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Part One:
We talk with Marshall Auerback, a senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and a fellow for the Economists for Peace and Security. He recently wrote an article entitled “Boeing Might Represent the Greatest Indictment of 21st Century Capitalism.” This mega-corporation made production decisions that focused more on the company’s profit margin than on the safety of its customers and employees — leading to many deaths.
Boeing was certainly not alone in its reliance on a cost-benefit analysis rather than on considerations of public safety or human lives. Remember the Ford Pinto? Due to a manufacturing defect, many Pintos caught fire and blew up when hit from behind by another vehicle. But Ford executives refused to recall the defective vehicles that were already on the road. Instead, the company decided to save the costs of recall and simply to budget enough money to defend against lawsuits and, when they had to, to pay money damages to the estates of however many of its customers were expected to die in future accidents. Similarly, for decades after their own scientists explained to them that breathing asbestos dust will eventually cause its workers (and other users) to suffer a slow, painful death from mesothelioma, asbestos industry executives stonewalled and refused to address the danger.
In addition, however, while other large corporations share Boeing’s focus on profiteering (even when it causes human suffering), Boeing also “indicts capitalism” for another reason. The company is a powerful part of the military-industrial complex. Whereas non-military companies are subject to market forces of supply and demand, the terms of military contracts are written on a cost-plus basis. This means that companies like Boeing have an extra incentive to increase their costs of producing airplanes, not to decrease them. They know, too, that the Pentagon will pay them for the most egregious cost overruns and will tolerate long delays in production.
This attitude that they’re exceptions to the ordinary rules and markets has evolved, originating with Boeing and other military suppliers, to the point where it now infects other industries like finance and Big Pharma. Mega- corporations feel indispensible (think: “too big to fail”), expect to get anything they want from the government (think: multi-million-dollar bailouts), and find loopholes in the laws so they avoid paying their fair share of taxes and at the same time gain control over politicians with their unparallelled political contributions.
Part Two:
We had expected Marianne Williamson, one of the Democratic presidential candidates, to come into the studio for an interview, but she didn’t make it. Nevertheless, we discussed her writings and, in particular, the very different voice that she brings to the presidential campaign. She wants to see politics be more spiritual, motivated by ethics and moral values rather than by personal aggrandizement.
In comparison, Elizabeth Warren seems, at first blush, to be more analytical and policy-driven than Williamson. But when Warren describes her policies (and her background from which they sprung), she sounds almost spiritual. She is clearly guided by her moral compass. Her compassion for her fellow human beings draws upon her upbringing in a low-income family in Oklahoma which worked hard and played by the rules.
