Boeing 737 Max 8-Trump-Capitalism - Profits Before Safety.

Boeing's 737 Max. Many Pilots have complained about this plane.

By Sean O'Torain.

So now there have been two fatal crashes of Boeing’s 737 Max. Hundreds of people are dead. Leaving aside the overconfidence of the human species that we can take various forms of dirt from the earth and fashion it into transport vehicles that fly in the air (and are a big source of pollution) there is the question of how capitalism works. First it is profit that rules. This is what dominates all decisions. Not safety but profit. Unless we keep this in mind we will understand little.

Then there is the issue of class. The capitalist class addicted to profit, own the dominant sectors of the economy. In this case Boeing. Boeing, like all the corporations, deals with its workers by keeping them at just enough wages and benefits so they will not rebel. They have help in doing this from the trade union leaders who, along with the bosses, share the belief that the profit system, the capitalist system, is the only one viable way of organizing society and that the working class cannot build a society of our own based on need, safety and sustainability. The majority of these leaders also get to  skim some wealth off the top for themselves in better wages and benefits and secure jobs.

But to focus on capitalism as a system. Boeing makes more than $100 billion revenue per year. They have dividends to pay, that is, profits to their shareholders. They want to keep these profits as high as possible. So what do they do? They take some of their revenue and they briber/rent the politicians in Washington. Dennis Muilenburg is the chief executive of Boeing. He is buddies with the Trump, the greedy, mad moron in the White House. To try and make friends with Trump Muilenger hosted Trump’s first post-inauguration rally at the Boeing plant in South Carolina. Then he gave Trump a minimal reduction in the price of air force one. One thing he got in return was that Trump explained that the recent two crashes were not Boeing’s fault that “airplanes are becoming far too complex to fly”. It was not Boeing’s fault, nothing to do with Boeing you see. It was just an unfortunate problem------planes are too complex. The boot licking between Muilenburg and Trump is an ongoing thing. Earlier Muilenburg said that Trump is “a good man. And he’s doing the right thing”.

But it does not stop at bootlicking and hosting events. There is the open bribery and corruption. Boeing spent $16.7 million in 2017 and $15.0 million in 2017. What for? To bribe the politicians in the two capitalist parties, the Democratic and Republican Party. Boeing bribed the Trump inaugural with $1million dollars. They call it lobbying. It is bribery. Boeing also bribed the Obama Foundation based in Chicago with $10 million dollars. This is how capitalism, the big profit addicted corporations, get their way. Plus they get their stooges into positions.

Trump’s acting so-called defense secretary Patrick Shanahan has no military experience. But he did work 30 years at Boeing where he was senior vice president. Boeing also makes what they call defense equipment, (it is really offense invade and occupation equipment,) for the US military which is funded by the taxpayer. Shanahan is just the man for Boeing to have there. This is bribery and corruption.  But here in the USA with its wonderful democracy, with its un-democratic Electoral College and Senate system, they call it lobbying. Now with their man in the acting defense secretary position Boeing is getting more help. Former United Nations Ambassador Nickki Haley is now also joining the Boeing Board. They have no shame these creatures. 

You may ask then with all this bribery and corruption why did Trump reverse himself and ground the 737 Max. It is a question of the class balance of forces; the mass consciousness of the working class, the worry that the big corporations and their class and politicians and state have that the working class will rise up. If they had not grounded the fleet and another plane had crashed the pent up anger that exists on so many levels would have been in danger of exploding. And if this had happened it would not have ended there. All other sorts of issues would have surged to the fore. Inequality, poverty, health care, climate change, violence, police and state violence, racism, sexism, education and on and on.  Many workers in the aircraft industry are in trade unions, are organized. 

And look at what has been going on. Since 2005 the bribed politicians in Washington have allowed the aircraft manufacturers such as Boeing to choose the people they want to certify their aircraft. They did not exactly end regulation just they put their only people into the regulation jobs so that any regulation would be decided by the corporations hand picked people and to their wishes. Critics say and say correctly this gave too much say to privately owned profit addicted corporations such as Boeing.  

Over the past few days many unions representing pilots and flight attendants have been saying that this handing over of inspection of their own planes to the corporations is “putting their members at risk”. President the of Association of Flight Attendants Sara Nelson states: The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has got to stop treating the airlines and manufacturers as their clients, and get back to doing their job with oversight for the American people”.  Dennis Tajer, a spokesperson for the American Airlines pilots union and a 737 pilot said his members had long been concerned about the “minimal training required for pilots to become qualified to fly the Max models. The FAA certified the aircraft to be flown and sold without a simulator.” 

They want us to forget it but the regulations for deep water drilling, like the rig in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 workers and poured millions of gallons of oil in to the gulf were written by the energy industry itself. That was no accident, it was the so-called free market at work.

Only a few weeks ago Trump’s shutdown of the government was brought to an abrupt end. A major factor in this was the first signs of aircraft workers beginning to take action, refusing to go to work. The aircraft workers have power. Most are organized in unions. The fear of this power is partly what forced Trump to ground his buddy’s 737 Max.

But a word of caution. The leaders of the airline unions seek a solution to the problems they and the passengers face inside the capitalist airline industry. This will not work. The union leaders will seek to compromise with the owners of the corporations and their capitalist system.  Safety, decent living standards, the pollution and the effect on climate change, none of these will be solved under the capitalist system. Nor will any of these problems be solved within the borders of a nation state. They will only be solved on an international basis. Science and technology and trade has reached such a level that it can only be handled on a worldwide basis. 

Air travel, road travel, rail travel, sea travel have to be dealt with as a whole and internationally and motivated not by profit but by balancing the needs of people to travel with the sustainability of the planet and the living standards and conditions of the workers in the industry. There is no room for the creatures who are presently running the industry and who are motivated by greed. What is needed is to take the transport industry worldwide out of private profit motivated hands and put it into the collective ownership of the working class and have it run democratically on the basis of need and with the health of the planet in mind. 

My friends who are reading this article you may think this is a bit of a stretch. But let me pose you this. What is going to happen to this planet, to life on earth, as we know it, to the human species, if the present profit addicted capitalist system continues? Life on earth will be destroyed and the human species wiped out on the basis of climate change. One calculation concludes that one person flying across the Atlantic melts three square feet of ice at the North Pole. It is time to wake up and smell the roses, or maybe rather the ashes.

Let us be clear. There is no solution to any of the major problems facing the human species and the planet except by ending the capitalist system and replacing it with a system where the major corporations and economic units are collectively owned and democratically managed and controlled. And there is no solution to any of the major problems facing the planet and the human species on a national scale, only on an international scale, only planet wide.

This is where the international working class comes in. The collective power and the collective brain of the international working class is the only force that can resolve the threatening catastrophe facing society. From air line safety to climate change, from the threat of nuclear war to pollution, from inequality to mass poverty, only the international working class can resolve these problems and open up a new world. At present the criminal capitalist class dominates the planet. The international working class can run it much better. This is the only way life on earth as we know it and the human species will have a future.