How Americans’ trust in Big Business went from bad to worse

FOR almost a century, Boeing was an icon of US business, spreading the gospel of American engineering and corporate excellence across the globe. Every day, millions of travellers stepped from the jet bridge into a Boeing aircraft with a sense of absolute confidence.

We all know what happened next. After a pair of fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019, whistleblowers and investigations revealed a company that had slashed away at quality and safety and blown up its culture of innovation as it pursued fatter profit margins and a higher share price. Even before a door plug blew off a Boeing plane mid-flight in January or the company left a pair of astronauts stranded in space in June, the damage had been done: The trust Boeing had built decade by decade was gone – and may never return.

Boeing is an extreme case, but the company is not alone. Americans’ faith in big business as a whole has been slowly but surely eroding for years.