, actual and potential.
Readit News
Corporate personhood is a centuries-old legal concept [1], finding first mention at the Supreme Court in the 19th century.
> then Boeing should be held criminally liable
They were charged in 2021, and entered into a deferred-prosecution agreement after paying a $2.5bn fine [2]. It appears the DoJ is already looking into the Alaska Airlines blow-out [3].
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood
[2] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/boeing-charged-737-max-fraud-...
[3] https://www.wsj.com/business/airlines/justice-department-ope...
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Boeing makes military hardware that plenty of people would (literally) kill to get their hands on even just the plans for.
American business operates like a feudal system with lords and peasants. Management are the lords and everyone else are the expendable peasants.
Occasionally, the lords are forced to acknowledge that the peasants are just as essential as they are. Without them there is nothing and no one to "lord" over.
This is the abherrent phase that Boeing has just entered. The system will be forced to either return to normal or simply cease to exist a la GE.
Boards are the lords. Management without a board seat are the bourgeoisie; Boeing engineers, too. To the degree we have peasants in modern America, it’s in agriculture and retail, not at Boeing.
I still vividly remember when I was in my 20s, an American executive from a fortune 500 company forgetting to unmute himself and accidentally unmasking himself and the attitude of those around him.
They were at the forefront of "woke" and "diversity". This is when I learned it was just another slogan like "human rights" to make the citizens feel good about themselves.
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Just look what was the result after 1989 - companies who could compete with western ones, because government did not required innovation last 40 years and 5 year plans were solved by throwing more people at the problem or outright lying. Result was that products were often obsolete long before manufacturing even started, what was made were poor quality (i.e. we called it finish it at home) and much more expensive than in the rotten West.
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and so are our passengers
It’s pricing in the risk of fines, the cost of groundings and the potential penalties thereafter. Put another way, the market is reacting to regulation, actual and potential.