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I think the general point to take away from notions like this is that many of these very profitable opportunities (Uber, airbnb, instacart, even private MOOC to

by wfo 11y ago

I think the general point to take away from notions like this is that many of these very profitable opportunities (Uber, airbnb, instacart, even private MOOC to replace education) are all responses to public infrastructure failures as our voting population becomes more and more self-centered and focused on individualist (i.e. extremist capitalist/Libertarian) economics and less willing to fund public infrastructure, be it in transportation, education, any public good really. The solution that is always suggested is some form of leaning in harder to Libertarianism and trying to explain away how private control of infrastructure with a profit motive is somehow a good thing. Which makes sense taking the world view that [private profits == good, market economics are the only solution to any problem] for granted and if you're likely to be the private person controlling the infrastructure and its corresponding enormous untouchable profits. Incidentally, the private structures are even certainly better for everyone than the broken dilapidated infrastructure that exists right now (see: Uber) and so it's a net gain for the public in the short term, but it's dystopian in the long term.

RickHull 11y ago
> these very profitable opportunities (Uber, airbnb, instacart, even private MOOC to replace education) are all responses to public infrastructure failures as our voting population becomes more and more self-centered and focused on individualist (i.e. extremist capitalist/Libertarian) economics Not exactly. Yes, we do have a problem with voters playing identity politics and voting tribally -- to promote one constituency over another. Overwhelmingly, these are not libertarians or fans of capitalism. Elected representatives bring home boondoggle infrastructure projects with the primary intent of "creating jobs" and "getting reelected". The problem is our representative voting model, which has been largely unsuccessful in the last 50 years at maintaining or building out new infrastructure. This model is very good at rewarding the in-group and punishing the out-group, often by a winner-take-all tyranny of the majority, but it's ineffective and inefficient at actually getting things done or satisfying the voting public overall.
emiliobumachar 11y ago
Governments are huge today compared to the past, and still growing. This suggests that a focus on individualism is not among the reasons for any decay of infrastructure compared to the past.
- wfo 11y ago
  Governments have expanded in order to better serve private wealthy interests. They have expanded in response to individuals pushing for "what's good for me" and ignoring "what's good for the public/country". Hence individualism.
dylanjermiah 11y ago
The public infrastructure which you've described didn't 'fail' because of lack of funding, it 'failed' because of lack of aligned incentives. Please specifically outline how Uber and similar services are good for only the 'short term' and will be 'dystopian' in the long, I'm very curious.
- wfo 11y ago
  Of course it did -- public transportation, the alternative to mass widespread use of taxis/private cabs most certainly dies in most of the US because of a lack of funding. And you're right I left that dystopian comment vague -- let me clarify, having a large private monopoly own a necessary piece of transportation infrastructure is my idea of a dystopia, incidentally especially when their business model is built around using ownership of the name and app to exploit people who really need to use it (i.e. surge pricing) and people who work to provide it (i.e. the "technically private contractors but really just employees without benefits"). The point is transportation is something we all require and should be provided by the public (it already is in the form of roads, but that's not good enough): taxis are a crappy but elastic solution that's there to fill in the gaps. I think their awfulness is a good thing: private cars driving people around are a terrible solution to the real problem which is transportation infrastructure. As soon as a terrible solution starts to look and feel okay to a lot of (wealthy or middle-class) people, that's dangerous. Because things like Uber don't look and feel okay to the very poor. That's why I describe it as dystopian.

by wfo 11y ago

RickHull 11y ago

> these very profitable opportunities (Uber, airbnb, instacart, even private MOOC to replace education) are all responses to public infrastructure failures as our voting population becomes more and more self-centered and focused on individualist (i.e. extremist capitalist/Libertarian) economics Not exactly. Yes, we do have a problem with voters playing identity politics and voting tribally -- to promote one constituency over another. Overwhelmingly, these are not libertarians or fans of capitalism. Elected representatives bring home boondoggle infrastructure projects with the primary intent of "creating jobs" and "getting reelected". The problem is our representative voting model, which has been largely unsuccessful in the last 50 years at maintaining or building out new infrastructure. This model is very good at rewarding the in-group and punishing the out-group, often by a winner-take-all tyranny of the majority, but it's ineffective and inefficient at actually getting things done or satisfying the voting public overall.

emiliobumachar 11y ago

Governments are huge today compared to the past, and still growing. This suggests that a focus on individualism is not among the reasons for any decay of infrastructure compared to the past.

wfo 11y ago
Governments have expanded in order to better serve private wealthy interests. They have expanded in response to individuals pushing for "what's good for me" and ignoring "what's good for the public/country". Hence individualism.

dylanjermiah 11y ago

The public infrastructure which you've described didn't 'fail' because of lack of funding, it 'failed' because of lack of aligned incentives. Please specifically outline how Uber and similar services are good for only the 'short term' and will be 'dystopian' in the long, I'm very curious.

wfo 11y ago
Of course it did -- public transportation, the alternative to mass widespread use of taxis/private cabs most certainly dies in most of the US because of a lack of funding. And you're right I left that dystopian comment vague -- let me clarify, having a large private monopoly own a necessary piece of transportation infrastructure is my idea of a dystopia, incidentally especially when their business model is built around using ownership of the name and app to exploit people who really need to use it (i.e. surge pricing) and people who work to provide it (i.e. the "technically private contractors but really just employees without benefits"). The point is transportation is something we all require and should be provided by the public (it already is in the form of roads, but that's not good enough): taxis are a crappy but elastic solution that's there to fill in the gaps. I think their awfulness is a good thing: private cars driving people around are a terrible solution to the real problem which is transportation infrastructure. As soon as a terrible solution starts to look and feel okay to a lot of (wealthy or middle-class) people, that's dangerous. Because things like Uber don't look and feel okay to the very poor. That's why I describe it as dystopian.