Boeing: A Harrowing Symptom of Corporate Greed

As the world rapidly moves forward and more and more people adopt contemporary technologies and tendencies, the focus of the global economy shifts toward what is quick, efficient, and cost-effective. It’s always been this way, no matter how far humans have progressed, so one of the fundamental duties of the government is to curb the intense desire of corporations to do what businesses were made to do—make money, no matter what. Recently, however, the combined effects of governmental leadership sympathetic to corporate ideals and companies’ substantial, ever-growing need to save cash have gone so far as to take many people’s lives. Make no mistake—the hundreds of people killed in the crashes of Boeing planes in Indonesia and Ethiopia lost their lives because of corporate greed and mismanagement.

The first Boeing 737 MAX 8 crash occurred on October 29 off the coast of Jakarta, Indonesia. The fatal incident left all 189 passengers dead, and, months later, it’s difficult to discern the true cause of the incident. The second crash, which took place in Ethiopia, was found to bear remarkable similarities to the crash in Indonesia. Unfortunately, like the previous incident, investigators have not yet definitively determined the cause, but are looking into the possibility of technological malfunctions that defeated the pilots’ best efforts to keep the plane in the air. The MAX software was new to the Boeing pilots, who were unable to override it; as a result, despite their best efforts, the plane dove into the sea and killed all 157 of its innocent passengers.

The intersection of corporate greed and these tragic events boils down to this: two notable safety features were left out of the cockpits of both planes. One feature was an indicator that would display the angle that the nose of the plane pointed toward (determined by two sensors), and the other feature would highlight whether those sensors returned opposing results. As if to add insult to injury, neither of these life-saving features were mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). And since the airlines that controlled the planes were low-budget companies, and because Boeing wanted to save money, these two features were excluded from the planes.

The crashes truly bring the extent of corporate greed in the world economy and the breadth of it that is allowed by the government to light. But despite his lengthy refusal to acknowledge past tragedies, it’s only fair that we give President Donald Trump some degree of credit for his order to ground all Boeing 737 Max 8 planes. We must then ask ourselves how we can prevent corporate greed-related incidents in the future. The aim of the campaign against corporate greed is much easier dreamt of than accomplished; history has shown us time and time again that money begets power, and that massive corporate conglomerates are capable of manipulating politicians into representing corporate interests (through super PACs or less legal, more discreet bribery). Only after the crashes and the resulting fatalities have we realized the flaws in the decision to allow Boeing to regulate itself.

Unfortunately, corporate greed is a far-reaching issue in the contemporary economy; while Boeing’s scandal has blanketed headlines, other lesser-known instances of the problem have surfaced. The Environmental Protection Agency revealed in 2015 that Volkswagen had since 2008 incorporated a device in its vehicles that controlled toxic emissions only when it was being tested by environmental authorities; when the device switched off, the vehicle would emit substantial amounts of nitric and nitrous oxide, two of the most prevalent air pollutants in the world. In 2017, a Harvard study found that ExxonMobil, which had seemingly acknowledged the effects of fossil fuels and greenhouse gases on climate change, had been campaigning to seed doubt about the legitimacy of climate change in educational systems around the world. Both incidents went unnoticed for several years before being exposed; both (and many more) were easily viewed by a two-minute Google search, but didn’t get nearly as much publicity as Boeing did. Without a doubt, more government action is needed if corporate greed can ever be managed to a reasonable degree.

Governments around the world should already be aware that allowing any corporation to regulate itself is an assured avenue to catastrophe. While the intention behind self-rule is reasonable—by letting Boeing regulate itself, the FAA and its global counterparts are free to turn their attention to more pressing issues like worker safety and financial fraud—this leaves room for consumer security to go unrecognized, necessitating strict government checks on whether these large, self-interested corporations are indeed following strict safety guidelines. In order to hinder such avarice on the part of massive enterprises like Boeing, we must work toward ensuring that such corporations can no longer attain indirect political power in our government system. The Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” decision in 2010, which allowed for a massive influx of corporate and PAC money into the U.S.’s electoral system, enabled such oversights; rescinding the ruling would be an incredibly effective step in preventing corporate greed and ensuring that tragedies like the Boeing crashes don’t happen again. Massive companies like Boeing preach that “safety is our first priority,” all the while treating essential safety features as trivial accessories.

Perhaps the most extensive and potent solution for corporate greed is to educate consumers on their rights and encourage them to speak out should they feel that their rights have been violated. Historically, companies have been incentivized to improve their products when subjected to public scrutiny and pressure. The power of consumers lies in their ability to choose; by being armed with knowledge about our rights and about the measures taken to protect us (or not), we can make more informed choices concerning which companies we purchase from, and bring about real, tangible change.

Boeing’s blunders are not to be forgotten; the deaths of 346 people should be treated as more than tragic accidents. They should stand as testaments to the consequences of devastatingly excessive corporate greed and as warnings of what is in store for us should we not act upon it. They should be the first and last wake-up calls on some of capitalism’s failures. If we wait any longer, we can only expect much worse.