> "well, it lasted this long and the organizational rot only killed a few hundred people"

It should be clear that is not what I meant. This reinforces my view that popular criticism towards Boeing is unhelpful and ironically is relevant to the posted essay. People care more about gotchas more than deep discussion.

If the 737 Max incidents were due to negligence on Boeing's part, the many of the incidents in the 70s were also due to negligence. You can't have it both ways.

It’s not meant as a gotcha. It’s meant to illustrate that the effects of financialization, stripping an enterprise of its value, and the culture that enables this (of which short termism is a component) can take some time for the symptoms to surface. Boeing cared more about profits than safety, this is what the evidence shows. If you disagree, of course, you’re entitled to your opinion. I believe I’ve supported my thesis adequately with citations. It was a long corporate journey to the crash sites, but the journey is well documented.

(GE also took substantial time to fall apart, but with no deaths to my knowledge)

The problem is that the opposite is as destructive. Doing new things WILL cause accidents. And in the case of Boeing, of course it will result in planes failing.

And the "solution" to any level of this kind of criticism is really easy: do less, eventually do nothing at all anymore. But, in truth, that's even more destructive, in fact that that's happening is what this whole thread is about.

We need a balance. There needs to be some tolerance for risk, certainly at companies like Boeing.

>If the 737 Max incidents were due to negligence on Boeing's part, the many of the incidents in the 70s were also due to negligence.

They don’t necessarily have to be classified as the same contributing factors. The de Haviland Comet may have failed due to our lack of understanding of metal fatigue with a pressurized cabin. That was engineering ignorance. If a manufacturer did the same today, it’s negligence because those are known engineering principles.

Boeing was knowingly not following their own procedures for safety critical design. They also admitted to conspiracy to circumvent FAA oversight. Which of the above categories would you put those in?

We've learned a lot since then. Every time there's an accident, we learn from it and adjust the safety procedures. Incidents going down over time is to be expected, can't compare outcomes today with the past, after so much accummulated experience.