[bumby]

What's missing in this utilitarian perspective is the idea that a safe workplace isn't an economic good but a right within the US codified by law.

We can go through the list of the Bill of Rights and probably point out how they don't make economic sense. But they make an abundance of moral sense.

[kansface]

What is a safe workplace? Is it one in which we expect a workplace accident every year, decade, century, or millennium? The costs in terms of time, labor, and budget are not linear - that is money and man years that would be better spent elsewhere. The thing is that I think me mostly agree here as a society but most of these decisions are never actually decided in the first place.