Instead the narrative is about big, bloated bureaucracies, ignoring the fact that they got so big by having to respond and add additional layers every time someone figured out a new way to screw things up, as with Boeing.
On the other hand I've seen many people complain about "regulatory capture" between FAA + Boeing repeatedly. That's even on the Wikipedia for FAA.
> The FAA has been cited as an example of regulatory capture, "in which the airline industry openly dictates to its regulators its governing rules, arranging for not only beneficial regulation, but placing key people to head these regulators."
Which is an entirely different problem than a culture of "pulling up your bootstraps".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Aviation_Administratio...
[0] https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/perspective-on-airline-sa...
By any measure, the FAA and industry have done an exceptional job of keeping the American flying public safe.
And simply saying the Brooking's opinion isn't relevant isn't actually a supporting argument. Neither is stating that trains have more deaths: so do cars, but neither point is relevant to whether or not airplane safety was damaged by deregulation. Besides which, I think your estimate misses the much higher casualty rates among private aircraft, which do in fact rival cars [0]
The question has little to do with whether the FAA has done a good job, it's about what happened after the deregulation, and whether it would be even better without it.
[0] https://www.livescience.com/49701-private-planes-safety.html
Numerous aspects of the FAA have been politicized for decades (going back to at least the ATC strike under Reagan). The FAA also has a number of complex and lengthy programs (https://www.faa.gov/nextgen/ etc) that are have drawn extensive criticism from Congress, industry, and airport operators due to the cost, delays, and scope of proposed regulation etc. Even FAA reauthorization is a politically contentious issue.
Regulation for regulations sake (as in telling the public it's "regulated" by pointing to current scale and existing policymaking, while in reality it is not having the intended effect) is even worse than having no regulation at all.
The current congressional majority is hardly composed on the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" types being blamed by the GP. At least in terms of rhetoric and campaign platitudes they are known. Even among a significant percentage of the republicans camp is far from fitting into the anti-government oversight camp.
The article mentions of a lack of "funding" but I haven't been able to find any evidence where funding for aircraft safety has been reduced in the last few decades. If there was a crisis of funding, where new planes aren't getting sufficient oversight or controls, then this regulatory body have either failed to make it a public issue, shutdown whistleblowers, or (more likely) it's a failure of regulatory capture and/or the monopoly-esque companies have learned how to navigate the political system (checking the right checkboxes) without any disincentives for doing so.
As an individual, you probably want some kind of life insurance in the event of catastrophe. Your insurance carrier may require you only ride in such and such certified aircraft (eg, an aircraft that is insured against loss of life). An aircraft may only obtain insurance if it meets certain requirements, etc.
Unfortunately, we've got a regulatory body asleep at the wheel, telling people things are safe when they're not. This is distorting the insurance marketplace.
In a system with regulations, there has to be some meaningful method of enforcing penalties, and IMO this is particularly needed in the are of liability.
It shouldn't matter if Boeing got a defective part from a manufacturer, or bad software, or what have you from a 3rd party. It's still their primary responsibility to ensure safe travels. If that means certifying each and every nut and bolt that comes into their supply chain, then so be it.
$50m per dead passenger should be a suitable amount. We'll see just how confident they are in this MCAS and all this automation nonsense then.
The free market is not a panacea that solves every problem. It does solve some problems. Arguably for a very long time some degree of freedom has been better than the alternative of centrally controlled economies, but that doesn't mean that no better alternative or balance of the forces exists.
Probably because the culture of the time was that everyone knew horses were dangerous and if you borrowed a horse and it threw you, it was your fault, not the lender's.
There, the free market did provide a solution, but not for my original example. Because a free market does not solve all problems, even those that might theoretically be solved by a free market.
As for the free market resulting in utopia, that's an impossible standard. What the free market does do, however, is solve problems in an efficient way thereby bringing prosperity to every country that tries it.
> Because a free market does not solve all problems, even those that might theoretically be solved by a free market.
If it's a solvable problem, it can be solved with the free market. If a solution is possible that is merely not implemented, that means the market decided it wasn't of sufficient utility.
My argument doesn't say the free market can't solve problems. It's not terribly difficult to think of theoretical free-market solutions to many problems. My argument is that the free market doesn't solve all problems. Or if I grant your reasoning on the horse problem, they don't appear anything like as quickly as we'd want.
For example, it wasn't that long ago that heresy would get you burned at the stake, but a sexist/racist joke didn't even merit comment.
Today, it's the reverse.
> There were no insurance markets for potential injury due to riding a horse, no private certification of stables that lent horses to ensure animals were fit and free of issues of temperament that might cause them to throw a rider.
Insurance markets have appeared for all manner of things now. This argument doesn't really make any sense.
> The free market is not a panacea that solves every problem. It does solve some problems.
I haven't heard of a problem it doesn't solve yet. How much safety regulation (via insurance) would an airline industry need? I don't know, but the market would surely tell us. It may decide that more or less safety is optimal, based on market inputs. Surely there are proponents of more regulation and surely there are proponents of less regulation, how do we decide who's right?
Your argument amounts to an article of faith. "The free market solves all problems, because if we let it, it would find a way." The crux of your comment when given an example where there was no such solution was to repeat your article of faith.
If centuries is an acceptable time scale for obtaining a solution, then we're not really arguing about the same thing at all. I'm sure we could both come up with theoretical free market solutions to just about any issue. The problem is they don't always materialize, and it's not terribly difficult to see any number of issues in history that existed before widespread regulation that were not solved by the free market.