Derailment and fire in Quebec

[Regularity]

Part of my professional activities involve such esoterica as “Corporate Governance”, and with respect to this sort of thing, I have a simple mantra: the tone (corporate culture) is set by the top. That means the Board, not just the CEO. The Board appoints the CEO, and selects the one who most closely matches their ideas for the future of their organisation.

 

In this case, the top level of MMA had form and views on running a freight railway business. In short, minimal maintenance, minimal staffing, maximum utilisation of assets, pare everything as close to the bone as possible - and sadly, the only way you find out how close you can get to the bone is to sometimes cut into it.

 

The problem is essentially one of unfettered capitalism. When Adam Smith wrote the “Wealth of Nations”, he could not conceive of free markets operating outside of anything but a benevolent moral framework informed by the Christian heritage and the enlightenment. In short, rich people would always make charitable donations to help the poor, and most importantly everyone would act in terms of their enlightened long-term self-interest. Which boils down to believing that inequality in wealth is OK, but excessive inequality (greed and exploitation) leads to the collapse of the system. I am afraid that people who deny the existence of such things as “society” are destroying not just the framework, but the very cradle in which free markets operate.

 

MMA was just a small example of that.