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The market would build railroads and metros given the chance.
by TomMarius 9y ago
The market would build railroads and metros given the chance.
- oblio 9y agoThe market did build those. Look up robber barons.
- Retric 9y agoThis was pre car, it's hard to find recent examples.
- acompetency 9y agoWe did have robber barons build one here, look up the länsimetro.
- Reason077 9y agoBuilding a metro requires enormous investment, with a huge but very long-term payback. Most of that return is not direct in the form of ticket revenues, but externalised in the form of economic growth along the metro routes, as well as environmental and social benefits. Even where you have private companies building and operating metros, it's usually with the direction and financial support (such as land grants and loan guarantees) from governments.
- TomMarius 9y agoThere is no need for the initiative to be for profit. People are perfectly capable of getting together and doing stuff - in much bigger scale than a metro.
- InitialLastName 9y agoYes, and when they do, we sometimes call it "government".
- TomMarius 9y agoNope. No one is allowed to opt out and people are forced to pay even though they don't want to or straight up can't use it and/or don't agree with it.
- azemetre 9y agoNo one is stopping you from renouncing your citizenship and leaving the country. The problem with your argument is you seem to want all the benefits for yourself with zero drawbacks. Society doesn't work like this and successful societies will never work like this.
- geezerjay 9y ago> No one is stopping you from renouncing your citizenship and leaving the country. That's a page taken out of the fascist dictatorship's playbook. If your position was remotely defendable I'm sure that the best argument you could come up wouldn't be a variant of "if you don'agree with me then let me expell you from where you were born".
- TomMarius 9y agoI don't want any of the "benefits" for the price they're forced to me. That's the whole point.
- geezerjay 9y ago> Building a metro requires enormous investment, with a huge but very long-term payback Actually that's far from the truth. Any form of railway transport, with some notable exceptions like some french TGV lines, are absurd money sinks. The value of railway services in particular but public transportation systems in genetal manifest themselves mainly as externalities.