A passenger on an overbooked United flight from Chicago to Louisville on Sunday night was ripped out of his seat by uniformed officers and dragged down the aisle...as several horrified passengers captured video footage of his bloodied face on their phones... [This] incident is both an extraordinary occurrence—overbookings are common yet rarely involve thuggish yanking—and also a dramatic reminder of the profoundly unequal, and even morally scandalous, relationship between consumers and corporations in industries where a handful of large companies dominate the sector...

[Although] this incident was unusual in many respects, it was also representative of an airline industry that has considerable power over consumers—even if the use of force is more subtle than a group of security professionals wrestling a passenger to the floor.  For example, many people have pointed out that United might have avoided the entire fiasco by simply offering the passengers more money to leave the plane... Domestic airlines are now enjoying record profits...in part because the airline industry is sheltered from both antitrust regulation and litigation...

[What] recourse do [customers] have against the company? Very little. In the last decade, class-action lawsuits have become endangered thanks to a series of Supreme Court rulings that have undercut consumer rights... [The] United video serves as a stark metaphor, one where the quiet brutalization of consumers is rendered in shocking, literal form... Companies in concentrated industries, like the airlines, have legal cover to break the most basic promise to consumers without legally breaking their contracts. The video is a scandal. But so is the law.