Economy for Everyone
Case Studies
Structure: context, events, lessons, and transferable pattern. Receipts are tracked by type in Methods and Sources.
7 case studies
failure · 2026-02-26
Boeing (Post-Merger Era)
Core pattern: Boeing optimized for financial results, weakened safety guardrails, and paid for it late.
Claim: In safety-critical systems, competition and market discipline are not enough without independent, fast, enforceable safety oversight.
After the 1997 merger era shift toward financial targets, Boeing experienced repeated safety and quality failures with delayed but severe losses. The case stress-tests the model: market punishment eventually arrived, but too late to function as a primary safety guardrail.
Evidence level: medium · Event window: 1997-01-01 to 2026-02-01
failure · 2026-02-26
Citizens United v. FEC (2010)
Core pattern: Remove a spending guardrail, fail to enforce the replacement, and money scales faster than accountability.
Claim: When spending scale rises faster than enforcement capacity, guardrails degrade even if formal rules remain on paper.
This case tracks how post-2010 campaign-finance design removed scale constraints while enforcement capacity failed to keep pace. The result is a durable stress test: disclosure and coordination rules without timely enforcement become mostly ornamental.
Evidence level: medium · Event window: 2010-01-21 to 2026-02-01
success · 2026-02-26
Costco
Core pattern: High wages + membership fees as profit center + operational discipline = durable competitive advantage.
Claim: Costco validates high-wage retail as a system design outcome, not a wages-only strategy.
Costco sustains above-market wages by pairing them with a membership-fee profit center and strict operational discipline. The case supports a conditional lesson: high wages can work at scale when an integrated margin-preserving system and long-horizon governance are in place.
Evidence level: medium · Event window: 2004-01-01 to 2026-02-01
mixed · 2026-02-26
Montgomery County Housing Production Fund
Core pattern: Government can fill the housing gap the market won't through revolving loans and permanent affordability, but one fund is not a full system.
Claim: HPF-style revolving public finance can create permanent affordability with favorable leverage, but it must be scaled and paired with preservation and deeper-subsidy tools to close the full housing gap.
Montgomery County's $100M revolving housing fund demonstrates a practical way to finance permanently affordable units in high-cost markets. Early evidence is promising, but scale limits, deeper affordability gaps, and unresolved implementation risks keep this as a partial success under stress-test conditions.
Evidence level: medium · Event window: 2021-08-01 to 2027-12-31
success · 2026-02-26
Nucor Steel
Core pattern: Performance pay + shared sacrifice + no-layoff norm = durable competitive advantage in a brutal industry.
Claim: Nucor demonstrates a scalable shared-upside manufacturing model, but with real volatility, documented exceptions, and equity gaps that matter.
Nucor built durable performance in steel by combining EAF mini-mill economics with decentralized operations, strong incentive pay, and a no-layoff norm. The case supports a qualified lesson: shared-upside systems can scale when technology economics and governance choices align, but worker protections remain uneven and conditional.
Evidence level: medium · Event window: 1966-01-01 to 2026-01-31
failure · 2026-02-26
Saturn (GM Division)
Core pattern: Saturn had two problems at once: weak protection from GM control and a business model that kept losing money.
Claim: Subsidiary autonomy can improve outcomes, but without durable decision rights and viable unit economics, parent control and financial pressure eventually dominate.
Saturn combined an initially strong worker-customer model with weak parent-level autonomy protections and fragile economics. The case shows that governance protections and business viability must both hold for a distinct subsidiary model to survive.
Evidence level: medium · Event window: 1985-01-01 to 2010-01-01
mixed · 2026-02-26
Tokyo Housing Throughput Model
Core pattern: National by-right zoning preemption removed the local veto on multifamily housing and enabled long-run throughput, but exogenous cost and capital shocks can still overwhelm permissive zoning.
Claim: Removing local veto points is likely necessary for supply-side housing abundance, but not sufficient without complementary labor, tenant, and macro-stability policies.
Tokyo's long-run housing throughput supports the case for by-right preemption as a key supply mechanism. Recent price and rent surges stress-test the model: zoning permissiveness can raise supply capacity, but it cannot by itself neutralize labor shortages, input inflation, or global capital shocks.
Evidence level: medium · Event window: 1968-01-01 to 2026-02-01