The concept of SMS in our industry might be similar to de-regulation in credit markets, Financial, Banking, Enron, &ct. This offers any "operator" a free choice, to their own acceptable level of RISK. The concept of "moral hazard" might work for a while in the air transport industry.
Here's the same idea, or choice, expressed in 1930:
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NY Times_, August 1930
“...Like System in Merchant Marine ...”
"... in anticipation that American enterprise will make aviation grow to tremendous proportions throughout the world with as much care in reducing hazard as was shown by the founders of the great marine transport lines....
"... Horatio Barber sponsored a policy of ‘moral suasion’ to exhort pilots and airline operators to greater efforts in safety and regulation ...
“... Barber held that two principal methods were possible for the reduction of the number of air accidents:
-- close bureaucratic supervision or
-- a practical and effective campaign to provide efficient and responsible direction among pilots and operators themselves.
"The last named method, he maintained, was as practical as the former and had the
additional advantage of being cheaper and less restrictive to the growth of flying....