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The influence of the car industry in actively undermining alternatives through favorable regulation, direct handouts and access to the administrations by indire
by PeterStuer 7y ago
The influence of the car industry in actively undermining alternatives through favorable regulation, direct handouts and access to the administrations by indirect bribes and revolving door delayed favors should not be underestimated.
Some counties in Europe have seen their former very nice state run public transport systems seen completely deteriorated over the past decades once sold out to the so-called 'efficient' private sector. I'm putting in 'so-called' as in practice they still receive close to as much in subsidies as the state-run enterprises they replaced, but now only serve cherry picked parts, most often with lower quality, and divest the required upkeep investments in infrastructure into separate businesses that are completely reliant on public funding.
There is a real myth about the effectiveness of private enterprise vs public enterprise.
Large private companies are not more efficient than a comparably sized public endeavor. Small companies can be, but that is systemically only true if you ignore the waste of 99% of the 'competitors' that are perpetually failing.
- eru 7y ago> The influence of the car industry [...] Doesn't Germany have proportionally an even bigger car industry? > Some counties in Europe have seen their former very nice state run public transport systems seen completely deteriorated over the past decades once sold out to the so-called 'efficient' private sector. [...] Most public transport used to be private in the 19th century and was nationalized as a combination of cash cow and for military purposes. The graphs on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_of_the_privatisation_of_British_Rail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_of_the_privatisation_of... look pretty good.