Jim Hightower: The Screwed-Up Airlines Are Proof That 'Free Enterprise' Is Bogus Corporate PR

[marmar]

AlterNet / By Jim Hightower

Hightower: The Screwed-Up Airlines Are Proof That 'Free Enterprise' Is Bogus Corporate PR
Thank goodness the airline chiefs are not trying to run a hot dog stand or taco trailer. The competition would kill them.

April 22, 2010 |


Golly, whatever happened to America's good ol', bold-and-brassy, can-do competitive drive?

To see a troubling sign for our nation's famed, free-enterprise frontier spirit, sneak a peek at the downward flight path of America's major airlines. These corporations have become no-can-do, anti-competition behemoths, whining that there are too many airlines, too many planes, too much competition.

"It's a jungle out there," wail top executives of the airlines. So, to enhance their "competitiveness," they are urging a rash of mergers that would consolidate the industry into fewer and even bigger corporations. Yes, in their alternate (and perverse) universe, airline CEOs say that the only way they can compete is to ... well, have less competition!

"The industry needs to evolve into a more rational structure," asserts a top official at American Airlines. "We have an industry that is too fragmented, with too many competitors and with different ideas of capacity, pricing and strategic activity."

Hmmm. Where have we heard that before? Oh yes, from Adam Smith, the 18th century Scottish economist who is considered a founding guru of the free enterprise system. The notion of "many competitors ... with different ideas of capacity, pricing and strategic activity" is precisely what Smith hailed as the proper model for free enterprise. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/economy/146556/hightower%3A_the_screwed-up_airlines_are_proof_that_%27free_enterprise%27_is_bogus_corporate_pr

[xchrom]

1. Recommend

[ixion]

2. Airlines have become intolerable

I say let them all go the way of the dinosaur.

And further, all these massive multi-nationals have become anti-competitive. Perhaps we should clear the slate and allow competition once again.

Regional/Local economies are sustainable models. Global models are simply unsustainable.

[unblock]

3. "too many competitors" is only a problem for the competitors

the only area where the right-wing likes too many competitors is the labor market, where they consider consolidation and mergers (i.e., unions) to be anti-capitalist, anti-american, commie plots.

[Joe Chi Minh]

4. Icarus was the first neoliberal.

[Uncle Joe]

5. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, marmar.

[mgc1961]

6. I disagree.

"Soon, at least one more brand name is expected to join Northwest, Pan Am, TWA and others that have succumbed to consolidation."

In my estimation, the Pan Am and TWA failures were more about being lousy airlines than consolidation.