One of the root causes, yes, but you can see places where this is overcome by… heavily regulating capitalism.
What we need is to overthrow our oligarchs and solve wealth inequality, then educate people how to think for themselves and care for others, and we could get to the point of wider support for alternatives. Even now, there are places (examples given in the video) where some progress is being made. We could make so much more.
AviAdi@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Progressives ushered in these changes. It wasn’t capitalism that destroyed cities, it was the government!
Capitalism provided amazing public transportation before the government destroyed it all. European countries copied what we had before the federal government funded highway construction (socialism) and the public transportation companies couldn’t compete (capitalism) so they went bankrupt
scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 3 weeks ago
No, the private sectors failed at public transit. The reason we have Amtrak is quite literally because private rail failed, and it failed because the private companies realized they made more on freight than passengers, so they quite literally enshittified their own rail service so they wouldn’t need to continue it. In NYC the IRT and the BMT were both on the verge of bankruptcy so the state bailed them out and bought them. In the cases of rail, including Amtrak and the MTA, the government bailed them out, and then politicians continued to cut funding over and over, which is why rail in America is so terrible. Because idiots think rail = socialism now.
You are right with the interstates though. Those were purely the government, funded by the taxpayers, but lobbied for by oil and car companies, who also helped governments buy streetcars so they could then rip out the tracks in favor of roads. So now we have taxpayir subsidized roadsthat help private carriers and businesses.
Ain’t no history like a train nerd history knowledge.
You are so incredibly wrong that I need to take an advil.
AviAdi@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Ok you are leaving out CONTEXT to WHY privatized rail couldn’t compete.
SOCIALISED road network that was brand new and “free” for I use by the user.
SOCIALISED air transportation where airports were built and maintained by the government and airlines were SUBSIDIZED to maintain routes.
So HOW did you expect private RAIL to compete with these 2?
WHO WOULD INVEST INTO RAIL WHEN THE DIRECT COMPETITORS WERE SUBSIDIZED BY THE GOVERNMENT. Without that investment, where was private rail supposed to get money to modernize and make their fleet more comfortable?
Look at Europe at the same time. The government DIDN’T destroy their cities to put the car everywhere. The government DIDN’T subsidize oil and hand driver’s licenses out to anyone that breathes. The government DIDN’T build airports everywhere and subsidize routes. Rail companies were able to compete with other forms of transit.
I’m a rail nerd too. I fucking know what happened. It was a travesty but it wouldn’t have happened without EVIL GOVERNMENT.
scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 3 weeks ago
I think you’re arguing something else now, or I’m misunderstanding your argument. I’m not arguing that if the government had subsidized rail that it would have been better, that’s no question it would have been better. It absolutely should have been prioritized at minimum same level as the interstate and air budgets.
What I am disagreeing with is that capitalism did a great job on it’s own. It didn’t. The companies were going bankrupt, and in rail’s case they were torpedoing it on purpose so they could get out of the passenger rail business. It’s not a “Oh woe is us if only capitalism had saved us”
Malica@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Wild to be defending capitalism in this age
AviAdi@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Wild to be defending governments in this age.