4 ms·

Solidarity. Cars belong in the rubbish bin of history. The Soviet Union had the right idea, as usual--make cars unbearable to drive to encourage public transpor

Solidarity. Cars belong in the rubbish bin of history. The Soviet Union had the right idea, as usual--make cars unbearable to drive to encourage public transportation.

K0balt 3mo ago
That works for people in cities, if cities were made to by usable by cyclists and pedestrians. Not so much for people that live in rural areas.
kybernetyk 3mo ago
While not in the SU directly, I got to enjoy public transport in communist Poland for a few years and yeah, you don't want that.
- smackeyacky 3mo ago
  Communist Sydney trains are awful too
  - phoronixrly 3mo ago
    And here we come to the crux of the train issue - elitism. You both find it below your level to use public transport, and you don't want to mix with the 'unwashed masses' - again, doing so would be below your level.
- badpun 3mo ago
  Public transport in communist Poland was horrible because it was severely underfunded. Remember that Poland bankrupted in the 1981 (when the West put sanctions on the country after the Jaruzelski's "coup", and sanctions kiled the economy) the whole decade was kind of surreal in terms of state's lack of funds and decrease of living standards.
  - inigyou 3mo ago
    If they were communist, why didn't they just print more money?
    - Thraway198 3mo ago
      Like the US does?
    - badpun 3mo ago
      The bankrupcy was over foreign debt in foreign currencies, obviously you can't print those. The government borrowed those monies in the first place a decade ago to buy some technologies (patents, licences etc.) from Western companies in an attempt to modernize the economy.
ornornor 3mo ago
I don’t think you’ve ever lived under SU rules.
- actionfromafar 3mo ago
  Yeah, people don't seem to understand that in SU a very small well connected elite gained control over the means of production and abused it for their own purposes.
redsocksfan45 3mo ago
[dead]
elzbardico 3mo ago
The Soviet Union never had such a goal. Passenger cars universalization was actually a long term goal of the system, but the soviet system prioritized heavy industry, infrastructure and defense over consumer goods. That was the reason while Ukraine, before the war, was a huge net exporter of electricity. They never got too many or really good cars, but they do sure had plenty of electric generation plants. The Chinese apparently learned with this, and used and export oriented economy to have the necessary scale to invest both in heavy industry as well as consumer goods.

Solidarity. Cars belong in the rubbish bin of history. The Soviet Union had the right idea, as usual--make cars unbearable to drive to encourage public transportation.

K0balt 3mo ago

That works for people in cities, if cities were made to by usable by cyclists and pedestrians. Not so much for people that live in rural areas.

kybernetyk 3mo ago

While not in the SU directly, I got to enjoy public transport in communist Poland for a few years and yeah, you don't want that.

smackeyacky 3mo ago
Communist Sydney trains are awful too
- phoronixrly 3mo ago
  And here we come to the crux of the train issue - elitism. You both find it below your level to use public transport, and you don't want to mix with the 'unwashed masses' - again, doing so would be below your level.
badpun 3mo ago
Public transport in communist Poland was horrible because it was severely underfunded. Remember that Poland bankrupted in the 1981 (when the West put sanctions on the country after the Jaruzelski's "coup", and sanctions kiled the economy) the whole decade was kind of surreal in terms of state's lack of funds and decrease of living standards.
- inigyou 3mo ago
  If they were communist, why didn't they just print more money?
  - Thraway198 3mo ago
    Like the US does?
  - badpun 3mo ago
    The bankrupcy was over foreign debt in foreign currencies, obviously you can't print those. The government borrowed those monies in the first place a decade ago to buy some technologies (patents, licences etc.) from Western companies in an attempt to modernize the economy.

ornornor 3mo ago

I don’t think you’ve ever lived under SU rules.

actionfromafar 3mo ago
Yeah, people don't seem to understand that in SU a very small well connected elite gained control over the means of production and abused it for their own purposes.

redsocksfan45 3mo ago

[dead]

elzbardico 3mo ago

The Soviet Union never had such a goal. Passenger cars universalization was actually a long term goal of the system, but the soviet system prioritized heavy industry, infrastructure and defense over consumer goods. That was the reason while Ukraine, before the war, was a huge net exporter of electricity. They never got too many or really good cars, but they do sure had plenty of electric generation plants. The Chinese apparently learned with this, and used and export oriented economy to have the necessary scale to invest both in heavy industry as well as consumer goods.