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Lee Nellis's avatar

So, I was on a half empty flight last week. There were 7 exit row seats open and some passengers asked the flight cops (formerly known as flight attendants) if they could move up to a more comfotable seat. "Nope, you'd have to pay. This would have resulted in a small riot 20 years ago. Not so, now. We're all being broken to the reins.

So, its not just, not even mostly, about government (I am getting so tired of people focusing on slow-moving targets). Its about a society in which invidious distinctions have somehow become necessary (I won't dive into why here), in which even marginal temporary comfort has to be monetized. An airline that valued its customers would make all seats equally comfortable and seat passengers by layover time, so that the family who has only 50 minutes to get from one concourse to another would be first off the plane.

To the extent they exist, (my town has good customer service, but I iunderstand that is not always the case) the failures of our political institutions are mirrors of our increasingly desperate clinging to an economic model that cannot, by definition, put people first.

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