NationStates Jolt Archive

Many communists on this board seem to be in favor of abolishing or at least greatly reducing dependence on cars, because they epitomize selfishness and waste: the same purpose—transporting people—could be accomplished through greater reliance on public transportation, and this method is far more considerate of the environment. However, currently (at least in the United States), cars are the only way to get around in the suburbs. So do communists advocate that the suburbs be turned into cities?

I'm not a communist, but I just have to say that that is the dumbest question I've ever seen anyone ask on this forum.

I do not think it is a stupid question,

I think that transportation is just another way that communism hinders the distribution of labor and resources. OJ is correct, the elimination of private transport would reverse a population drift of the last 50 years and drive people back into population centers. I don't think communists are that worried, as gathering people into giant apartment complexes would strengthen the sense of community they want.

All I can say is in communist socialist Cuba the most common forms of
transportation are bycycles, foot, or overcrowded buses which Cubans call
the pill, you take one every 4 hours.

For exsample, my girl cousin in Cuba who works in an office of a government company, and works with computers has a job better then mine and drives
a bycycle to work and asks me to send her hard currency money, medicine
and eyeglases.

as a commie i say up taxes and get public transport into the suburbs

...Huh? What relevance is this?

as a commie i say up taxes and get public transport into the suburbs

The problem with this is the number of bus routes per people. While in the city, you have massive density so you can afford to run frequent routes, because there are a lot of travelers at all times.

But in the suburbs, you will have bus routes that have 5 or 6 people on them, so suburbs would have much higher taxes than urban areas. People would move to the cities to avoid the cost of transportation.

...Huh? What relevance is this?

Transportation is very important, this topic has strong practical relevance to the idea of communism.

Transportation is very important, this topic has strong practical relevance to the idea of communism.

I know. I was being sarcastic. Hmm, I should've placed a '/sarcasm' sign at the end, should I?

Actually, our dependence on cars is probably a result of government interference in the economy by building and maintaining free roads for cars. If the government didn't provide these for free, who knows what transportation would be like? All we can say is that it would be more efficient.

The problem with this is the number of bus routes per people. While in the city, you have massive density so you can afford to run frequent routes, because there are a lot of travelers at all times.

But in the suburbs, you will have bus routes that have 5 or 6 people on them, so suburbs would have much higher taxes than urban areas. People would move to the cities to avoid the cost of transportation.
smaller, more efficient buses; alternative fuels; longer bus-routes; high-speed tubes/subway to go a long, efficient (high density) route in short time... there are many options to make it work i'm sure. taxes would probably have to rise, yes, but tis necessary for environmental reasons imho (time we actually started doing this sort of thing)

OJ is correct, the elimination of private transport would reverse a population drift of the last 50 years and drive people back into population centers.

it wouldn't actually be too much of reversal - since 1930 approximately 30% of the population in the u.s. has lived in the central cities - you'll have to forgive me, i don't have numbers for other countries. that number has been almost completely stable. some of the old central cities have experienced losses, but new central cities have emerged to take their places. it is true that the burbs have had the highest growth (now accounting for 50% of the total population), but big city elitists such as myself count the burbs as a generally good development that just needs a bit of tweaking. it's only the rural areas that have not grown or broken just about even in the great population redistribution. and as the burbs have grown, they have both expanded outward and increased in density, so that the inner burbs have essentially the same density as the central cities.

a lessening of reliance on private transport would require a redesign of some aspects of suburbia, obviously. but hell, a good chunk of inner chicago suburbia already just drives to the train and el stations. if the network was expanded outward a lot of people would use it. and unless somebody starts making nuklear powered cars, we're going to have to cut back our reliance on them whether we want to or not.

as a commie i say up taxes and get public transport into the suburbs
That has got to be the least possible cost effective [not to mention impractical] solution imaginable.

as a commie i say up taxes and get public transport into the suburbs

what do you tax in a communist society?

does that mean just cutting rations slightly?

That has got to be the least possible cost effective [not to mention impractical] solution imaginable.

More cost ineffective than having one car for every single person?

smaller, more efficient buses; alternative fuels; longer bus-routes; high-speed tubes/subway to go a long, efficient (high density) route in short time... there are many options to make it work i'm sure. taxes would probably have to rise, yes, but tis necessary for environmental reasons imho (time we actually started doing this sort of thing)
Who's going to invent this magic bus? What sense does it make to eliminate the dozens of private interests that are already competing to find alternate fuel sources just so we can start at square one on the government's dime?

Why would someone invent such a device under a system where he wouldn't be rewarded for it? Where is the money for these "high speed tubes" going to come from if the government's primary concern is public welfare?

Money doesn't grow on trees. Your political priorities are on par with some of the more vapid RP I've seen on this site, where new folks come in and invariably claim to be spending trillions of dollars on every conceivable policy while miraculously managing to avoid any possible consequences. In RP, we called these people "n00bs," but in politics I usually just settle for "clueless."

More cost ineffective than having one car for every single person?
Yes. Very much so.

Yes. Very much so.

How? Much more labour and resources go into producing a car for every person than a bus for every twenty to thirty people (which is probably an unrealistic figure anyway, since many will opt to use bikes, etc.).

Yes. Very much so.

One bus holds up to about thirty people, and the average bus is about three times larger than the average station wagon. Both automobiles take about the same time to produce.

How the fuck is that less cost-effective?

Many communists on this board seem to be in favor of abolishing or at least greatly reducing dependence on cars, because they epitomize selfishness and waste: the same purpose—transporting people—could be accomplished through greater reliance on public transportation, and this method is far more considerate of the environment. However, currently (at least in the United States), cars are the only way to get around in the suburbs. So do communists advocate that the suburbs be turned into cities?

I think the only logical solution would be to create a vast, bloated government bureaucracy to handle suburban transportation. Perhaps the new ministry could be called "Commutrans"...

Putting aside, for the moment, that I don't beleive we actually have one car for every single person in this country and probably never will , it's more cost effective for several reasons:

First and formost, a demand for cars [i]creates jobs in auto manufacturing, audio sales, oil refineries, mining, steel mills, robotics, and probably a good number of other fields that I can't think of at the moment. Demand for cars puts people behind registers at gas stations; on the sales floors at racing equipment emporiums and car audio shops, and millions of other places you'd probably never think to look. It's more cost effective because the people that want them will pay for them--and when they do, that money tends to change hands. More labor and resources are put to use producing millions of cars, but those resources and labor are compensated for, at least under capitalism.

As an obvious consequence of this, if you scrap private transport, you will have millions of automotive engineers, mechanics, car salesmen, factory workers (!) and dozens of other professions out on the streets. I'm sure you could put a few of them to work on building your magic bus, but what are you going to do with, say, ten thousand unemployed auto mechanics? How about twenty? Thirty?

A massive amount of public routes would be an unsustainable drain on our resources in a number of ways, and I don't doubt for a minute that any such attempt at doing so would end as little more than a joke, at least in this country. Bus schedules would be appropriate for use as toilet paper for all they accuracy they're likely to contain: in most cities the bus services are bad enough, and I would be willing to bet most of their logistics personnel would laugh you right out of the room if you tried to suggest that they extend their services to the exurbs [not the suburbs, since a lot of them already have bus services too; it's just that the demand for them is so low the routes are usually run very sporadically].

Interestingly, this proposal [as with most others from the Communist doctrine] undermines its own morality. Communists frequently pine for days when people will live in "equality," while turning around and suggesting policy changes like this, where a bum can pay nothing for his bus, but a wealthy man must pay millions for a service he never uses. If you want reasons why Communism will never work [at least not with this species], you need only observe that it contradicts istelf just like this at nearly every turn.

The strains such a plan would create would be monstrous in scope; so much so in fact that any speculation here is probably just going to end up being the tip of the iceberg. Traffic isn't going to just go away if you get rid of cars; bumper-to-bumper traffic in most cities would simply become bumper-to-bumper bus lines, and we'd have millions of hours of lost productivity as a result of late busses, missed busses, and so forth. Hell, even if we did go through with this a new sect of radicals would probably spring up as soon as the first major bus pileup happened, killing dozens. They'd all be going on about how busses are wasteful and we should all give it up and just use our feet/bikes/magic high speed subway tubes. How do we know just what radicals we should listen to? If you guys are going to keep coming out of the goddamn woodwork no matter what the system is, what's the point?

One bus holds up to about thirty people, and the average bus is about three times larger than the average station wagon. Both automobiles take about the same time to produce.

How the fuck is that less cost-effective?

I use public transportation on a daily basis.

You are not considering nearly enough factors. True, a bus can hold more people than the average private car. However, that bus is not necessarily packed to the ceiling with passengers all the time (thirty people? That's empty). As such, the bus is continuing to burn fuel and oil, pollute, contribute to traffic problems, add to maintence costs (on the bus fleet and the public road system), and the driver is continuing to draw a paycheck even while the bus is running empty or near empty. Costs go up, and income in the form of fares is not necessarily following. A possible solution is to adjust fares according to demand on the system, but that would be a market solution, and governments are more inclined to just rely on taxes to make up for their losses.

A private vehicle need only run when I need it to. As such, I am not constantly consuming fuel, polluting, contributing to traffic problems, and adding to wear and tear unnecessarily. I can easily adjust my driving habits to fit my financial situation, without causing inconvienence to other private vehicle owners. Also, I don't need to pay for a driver. The fact that a private vehicle runs only when I immediately need it means that my transportation schedule is completely up to me, which, as a consumer of transportation, I consider far more cost effective than having to stand around for 40 minutes waiting for the next bus (if it even shows up) when I could be spending my time on something more productive.

I'm a capitalist, but I agree that public transport needs to be better utilized. We do have a responsability to protect the enviroment IMO.

I'm a capitalist, but I agree that public transport needs to be better utilized. We do have a responsability to protect the enviroment IMO.

Having observed my local transportation authority very closely (I use the bus system on a daily basis), I have concluded that public transportation is less about "protecting the environment" and more about "bureaucrat needs a monument to himself."

Pork. It happens at the local level too.

Putting aside, for the moment, that I don't beleive we actually have one car for every single person in this country and probably never will ,

Sure we do - most people get a new car every 5-15 years.

First and formost, a demand for cars [i]creates jobs in auto manufacturing, audio sales, oil refineries, mining, steel mills, robotics, and probably a good number of other fields that I can't think of at the moment. Demand for cars puts people behind registers at gas stations; on the sales floors at racing equipment emporiums and car audio shops, and millions of other places you'd probably never think to look.

Naturally. But remove the need for that, and you can devote more labour and resources to the production of luxuries and expand existing services.

It's more cost effective because the people that want them will pay for them--and when they do, that money tends to change hands. More labor and resources are put to use producing millions of cars, but those resources and labor are compensated for, at least under capitalism.

They are compensated for with money, which is an artificial resource. The resources are being used anyway. There is the same amount of resource use occuring even if this massive automobile industry existed under a communist economy, but capitalism masks it with an intermediary. That's all.

As an obvious consequence of this, if you scrap private transport, you will have millions of automotive engineers, mechanics, car salesmen, factory workers (!) and dozens of other professions out on the streets. I'm sure you could put a few of them to work on building your magic bus, but what are you going to do with, say, ten thousand unemployed auto mechanics? How about twenty? Thirty?

There's always a need for mechanics in an industrial economy. Retrain them and give them jobs in other fields. Expand other means of production to accomodate them.

A massive amount of public routes would be an unsustainable drain on our resources in a number of ways, and I don't doubt for a minute that any such attempt at doing so would end as little more than a joke, at least in this country. Bus schedules would be appropriate for use as toilet paper for all they accuracy they're likely to contain: in most cities the bus services are bad enough, and I would be willing to bet most of their logistics personnel would laugh you right out of the room if you tried to suggest that they extend their services to the exurbs [not the suburbs, since a lot of them already have bus services too; it's just that the demand for them is so low the routes are usually run very sporadically].

I think this is more of an American thing. I use public transport exclusively and it takes me almost anywhere. It works over here. Sometimes buses are late, yes. Why? Traffic. In this hypothetical situation, that is far less of a problem anyway.

Interestingly, this proposal [as with most others from the Communist doctrine] undermines its own morality. Communists frequently pine for days when people will live in "equality," while turning around and suggesting policy changes like this, where a bum can pay nothing for his bus, but a wealthy man must pay millions for a service he never uses. If you want reasons why Communism will never work [at least not with this species], you need only observe that it contradicts istelf just like this at nearly every turn.

I think that's more due to your misunderstanding of communist ideology than anything else. You see, our ultimate goal is to abolish money. There are no "wealthy men".

The strains such a plan would create would be monstrous in scope; so much so in fact that any speculation here is probably just going to end up being the tip of the iceberg. Traffic isn't going to just go away if you get rid of cars; bumper-to-bumper traffic in most cities would simply become bumper-to-bumper bus lines, and we'd have millions of hours of lost productivity as a result of late busses, missed busses, and so forth.

No, I disagree - firstly, not everyone will need to catch a bus to get where they want to go. Secondly, a bus can carry at least 20 people, up to 60 in some instances. That's a pretty massive reduction of vehicles upon the road. We're talking at least 1/4 of the current volume.

Hell, even if we did go through with this a new sect of radicals would probably spring up as soon as the first major bus pileup happened, killing dozens. They'd all be going on about how busses are wasteful and we should all give it up and just use our feet/bikes/magic high speed subway tubes. How do we know just what radicals we should listen to? If you guys are going to keep coming out of the goddamn woodwork no matter what the system is, what's the point?

Ugh. Did you expect me to dignify that with a response?

Cars kill hundreds of thousands worldwide every year, but I don't think anyone here stated that we should get rid of them because they kill people.

Sure we do - most people get a new car every 5-15 years.
Statistically, we probably average one car [or more] per citizen, but that doesn't mean everyone in the country has one. I think we were trying to make different points here.

Naturally. But remove the need for that, and you can devote more labour and resources to the production of luxuries and expand existing services.
It's funny to me how nonchalantly Communists talk about just dispensing with cultural values as if they were utterly inconsequential. This country has millions of miles of interstate, millions of cars, thousands of gas stations and auto repair shops and you just dismiss that all out of hand by saying "Eliminate the need for that..."

It's not that easy. "Eliminating" that particular need would be an even more cost-intensive and horribly immoral campaign: the change necessary would be so drastic that you'd either have to just up and take cars away from people , or send a government agent to every home in America to spend hours convincing these people to voluntarily give up their cars, pay higher taxes, and catch a bus every morning--not because it benefits them but because it benefits "the public," since the public is invariably an organism that constitutes of everyone in any given society except yourself. Either option requires more man hours and cost concerns than you're willing to admit to right now.

They are compensated for with money, which is an artificial resource. The resources are being used anyway. There is the same amount of resource use occuring even if this massive automobile industry existed under a communist economy, but capitalism masks it with an intermediary. That's all.
We'll see how you feel about "artificial resources" when the landlord comes knocking. Communists fancy themselves as progressive radicals while in fact they're the biggest economic reactionaries on the planet: you guys want us to [i]revert to a trade model we abandoned centuries ago.

There's always a need for mechanics in an industrial economy. Retrain them and give them jobs in other fields. Expand other means of production to accomodate them.
Retrain them with what money? With whose effort? You're already spending every spare penny your populace makes putting shoes on beggars and paying little Johnny's medical bills.

I think this is more of an American thing. I use public transport exclusively and it takes me almost anywhere. It works over here. Sometimes buses are late, yes. Why? Traffic. In this hypothetical situation, that is far less of a problem anyway.
I'm going out on a limb here, but I'm guessing that America would have something of a larger problem with this, being as we [unless you livei n Russia or China, which I doubt] have probably about ten or twenty times as much land area as you do and an exponentially larger population. It's a common tactic for European political theorists to sneer "Well, we made it work," while convienently forgetting not only that it's not working but that different factors need to be addressed.

I think that's more due to your misunderstanding of communist ideology than anything else. You see, our ultimate goal is to abolish money. There are no "wealthy men".
Forgive me for putting that particular goal aside, but it's so ludicrous I seldom bother to countenance it in my attacks on Communism, since the idea is so inherently ridiculous that any attempt to explain it's idiocy to someone who already beleives it is like getting into a "prove god!" "disprove god!" argument with a Christian. I'm addressing the idea of widespread public transport from the standpoint of how it [i]might actually be attempted in thie country; being as that I don't see us getting rid of money [at least not while I'm alive], I don't see any reason to include that into my analysis of the situation.

Besides, your question had to do with cost effectiveness, which sort of presupposes the existence of monetary concerns.

No, I disagree - firstly, not everyone will need to catch a bus to get where they want to go. Secondly, a bus can carry at least 20 people, up to 60 in some instances. That's a pretty massive reduction of vehicles upon the road. We're talking at [i]least 1/4 of the current volume.
Again, you're thinking about Europe and not really about America. In America, such proposal would potentially require running a fleet of busses out to the middle of Wyoming [our most sparsely populated state] to pick up a handful of folks and run them into town. In some cases [like in big cities, where we already use it] it's more efficient, but it's not something worth making a national policy over because of the waste involved with bussing folks to and from very remote areas. Not only that but it will more or less kick domestic tourism in the ass, since people won't be able to take road trips anymore. That's another several million folks out of jobs too, by the way.

Ugh. Did you expect me to dignify that with a response?

Cars kill hundreds of thousands worldwide every year, but I don't think anyone here stated that we should get rid of them because they kill people.
It's a hyperbole. And while no one here has said it I'm sure someone somewhere has.

-snip-
I believe he's Australian...a quick look at the "Location" tag might reveal more useful facts.

Australian cities are pretty huge area-wise, even compared to US cities. While Public Transport can be a bitch, I wouldn't say that it doesn't work.

I believe he's Australian...a quick look at the "Location" tag might reveal more useful facts.
So many people fill them with senseless garbage [Helll, even I don't disclose my actual location in mine] that I don't even bother to read them, for the most part. Everything below the user name usually gets blanked out.

Many communists on this board seem to be in favor of abolishing or at least greatly reducing dependence on cars, because they epitomize selfishness and waste: the same purpose—transporting people—could be accomplished through greater reliance on public transportation, and this method is far more considerate of the environment. However, currently (at least in the United States), cars are the only way to get around in the suburbs. So do communists advocate that the suburbs be turned into cities?
i can only presume you are using the term "communists" prejoratively rather then to indicate an idiological affiliation.

the 'burbs are and have always been a bad idea. many are built on floodplains or otherwise with little thought to anything other then financial exploitation of whould be suckers. of such housing is built to a standard that is itself of questionable real value.

so called bedroom communinties already have the population density of true urbanization with few if any of its compensating amenities. many are instant slums and have already and long since devolved thereinto.

when harm occurs that is unnessessary, is it not reasonable to seek ways of doing things that resault in less of it?

the topic is a large one and perhapse beyond the scope of the kind of response it would be reasonable to make, let alone expect anyone but the choir to read, here.

i do not identify with marx, or any other idiolog, left, right, up, down or sidewise, but simply recognize that however good, bad, better, or worse, anything else might be, the circular illogic of little green pieces of paper is still 'the box' that fanatical refusal to think outside of, (allong with the commoner forms of fanatacism such as religeous and idiological) has ALREADY destroyed whatever america might once have had to be legitimately proud of.

=^^=
.../\...

Any commie who thinks we should rely on public transportation alone should come and live in Montana for a couple years and try to get anywhere with out a car.

Or they should read about the Soviet citizens who visited America and were shocked to see a car in every drive (in the Soviet Union, the only people who were allowed cars were party officials). On seeing suburbia, they thought they had died and gone to heaven (or were at least passing through it).

Once we have the technology, I think we should build self-sustaining arcologies and dismantle national governments. Once we have the technology.

Statistically, we probably average one car [or more] per citizen, but that doesn't mean everyone in the country has one. I think we were trying to make different points here.

Okay. We'll leave it then.


It's funny to me how nonchalantly Communists talk about just dispensing with cultural values as if they were utterly inconsequential. This country has millions of miles of interstate, millions of cars, thousands of gas stations and auto repair shops and you just dismiss that all out of hand by saying "Eliminate the need for that..."


It's not that easy. "Eliminating" that particular need would be an even more cost-intensive and horribly immoral campaign: the change necessary would be so drastic that you'd either have to just up and take cars away from people , or send a government agent to every home in America to spend hours [i]convincing these people to voluntarily give up their cars, pay higher taxes, and catch a bus every morning--not because it benefits them but because it benefits "the public," since the public is invariably an organism that constitutes of everyone in any given society except yourself. Either option requires more man hours and cost concerns than you're willing to admit to right now.

I was of the understanding that we're talking about what would happen in a communist society - once we've reached the hypothetical point where everyone has already been involved in the creation of the new society. Force isn't required. As public transport is expanded, it becomes more popular, car production is scaled down, and eventually the remaining cars are obsolete.


As for the timeless cultural value of auto repair shops and "gas" stations (excuse my american ;)), I fail to see it. If you'd care to enlighten me?

We'll see how you feel about "artificial resources" when the landlord comes knocking. Communists fancy themselves as progressive radicals while in fact they're the biggest economic reactionaries on the planet: you guys want us to [i]revert to a trade model we abandoned centuries ago.

Not quite - we didn't have computers or automated industry centuries ago. It's becoming more and more feasible to adapt that system to our current needs. Money, and by extension, a capitalist economy has been essential in bringing us to the technological and industrial point we are today, but it has bought its share of problems. We now have the ability to fix those problems and resume advancement as normal, in a much fairer fashion.

Retrain them with what money? With whose effort? You're already spending every spare penny your populace makes putting shoes on beggars and paying little Johnny's medical bills.

No, there are more than enough resources to go around for such an endeavour.

I'm going out on a limb here, but I'm guessing that America would have something of a larger problem with this, being as we [unless you livei n Russia or China, which I doubt] have probably about ten or twenty times as much land area as you do and an exponentially larger population.

It's a common tactic for European political theorists to sneer "Well, we made it work," while convienently forgetting not only that it's not working but that different factors need to be addressed.

I live in Australia. You have about 20% more land than we do, and while you have a larger population, ours is heavily concentrated in a few cities, which are large -in population, and even more so, area- by American standards. Nevertheless, it works well here, minus some unreliabilty since the train system was mostly privatised.

Forgive me for putting that particular goal aside, but it's so ludicrous I seldom bother to countenance it in my attacks on Communism, since the idea is so inherently ridiculous that any attempt to explain it's idiocy to someone who already beleives it is like getting into a "prove god!" "disprove god!" argument with a Christian. I'm addressing the idea of widespread public transport from the standpoint of how it [i]might actually be attempted in thie country; being as that I don't see us getting rid of money [at least not while I'm alive], I don't see any reason to include that into my analysis of the situation.

Fine, though i'll exercise my right to label the ideals of capitalism as "ridiculous" without needing any further clarification as well.

Besides, your question had to do with cost effectiveness, which sort of presupposes the existence of monetary concerns.

Not necessarily; "cost" can refer to resource cost, etc. It doesn't have to exclusively refer to money.

Again, you're thinking about Europe and not really about America. In America, such proposal would potentially require running a fleet of busses out to the middle of Wyoming [our most sparsely populated state] to pick up a handful of folks and run them into town. In some cases [like in big cities, where we already use it] it's more efficient, but it's not something worth making a national policy over because of the waste involved with bussing folks to and from very remote areas. Not only that but it will more or less kick domestic tourism in the ass, since people won't be able to take road trips anymore. That's another several million folks out of jobs too, by the way.

Again, Australia. We also have bus services that run between cities.

It's a hyperbole. And while no one here has said it I'm sure someone somewhere has.

Doesn't mean anything. I'm sure some capitalists out there advocate slavery (or at least indentured servitude), though I don't pretend that all do, so I don't use it as an argument.

not sure about communist countries, but I know in the old USSR the 'suburbs' were pretty much just apartment complexes, there wasn't really anything that approximated true western style suburbs.

I was of the understanding that we're talking about what would happen in a communist society - once we've reached the hypothetical point where everyone has already been involved in the creation of the new society. Force isn't required. As public transport is expanded, it becomes more popular, car production is scaled down, and eventually the remaining cars are obsolete.
Now this is just getting a bit ridiculous. First, you say we should "Eliminate that need," and when pressede about how ridiculous that proposition by itself actually is, you retort with a vaguely defined "hypothetical point," the means of acheiving which aren't exactly laid out. Communism seeks to change or destroy a good number of values without bothering to explain how these values should be altered or destroyed. The OP is asking how Communists would deal with that and so far your response has been "We'll eliminate that particular need.... somehow."

Also, by suggesting "As public transport is expanded, it becomes more popular," you're falling into the statist wet dream of assuming that just because a government expands funding/resources/whatever to said project will result in the runaway popularity of said project. A cursory glance at just about any opinion poll ever taken will show you that there will generally be a healthy opposition to any one policy, and something like this is certainly not going to be an exception.

As for the timeless cultural value of auto repair shops and "gas" stations (excuse my american ;)), I fail to see it. If you'd care to enlighten me?
Depends on how much "cultural value" you attach to having a job. As is par for the course, you've missed the point utterly and your ball's in the sand trap. Mentioning those institutions was meant to illustrate once more the fact that those industries [and therefore, the people who work in those industries] would be destroyed by the elimination of private transport, save of course for the agencies that currently fuel and maintain busses. Especially magic ones, but you may have to call Pete Townshend for those.

Not quite - we didn't have computers or automated industry centuries ago. It's becoming more and more feasible to adapt that system to our current needs. Money, and by extension, a capitalist economy has been essential in bringing us to the technological and industrial point we are today, but it has bought its share of problems. We now have the ability to fix those problems and resume advancement as normal, in a much fairer fashion.
Once again you've invoked your Utopic ideal without bothering to explain how, exactly, having computers and technology makes it "easier" to just dispense with our economic system. If anything, it makes it harder. With so much capital invested in products that are even just currently in production or on the shelves, no "elimination" of money will occur unless it happens atop a pile of skulls. It's a price I, for one would rather not pay.

No, there are more than enough resources to go around for such an endeavour.
Again, this is a non-point. Care to back that up at all or should I just take your word for this too?

I live in Australia. You have about 20% more land than we do, and while you have a larger population, ours is heavily concentrated in a few cities, which are large -in population, and even more so, area- by American standards. Nevertheless, it works well here, minus some unreliabilty since the train system was mostly privatised.
That's fine, but [again] what works in Europe [or Australia, or Russia, or Madagascar] might not work here, and I wouldn't think Australia has the suburban/exurban growth rates that we do, which are more hinderances to your plan. If you want to start your own public transportation crusade in your own country that's fine, just keep it out of mine.

Fine, though i'll exercise my right to label the ideals of capitalism as "ridiculous" without needing any further clarification as well.
Suit yourself, but that's not exactly what I did. I think we crossed a wire when PM said "raise taxes and expand public transport," which was the point I was answering to rather than the Communism party-line [since if there's no money under Communism, you can't be taxed]. As I understood it, the presence of taxation in his proposal presupposed the fact that the country in question uses money, and as such my analysis relied on a capitalist or pseudocapitalist society--the US is often the assumed model in such a scenario. Granted, the original question dealt with how Communism would deal with this, but I decided to attack PM's suggestion instead. I didn't exactly spare my two cents about Communism proper, and I probably should have clarified this earlier, but I'm cranky and hungry.

Not necessarily; "cost" can refer to resource cost, etc. It doesn't have to exclusively refer to money.
Let's review. PM says "Lets raise taxes and expand public transport."

I reply with "That's horribly cost inefficient"

You reply with "Moreso than each person having his own car?"

I say "Yes."

In this exchange, you have attacked my conceptions of what is and isn't cost effective with your own, ignoring the obvious fundamental differences in what we consider to be "costs," which you should have an idea about if you've read my posts before, which I suspect you have. What synapse must have misfired for you to assume that I, Melkor Unchained, an orthodox [i]Objectivist, would not be talking of monetary costs when invoking a horrible impracticality in one's cost effectiveness?. If you want to challenge money cost vs. resource cost that's fine, but you can't be so vague as to fail to let your opponent know you're talking about something completely different.


Again, Australia. We also have bus services that run between cities.
That's fine, but I made a few points in there [and elsewhere in the post] that aren't actually contingent on you living in Europe. It'd be nice to see some of them answered, for a change.

Doesn't mean anything. I'm sure some capitalists out there advocate slavery (or at least indentured servitude), though I don't pretend that all do, so I don't use it as an argument.
It doesn't mean anything? What about when we start hearing cries that the bus service isn't in the public interest? What if someone comes along and, in the name of change, decides that system is bullshit too? How do we know just how far to go with all of this? Seems to me like you want me to just take your word on an awful lot of things, at least theory-wise. Sorry, I think I'll pass.

God never said "a car for each of us!"
Then better than communists we assume this is good for economy and fuel sales.
Our economy is 100% state controlled just to do as required by the people: be poor.
They are poor, even with a car, why?
To be poor is a domain of comparison.
Don't tell me poor is to have nothing! Our people have nothing of course, the great state give them anything they need.
They need cars to be on time at their job.
A bus is breaking down and you have 95 people late for work, with a car only one is late !
etc...

We teach the true communism to commies, better than any communist thinker never did, we never crucified our Lord!!!
We're are making the world a descent place for the poor, for all of you...

Father Ted (sj)

That has got to be the least possible cost effective [not to mention impractical] solution imaginable.
maybe, but its necessary.

just like how us socilalists like nationalised industries, it may be necessary to run a loss-making service for the benefit of the public.

More cost ineffective than having one car for every single person?
what he said.

Who's going to invent this magic bus? What sense does it make to eliminate the dozens of private interests that are already competing to find alternate fuel sources just so we can start at square one on the government's dime?

Why would someone invent such a device under a system where he wouldn't be rewarded for it? Where is the money for these "high speed tubes" going to come from if the government's primary concern is public welfare?

Money doesn't grow on trees. Your political priorities are on par with some of the more vapid RP I've seen on this site, where new folks come in and invariably claim to be spending trillions of dollars on every conceivable policy while miraculously managing to avoid any possible consequences. In RP, we called these people "n00bs," but in politics I usually just settle for "clueless."
its all a matter of balance. regarding this particular issue i would say the best course of action would be to raise taxes and fund this project. fund research. (and FYI, smaller busses already exist, LPG busses already exist and are already in use in this city thanks to our high council taxes, and high speed metros already exist... whats the problem?)

if, however, i were looking at this issue with respect to others, the balancing and budgeting would have to come into play. however as just a graphic designer i don't have to worry about that and just vote for the party who are most likely to deliver my goals - and let them worry about the budgeting and balancing.
the important thing is to try and shift prioroty onto projects like this (and away from others such as, say, the military) - funding may be quite low and it could take 10...20 years or more to complete such schemes in the suburbs but the long term benefits would be evident.

also, who says public welfare must take up 100% of the budget?

you are presenting strawmen here.
plus, i'm not clueless. i studied economics and politics at uni and studied economics for 5 years before that at the top of my class. i may be idealist and sometimes at the expense of realism, but here - and in setting my own priorities - i can do just that. (and besides... look at my nation: 100% tax rate yet frightening economy *nods* ;))

Again, you're thinking about Europe and not really about America. In America, such proposal would potentially require running a fleet of busses out to the middle of Wyoming [our most sparsely populated state] to pick up a handful of folks and run them into town. Taxis are also a form of public transportation. It's feasible to have buses for the cities and taxis for the suburbs/rural areas.

Without turning the suburbs into cities, we can develop public transports inside the suburbs. I live in Paris' suburubs, and I always use public transports... the only real trouble I have is on evenings, there are only very few of them that runs until late.

Then, with less cars, using alternative transport ways, like bycicle becomes far more realistic (I would use bycicle far more often if there were less cars in the streets).

And finally, we don't suggest getting rid of all cars (sure, on NationStates, we may do it, but NS is a bit caricatural), but using them as less as possible. What about electric cars that people could burrow/rent when they have heavy stuff to carry ? Many solutions can be found, to lower the burden on our planet, to lower the amount of ressources consumed, and still be able to move around without too much trouble.

maybe, but its necessary.

just like how us socilalists like nationalised industries, it may be necessary to run a loss-making service for the benefit of the public.
I would suggest that if it's operating at a loss, whatever it is, it isn't beneficient to the public at all. Basically, you're suggesting that people should immolate themselves for the sake of the masses, an idea that's been refuted by numerous authors who you will probably never read on principle alone. There really isn't that much I have to say about this that hasn't already been said, so I'll leave it at that and hope at some point you become open-minded enough to seriously explore these ideas and ask some hard questions about them.

its all a matter of balance. regarding this particular issue i would say the best course of action would be to raise taxes and fund this project. fund research. (and FYI, smaller busses already exist, LPG busses already exist and are already in use in this city thanks to our high council taxes, and high speed metros already exist... whats the problem?)
What the problem is depends on what country we're talking about. If we're talking about the United States, I've already presented a number of problems [and so have several others], but as of this writing they seem to have all been evaded. For all the posturing and rhetoric that's gone on here I still have yet to see a commie/socialist/whatever tell me how they'd deal with the hordes of unemployed and the civil unrest that would come about as a result of this nonsense. I have yet to see anyone tell me how its practical to send busses to uninhabited corners of Wyoming, and I haven't seen anyone explain to me why its right to essentially force the public to plan their lives and activities around a government-issued bus schedule.

if, however, i were looking at this issue with respect to others, the balancing and budgeting would have to come into play. however as just a graphic designer i don't have to worry about that and just vote for the party who are most likely to deliver my goals - and let them worry about the budgeting and balancing.
A common epistemological error. By passing the buck to a faceless set of politicians, you're evading thought by assuming someone else has the magic formula. You'd think it pretty ridiculous if someone suggested "I want the government to give everyone a free car, but I don't know how it would work so I hope they can figure it out."

the important thing is to try and shift prioroty onto projects like this (and away from others such as, say, the military) - funding may be quite low and it could take 10...20 years or more to complete such schemes in the suburbs but the long term benefits would be evident.
Leaving aside, for the moment, the fact that military is a valid function of government and public transport is not, I'd like to point out that, once again, you've failed to provide a reason why this would work at a grassroots level. You guys always talk about "shifting priorities" and what-not, while failing to acknowledge the fact that any political undertaking should be done by virtue of the consent of the populace. Again, you've ignored this and haven't done anything to tell me just how this consent would be acheived. If you're going to admit that it can't [which happens to be the case, at least in this country] then you're also admitting that the only way to acheive your goals is to force the change, the philosophical problems of which I should hope I don't have to explain.

also, who says public welfare must take up 100% of the budget?
Missed the forest for the trees. I'm not saying welfare takes 100% of the budget, but I am saying that it's a weighty consideration on the levels which your politics demands. You won't acheive socialism by nominal public welfare works: if you're going to put a soup spoon in the hands of 350 million people, it's going to take a lot more money and manpower than you probably think. My point is that such concerns make other demands on the budget that much more stringent.

you are presenting strawmen here.
That'll be the day.

plus, i'm not clueless. i studied economics and politics at uni and studied economics for 5 years before that at the top of my class. i may be idealist and sometimes at the expense of realism, but here - and in setting my own priorities - i can do just that. (and besides... look at my nation: 100% tax rate yet frightening economy *nods* ;))
First of all, [i]the stupidest girl I've ever met in my entire life had near a 4.0 GPA and is probably in college as well: educational credentials only go so far with me, and even then only in specific fields. Marx probably knew a lot about economics too, but America's present social structure kicks his idea of the proletariat square in the ass, although some revisionists have tried to amend his ideas. Just because you study something doesn't make you right when you talk about it: if we wanted to play that game I could go to college, earn an Econ/PoliSci major, and then contend [on equal footing, no less] that your ideas are full of shit on the virtue of my academic credentials.

I'm glad you finally admitted that you "may" be a "idealist and sometimes at the expense of realism," since I prefer reality to be my realm; you can stick with fantasy if you like.

Also, this game isn't an accurate indicator of how an economy can perform in regards to tax rate. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a real-world state with similar characteristics.