Re:Analysis of the United Airlines passenger removal incident
by dalbasal on Thursday April 20, 2017 @02:04PM
(#14159182)
I think you make a fair point, and I concede that my accusation is not airtight abstracted from this incident and industry. I don't know what the absolute dividing line to corporatism is. This is murky water.
I would say that calling Dr Dao a trespasser is stretching either the term or the truth. The actions of police vis-a-vis passengers are not dictated by just general laws (like trespassing) that govern everything. They a dictated by industry specific regulations & policies about what is & isn't OK for the passenger and/or airline to do. These regulations are implicitly and explicitly written around the business models of the airlines, in collaboration with them.
We could probably litigate the details of this incident incident at length along the lines you suggest, but I don't think you can ever find the smoking gun of corporatism in individual details. Corporatism is about the systemic.
Corporatism exists where corporate and state power are merged.
In this case, a tell tale sign is how confused commenters on this thread (and journalists) get about about what is airline policy and what is industry regulation.
For example, it turns out (I think) that the regulator sets maximum compensation for involuntary deboarding while airlines set their own max for voluntary deboarding. I imagine that most passengers, crew & airport police have as much trouble demarcating these as journalists do.
When the regulator sits down to try and prevent future incidents like this (maybe right now), they'll ask to see United's policies on involuntary deboarding. They might get United to revise the lottery policy. They might issue new guidelines. They might standardise deboarding policies banning lotteries. Or United might, it's hard to tell.
I would say that calling Dr Dao a trespasser is stretching either the term or the truth. The actions of police vis-a-vis passengers are not dictated by just general laws (like trespassing) that govern everything. They a dictated by industry specific regulations & policies about what is & isn't OK for the passenger and/or airline to do. These regulations are implicitly and explicitly written around the business models of the airlines, in collaboration with them.
We could probably litigate the details of this incident incident at length along the lines you suggest, but I don't think you can ever find the smoking gun of corporatism in individual details. Corporatism is about the systemic.
Corporatism exists where corporate and state power are merged.
In this case, a tell tale sign is how confused commenters on this thread (and journalists) get about about what is airline policy and what is industry regulation.
For example, it turns out (I think) that the regulator sets maximum compensation for involuntary deboarding while airlines set their own max for voluntary deboarding. I imagine that most passengers, crew & airport police have as much trouble demarcating these as journalists do.
When the regulator sits down to try and prevent future incidents like this (maybe right now), they'll ask to see United's policies on involuntary deboarding. They might get United to revise the lottery policy. They might issue new guidelines. They might standardise deboarding policies banning lotteries. Or United might, it's hard to tell.