Should public transportation be free?

[onlinebiker]

Capitalism is by its very natue a system with a short term horizon and one that ignores any external costs.

As I am fond of saying, it is the best economic system apart from all the others.

One thing that will be difficult to overcome: decades of advertising propaganda telling us that the right car makes us cool, and that cars are symbols of freedom. (Symbols of freedom that you have to labor half your life to pay for.)

There's no capitalist incentive to persuade people that cars should be thought of like wheelchairs -- necessary for those who need them, but not something a free person would choose.

[This sounds better when I say it in Japanese, since a car is kuruma 車, and a wheelchair is a kuruma-isu 車椅子 -- car-chair.]

You see a car as a means to an end - to get somewhere - or to impress other people.

Gearheads like me enjoy the car for what it is and enjoy DRIVING them.... A destination is secondary most of the time. And impressing other people? - like I give a rats ass....

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

One thing that will be difficult to overcome: decades of advertising propaganda telling us that the right car makes us cool, and that cars are symbols of freedom. (Symbols of freedom that you have to labor half your life to pay for.)

There's no capitalist incentive to persuade people that cars should be thought of like wheelchairs -- necessary for those who need them, but not something a free person would choose.

[This sounds better when I say it in Japanese, since a car is kuruma 車, and a wheelchair is a kuruma-isu 車椅子 -- car-chair.]

You see a car as a means to an end - to get somewhere - or to impress other people.

Gearheads like me enjoy the car for what it is and enjoy DRIVING them.... A destination is secondary most of the time. And impressing other people? - like I give a rats ass....

That’s how I felt about motorcycles, back when I was still riding.

‘Hon, I’m taking the bike out.’

‘Where you going?’

‘Just out.’

Boru

[onlinebiker]

You see a car as a means to an end - to get somewhere - or to impress other people.

Gearheads like me enjoy the car for what it is and enjoy DRIVING them.... A destination is secondary most of the time. And impressing other people? - like I give a rats ass....

That’s how I felt about motorcycles, back when I was still riding.

‘Hon, I’m taking the bike out.’

‘Where you going?’

‘Just out.’

Boru

I spent over 35 years just chasing the front wheel.  Vacations were point in any direction and " go thatta way" - no destination named....

Much fun.

[The Grand Nudger]

Give the subsidies that go to fossil fuels to public transportation.

I’ll never under stand why anyone thinks that grinding down the common man with taxes and surcharges will ever solve climate change. It’s not possible even in principle, let alone practice.

[arewethereyet]

The gearhead who lives here just drove the hotrod to the post office. Like the mail couldn't have just been put in our mail box. smh

But he did leave it parked yesterday, which surprised me.

Considering he usually works six days a week, and sometimes seven, I suppose he should get out there and make loud noises when he has the chance.

[Jehanne]

Concrete is also a significant source of CO2 emissions.  Free market capitalism has had over 40 years to solve this problem, and it appears that it just won't.  Both Republicans & Democrats are going to carry on until the balloon pops, and when half of modern-day Florida is part of the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, people will complain.

Capitalism is by its very natue a system with a short term horizon and one that ignores any external costs.

As I am fond of saying, it is the best economic system apart from all the others.

If we, as a species, destroy ourselves, then how can capitalism be judged as being the "best economic system"?

[The Grand Nudger]

Some of us recognize that we are not, in any accurate sense, living in a capitalist system.

Corporate feudalism does not equal capitalism. This is what threatens our species…at present. Think of it like this…when nuts talk about the evils of socialism or communism…people often mention that the things they’re referring to are totalitarian dictatorships and fascism. The same is conceivably true with a great many similar statements with regards to capitalism.

I think we need to stop saying that capitalism is destroying us, that moral decay is destroying us, that the dumbing down of people is destroying us. These things are not true. A small cadre of bad actors have captured our states and our markets. That…is destroying us.

[Jehanne]

Some of us recognize that we are not, in any accurate sense, living in a capitalist system.

Corporate feudalism does not equal capitalism. This is what threatens our species…at present.

True, the laissez-faire capitalism of Adam Smith no longer exists in the Western World. Even though no politician will not admit it (at least in the United States), we've drifted towards more and more to Marxism (end to child labor, national income tax) over the last 150 years.

[Anomalocaris]

2 problems:

1.  By paying for free public transportation from general tax revenue it creates common cause for both people who don’t need and those prefer not to use public transportation.  This broadens and solidifies opposition against public transportation policy.

2.   Making it completely free means that part of the incremental cost of largely or totally unnecessary trips is also zero, so it incentivizes low value added travels.

If the goal is to reduce polluting ICE car usage, I think directly penalizing the use of ICE cars via tolls and fuel surcharges makes much more economic and policy sense then reducing the ticke of public trans portion much below incremental cost of carrying the passengers.

In principle, penalizing undesirable behavior directly work better than Penalizing everyone to create incentive to lure wrong doers away from wrong doing.

(bold mine)

In principle, yes. In practical terms, positive reinforcement works better than negative reinforcement in curbing undesirable behaviour. It would be more effective to incentivize people to get them to use public transport than to penalize them for not doing so.

To the OP: Yes.

Boru

I disagree.  Positive reinforcement facilitated by subsidies compulsorily extracted from those innocent of the  undesirable behavior rather unites and creates common cause for both the more dedicated amongst the wrong doers and those who are not guilty of wrong doing but who are not willing to subsidize the wrong prevention agenda.

[Anomalocaris]

Some of us recognize that we are not, in any accurate sense, living in a capitalist system.

Corporate feudalism does not equal capitalism.  This is what threatens our species…at present.

True, the laissez-faire capitalism of Adam Smith no longer exists in the Western World.  Even though no politician will not admit it (at least in the United States), we've drifted towards more and more to Marxism (end to child labor, national income tax) over the last 150 years.

laissez-faire Capitalism is a internally contradictory schema that embodies within itself all the forces needed to inexorably moves any economy and society attempting to structure itself to achieve laissez-faire towards oligarchy and monopoly.