Parent poster's claim seems to be that Boeing is incentivised to make safe planes, and is likely to have better aeronautical engineers than the regulator. In that scenario, it wouldn't matter if the regulators were corrupt or Boeing certified itself.
Unfortunately there's a massive hole in that argument, which is that (i) Boeing might be incentivised to do things which aren't in the public interest, such as take risks to make a great deal more money, and (ii) it might suffer a decline in competence due to contingent or management factors.
Perhaps in a perfect world incentives could be so perfectly aligned that no industry would need regulating. But that's not the world we live in.
If there aren't any ramifications for Boeing building unsafe planes, why would they be incentivized to do so? Shareholders don't care about the lives of the passengers, only ROI.
Boeing looks around at all of the slaps on the wrists other companies get, including bail outs. Why shouldn't they hop on that gravy train also?
Unfortunately there's a massive hole in that argument, which is that (i) Boeing might be incentivised to do things which aren't in the public interest, such as take risks to make a great deal more money, and (ii) it might suffer a decline in competence due to contingent or management factors.
Perhaps in a perfect world incentives could be so perfectly aligned that no industry would need regulating. But that's not the world we live in.