The outrage surrounding United Airlines’ brutal treatment of a customer has made one thing crystal clear: The story isn’t really about airline travel, overbooking policies or even consumer rights. It’s about the nature of dignity itself, and it doesn’t reflect well on the society it has so preoccupied.

The algorithm that decided to bump Dr. David Dao from an overbooked flight was trained to find the “lowest value customer” to inconvenience — a coach passenger, naturally, not a business traveler, but also a passenger who had paid less than others and wasn’t a rewards member. In addition, the algorithm considered the immediate cost to the airline of bumping someone, which meant avoiding families, or requiring an overnight stay, to save reimbursement fees.

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There are countless examples like this online. For example, the websites of various companies — including Capital One Financial Corp. — have used data from people’s computers to help determine their value as customers and decide what specific products or perks to offer them. Some companies even size you up when you call customer service numbers. If you’re high-value, you get connected to an agent quickly. If not, you can stay on hold indefinitely.

It’s the consumer reality, and it’s not pretty — especially when people start to accept ideas like making online privacy available only to those willing and able to pay for it.

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We have fallen for this paradigm shift, in every conversation about Dr. Dao’s consumer rights, the exact definition of “boarding the plane” and whether he has grounds to sue. The underlying assumption is that we deserve dignity, but only if we’ve paid for it.

Our economy is a hellscape for consumers. The United flier is the latest victim.

Air travel is the most concentrated version of an essentially authoritarian experience that can be found throughout today’s economy. We live, work, shop, and travel under a system of grossly asymmetric power relationships, in which consumers sign away most of their rights just by purchasing a ticket and companies deputize themselves to enforce contracts with hired goons. It doesn’t help that the Trump administration is rapidly stripping away as many regulations as it can, promising to repeal two for every new one implemented — an ultra-wealthy administration’s attempt to formalize the plutocratic free-for-all that has followed decades of growing corporate power, defined by massive income inequality, regulatory capture, a revolving door between agencies and the industries they oversee, and steadily eroding consumer rights.
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Survey the economic landscape and you’re likely to find similarly scrambled power relationships. During the foreclosure crisis, banks acted like arms of the state, with local sheriffs becoming the banking industry’s eviction force. Health insurers dictate access to health care for millions while a small coterie of chief executives reaps huge payouts. The telecommunications industry has consolidated into a handful of industry behemoths that maintain regional monopolies. The result is a lack of competition and slow, pricey service. And soon, thanks to a provision recently passed into law by Congress, our ISPs will have the rights to sell all of our browsing data to whomever they choose.
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Those are the economic costs of this arrangement. The social and cultural costs are harder to define but no less important. As Sandel explains, common experiences become increasingly fragmented and subjected to the vicissitudes of the market: “At a time of rising inequality, the marketization of everything means that people of affluence and people of modest means lead increasingly separate lives. We live and work and shop and play in different places. Our children go to different schools.” It also means wildly diverging expectations, as traditionally guaranteed rights become more contingent and benefits accrue to the wealthy.

In the wake of the House passing the AHCA, I keep thinking about the Washington Post article, 

• Nestlé Chairman Peter Brabeck’s assertion that access to water is a basic right but we should be assigning a market value to it
• Betsy Devos’ emphasis on school vouchers and what we know about how they weaken access to free and appropriate public education
• Trump’s budget director Mulvaney asserting that programs like Meals on Wheels and after school nutrition programs “don’t work” because they don’t produce results beyond keeping people safe and fed, 
• Rep Mo Brooks’ assertion that people without pre-existing conditions deserve to have lower health insurance premiums because they "lead good lives, they’re healthy, they’ve done the things to keep their bodies healthy” 
• SCOTUS rulings that reinforces that corporations have personal rights.  

That’s the danger of having a businessman’s administration in the White House.   People and their rights get defined as commodities.  Health and safety are not valued in and of themselves, but only in terms of the return on investment.

Corporations have always been free to define their services and consumers in these terms, but now the government does.  We’re seeing the blending of corporations and government in ways that erode our rights even further.  

Crain’s Chicago Business