"Socialism means the government owns everything!"

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  • So the 1,500 John Lewis part-owners who will now not be part-owners due to the permanent closure of eight of their stores all decided to make themselves unemployed, did they?

    Without a breath, no admission that, no, you didn't bother to look up the actual situation, let alone try to understand how JLP is governed. You're just throwing up chaff, not engaging in serious discussion.
  • HugalHugal Shipmate
    So the 1,500 John Lewis part-owners who will now not be part-owners due to the permanent closure of eight of their stores all decided to make themselves unemployed, did they?

    You obviously didn’t read my previous post. Or you didn’t understand it. I have worked for the company you mentioned for 20 years. I can go into how it all works if you want. How co-ownership works, how the democracy works, how partners can suggest ways of improving the lay out of the shop. How it is a business and needs to make money to pay partners. How the top people get a lot less than the equivalent in the open market. How the partners through the democracy can hold leadership to account. How they try their best to re position partners. You see it isn’t as easy as you are making it out. It is much more complicated.
  • So did they sack themselves? Or did someone else decide that they would be sacked whether they like it or not?
  • HugalHugal Shipmate
    I cannot go into detail of individual people’s circumstances because that would have been done on an individual basis, I am not privy to. How many were moved to different stores, how many were made redundant I don’t know. No they did not vote to close the stores down. But those that made that decision were held to account for their actions. There is a difference.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    Dave W wrote: »
    A tiny fraction of control is no control at all. You could just as well say we all have a share in ownership of the NHS, but you can't even park your car in one of "your own" car parks without having to pay through the nose.

    John Lewis is famously "owned" by its workers, but I bet most of them aren't even able to decide which shelves to put which bits of stock on, never mind broader company policy. Other than the dividend (i.e. annual bonus) what benefit or control over their work does their "ownership" give them?
    If its workers don’t own John Lewis, who does then, would you say?

    For that matter, who owns publicly-traded companies that we usually consider to be privately owned? Does this mean no one owns Microsoft since partial control is no control and there is no majority shareholder?
  • Hugal can answer for his company if he likes, but consider a simple example. Suppose you have a single widget factory, owned as a cooperative by its 100 workers. Suppose the demand for widgets goes down, such that there is only really enough work for 80 people.

    In this case, the 100 workers are going to decide to sack some of their number. They are, presumably, going to decide on some seemingly fair criteria by which those of their number who will be made redundant are selected. But certainly the people who are out of a job will have contributed to the decision to sack themselves.

    Similarly, a self-employed one-man band might well decide to stop trading if he's not making money at whatever it is that he does. Or, in other words, he sacks himself.
  • I’m reminded of the saying about democracy being two wolves and a sheep deciding what’s for dinner. How does their equal ownership work out for the sheep?
  • Dave WDave W Shipmate
    I’m reminded of the saying about democracy being two wolves and a sheep deciding what’s for dinner. How does their equal ownership work out for the sheep?

    Who do you think owns John Lewis?
  • Dave W wrote: »
    I’m reminded of the saying about democracy being two wolves and a sheep deciding what’s for dinner. How does their equal ownership work out for the sheep?

    Who do you think owns John Lewis?

    Nominally, all the partners. In practice, control seems to be vested in the board of directors, some of whom are elected.

    Do you think we all own the government? After all, they are accountable to us via the ballot box. Does that make us all equal partners in the running of the nation?
  • Hugal can answer for his company if he likes, but consider a simple example. Suppose you have a single widget factory, owned as a cooperative by its 100 workers. Suppose the demand for widgets goes down, such that there is only really enough work for 80 people.

    In this case, the 100 workers are going to decide to sack some of their number. They are, presumably, going to decide on some seemingly fair criteria by which those of their number who will be made redundant are selected. But certainly the people who are out of a job will have contributed to the decision to sack themselves.

    Similarly, a self-employed one-man band might well decide to stop trading if he's not making money at whatever it is that he does. Or, in other words, he sacks himself.

    This is not how it goes. Any decent business is prepared for two things: drying up of the market and preparedness to shift into something else, and, dipping into some money from somewhere: mortgage your personal home, get a gov't grant or loan, declare profits you've deferred so they are taxed either not at all or at a low rate in the situation of a business loss. Business owners absolutely are entitled to make a profit from workers because of this level of personal risk. I don't think a worker would be willing to remortgage their home to live for a year or two of financial downturn. Whereas a business owner may do this to meet a payroll. To go into business, my advice is to spend as little as possible on anything personal and save at least 1 year's income, preferably two.
    I’m reminded of the saying about democracy being two wolves and a sheep deciding what’s for dinner. How does their equal ownership work out for the sheep?

    Which is why a check on democracy to protect minority rights is required. This is sometimes courts or another government body. It is also why we can't have referendums decide things. A simply majority tramples the rights of the minority.
  • TelfordTelford Shipmate
    mousethief wrote: »
    Telford wrote: »
    It’s really more of a Marxist thing than the sort of Democratic Socialism practiced in much of Europe.

    Whether any, many or more socialists would actually like it to be true (as opposed to believing it is) is a moot point :wink:

    From some of what I read, some socialists would like most industries to be publicly owned, but in itself that doesn't mean it should be run by a central government. It may mean that most industries are owned by the workers directly.

    To be efficient some of the owner/workers would need to be cleverer than the majority. They would demand to be paid more or have more shares. Some workers would be happy to cash their shares. Others would be happy to buy the shares. After a few years the firm is more or less privately owned

    If the firm is owned by the state, there are no shares and all the state has to do is pay workers what they are worth to the firm


    If there are purchasable shares, it's capitalism and not socialism.
    I accept this
    Telford wrote: »
    It’s really more of a Marxist thing than the sort of Democratic Socialism practiced in much of Europe.

    Whether any, many or more socialists would actually like it to be true (as opposed to believing it is) is a moot point :wink:

    From some of what I read, some socialists would like most industries to be publicly owned, but in itself that doesn't mean it should be run by a central government. It may mean that most industries are owned by the workers directly.

    To be efficient some of the owner/workers would need to be cleverer than the majority. They would demand to be paid more or have more shares. Some workers would be happy to cash their shares. Others would be happy to buy the shares. After a few years the firm is more or less privately owned

    If the firm is owned by the state, there are no shares and all the state has to do is pay workers what they are worth to the firm


    Suma seems to run pretty well without shares and with everyone getting the same wage.
    I agree. They must have the right sort of people involved.
    KarlLB wrote: »
    To be efficient some of the owner/workers would need to be cleverer than the majority.

    The nature of Normal Distributions means that some will be

    I've never seen a pay scale that takes intelligence into account.
    I have
  • This is not how it goes. Any decent business is prepared for two things: drying up of the market and preparedness to shift into something else, and, dipping into some money from somewhere: mortgage your personal home, get a gov't grant or loan, declare profits you've deferred so they are taxed either not at all or at a low rate in the situation of a business loss.

    Sure, some buggy-whip makers retool to make something else instead. Others go quietly into the long night making fewer and fewer whips with fewer and fewer staff. And some certainly do adjust their workforce up and down to meet demand. The degree to which that's possible depends on a bunch of factors, such as how specialized the skills of your workforce are (if you have to train someone for 18 months before they're productive, letting them go in a short-term downturn is a problem. If you can hire people off the street and they can do the job you need, and there's a ready supply of people available, it's easier to hire and fire to meet demand.)

    And plenty of people - both self-employed and small businesses - either close down or significantly scale back their business because they decide they can't make money doing what they were doing, and need to do something else instead. Which may well not involve either the same business or the same employees.

    It's quite common for businesses to begin some new enterprise, decide after a couple of years that there isn't the market for it that they were hoping, and close down that enterprise, eliminating all the jobs in that part of the business, whilst continuing to operate their original core business.

    There's a difference between "we need to ride out this temporary lull" and "we overestimated the demand for this. We need to cut our losses and re-adjust".
  • The business climate where I live has been historically small business friendly and less so with large ones. The history began with self-employed land-owning farmers (land was free under homesteading until ~110 years ago). It is mostly non-farm now. Over the past decade it has eroded with a right-centre gov't. But small business voters here don't allow the privatization of the cell phone, internet, cable TV and data systems, electric, natural gas, water, auto insurance. This is socialist: the gov't owns. With public companies competing with private for other forms of insurance, some other services like soil testing, mine sample analysis. Small business has also encouraged the development of "federated co-op" to have local grocery stories get together for mass buying (some 300+ local co-ops are members). This also extends to building supplies. Credit unions (40% of banking market in my province) are also local and independent but amalgamated for some functions.

  • The state can own nothing. The people are the state and in true socialism, they own everything.

    Ownership means control, and more specifically exclusive control. The government has control, therefore the government has ownership. Nobody else has control, therefore nobody else has ownership.

    "Everybody owns it" is just another way of saying nobody does.
    mousethief wrote: »
    If there are purchasable shares, it's capitalism and not socialism.

    If you can't sell your share then you don't truly own it.

    Says who?
  • Dave WDave W Shipmate
    Dave W wrote: »
    I’m reminded of the saying about democracy being two wolves and a sheep deciding what’s for dinner. How does their equal ownership work out for the sheep?

    Who do you think owns John Lewis?

    Nominally, all the partners. In practice, control seems to be vested in the board of directors, some of whom are elected.
    But the directors can’t sell shares, can they? I thought you said that was an intrinsic quality of ownership.
    Do you think we all own the government? After all, they are accountable to us via the ballot box. Does that make us all equal partners in the running of the nation?
    No, I don’t think the government (UK meaning or US meaning) is a thing to be owned.
  • I do think the arguments about "ownership" are rather reminiscent of arguments about "sovereignty". And are as irrelevant.

    It should be more about management of. And - critically - we tend to nominate people to manage things that even we "own". We vote in a government. JL votes in a board of directors. That is some form of democracy, however distorted and broken.
  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    ECraigR wrote: »
    If you only hold shares to gain an income from dividends and to be able to (hopefully) sell on at a future date for a profit then you own the shares but do you truly (part) own the company? Ownership should include an interest and involvement in the business - workers obviously already have that interest and involvement.

    The whole point of owning something is that nobody else can tell you what you should or shouldn't do with it. It's yours to do with as you wish, with as much interest or involvement as you choose.

    So, in fact, nobody owns anything, because there are always limits on what you can and can't do with things you "own". Everything from planning permission to insider trading rules to rules against littering mean, in your view, that you don't own the item in question.

    Well, the whole reason littering isn't allowed is because I don't own the street, not because I don't have ownership of, and thus the right to dispose of, the piece of litter itself.

    If I owned the street as well then I could drop as many pieces of litter on it as I liked.

    This is a quirky understanding of antipollution laws. In America there are privately owned roads and streets. Still can’t litter on them.

    Marvin seems to have a slightly quirky view of ownership that really means you can't have full ownership until you occupy your very own pocket universe.

    And even then, an inability to engage in transdimensional travel would probably be regarded as a considerable annoyance.
  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    Schroedingers Cat: I do think the arguments about "ownership" are rather reminiscent of arguments about "sovereignty". And are as irrelevant.

    I'm broadly in agreement with the above observation.

    If ownership is the ultimate right to dispose of things then in all states the ultimate owner is the collectivity through constitutional and governing processes, because it sets the rules under which property is to be 'owned' and managed. It is, after all, law which defines the nature of property and the terms under which it is to be held and by whom.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    I do think the arguments about "ownership" are rather reminiscent of arguments about "sovereignty". And are as irrelevant.

    It's also very reductive and simplistic. It seems to rely on the unstated premise that the only valid form of ownership is a sole proprietorship (see my earlier, still unanswered, question about who owns Microsoft). It's kind of like arguing that the only real form of government is dictatorship.
  • It should be more about management of. And - critically - we tend to nominate people to manage things that even we "own". We vote in a government. JL votes in a board of directors. That is some form of democracy, however distorted and broken.

    OK, I'm happy to switch the discussion to "management of", which is after all just another way of saying "control over". The latter being the phrase I am, apparently erroneously, associating with ownership.
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    I'm inclined to agree that the modern notion of property includes rights of control, alienation, and so on. But it's a historically contingent institution: other forms of ownership are possible.
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    This seems like it ought to be simple.

    Ownership is the right to control. If you own a widget, you have the right to determine what is done with that widget (within the limits of what can rightfully be done - the fact that you own a hammer doesn't entitle you to hit someone over the head with it).

    That includes exchanging the widget; which means swapping your ownership if it for ownership of something else. But exchange is not central to the concept of ownership.

    We learn the meaning of these words on the paradigm case of ownership of personal property, and apply them by analogy to ownership of less tangible goods such as business ventures and futures contracts.

    Rich men have always appointed stewards to manage their estates - control can be exercised through other people. In which case the steward exerts some measure of control. The manager can make their own decisions in small matters, so long as they do enough of the owner's will to retain their position.

    Socialism is about collective ownership. And this is unsatisfactory.

    I suggest that people want control over their own lives. And the amount of control that collective ownership gives them is minimal. If there are 99 co-owners who vote on what is to be done, then the individual's vote counts for nothing, except in the rare case where the others are evenly split 49-49.

    Asking each co-owner in turn "if you don't own it, who does?" misses the point.

    Seems to me that if 99 people co-own a department store, the sum of individual control (and thus satisfaction) is maximised by running it as 99 boutique retail outlets within one building, each person owning one.

    That has its downside, of course.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    Technically, in the Church of England, incumbents are owners of the parsonage house they live in, and of the parish church(es) in their parishes. But that ownership applies to them only in their office as incumbent, but that ownership doesn’t entitle them to sell either property, and gives them only more or less limited rights to do other things to it.
  • Russ wrote: »

    Socialism is about collective ownership. And this is unsatisfactory.

    Really?

    What does this even mean?

    AFZ
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    Sorry, AFZ, not meaning to be cryptic. What I mean is the argument sketched out in the sentences following the bit you quoted.

    In other words that humans have a basic desire for agency, for control over their situation. And that collective ownership doesn't satisfy that desire, in the way that individual ownership does.

    Giving people a vote in how everyone does things collectively doesn't make people happy. It's only better than being told what to do and having no say at all. We do better at making people happy when we let everyone make their own decisions - have control - by individual ownership.

    Acknowledging that of course people have multiple desires...

    Sorry - I'm only just getting my head around this and not saying it very well.

  • Russ wrote: »
    Sorry, AFZ, not meaning to be cryptic. What I mean is the argument sketched out in the sentences following the bit you quoted.

    In other words that humans have a basic desire for agency, for control over their situation. And that collective ownership doesn't satisfy that desire, in the way that individual ownership does.

    Giving people a vote in how everyone does things collectively doesn't make people happy. It's only better than being told what to do and having no say at all. We do better at making people happy when we let everyone make their own decisions - have control - by individual ownership.

    Acknowledging that of course people have multiple desires...

    Sorry - I'm only just getting my head around this and not saying it very well.

    Surely the conclusion is that democratic control of the means of production is superior to being dictated to by a handful of individuals with money?
  • Yes, this. The idea that having a small measure of control, and the ability to persuade colleagues to agree with you, is somehow worse than having no control whatsoever is nonsense on a stick.

    Of course, in the libertarian's mind, they're always part of the 1% in control, not the 99% being controlled.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    Russ wrote: »
    <snip>
    In other words that humans have a basic desire for agency, for control over their situation. And that collective ownership doesn't satisfy that desire, in the way that individual ownership does.<snip>

    Humans have a lot of basic desires, often living with the fact that these desires are in tension with each other. Connectedness, and the satisfaction of success in shared endeavour are both, I would argue, at least as basic as the desire for control. And then there is the desire to achieve a vision where, perhaps, it can’t be achieved except through the input of multiple people.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    Russ wrote: »
    Ownership is the right to control. If you own a widget, you have the right to determine what is done with that widget (within the limits of what can rightfully be done - the fact that you own a hammer doesn't entitle you to hit someone over the head with it).
    Russ wrote: »
    Giving people a vote in how everyone does things collectively doesn't make people happy. It's only better than being told what to do and having no say at all. We do better at making people happy when we let everyone make their own decisions - have control - by individual ownership.

    Doesn't this mean that we do worse at making people happy when we forbid decisions like hitting someone else over the head with their hammer? From my perspective it seems like you're arguing that it's better to make hammer-owners unhappy and head-havers happy than the other way around. This does not seem obvious from your simple utilitarian approach of maximizing happiness through unregulated ownership, though there are other, somewhat obvious, reasons for privileging head-havers over hammer-owners in this particular example.
  • Does ownership of things make people happy? or perhaps freedom from fear, anxiety, being in want?

    I like a mixed economy. Some things must be collectively owned. Essential services. Others may be highly regulated. Particularly today, we're troubled by largely unregulated multinationals and internet companies. Far more interference in their ownership is required. Oil and gas companies are an example. They're spreading pollution and misinformation about it.
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    I'm reminded of Chesterton's claim that defending the Duke of Westminster's ownership of large parts of London by reference to the benefits of property rights is like defending harems by referring to the sacredness of marriage.
  • Everybody wants control therefore the only good system is one in which those already in control can stay so, and everybody made miserable by their control of things stay so. Libertarianism is a farce designed to prevent disruption of the status-quo power balance.
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    Surely the conclusion is that democratic control of the means of production is superior to being dictated to by a handful of individuals with money?

    If democratic control means being dictated to by a handful of stewards appointed by majority vote, then frankly there's not a great deal of difference.

    I'm suggesting that the "being dictated to" bit matters more for human happiness than the qualifications for office of the dictators.

    Having a vote is a good thing. But it's not the important thing. A liberal monarchy is better than an elected totalitarianism.

    Human dissatisfaction with our systems of government isn't because there's not enough voting. It's because there's not enough subsidiarity and rights.
  • Russ wrote: »
    Surely the conclusion is that democratic control of the means of production is superior to being dictated to by a handful of individuals with money?

    If democratic control means being dictated to by a handful of stewards appointed by majority vote, then frankly there's not a great deal of difference.

    I agree - it’s all a bit “here comes the new boss, same as the old boss”. The biggest difference is in which system provides the highest likelihood of becoming one of the bosses and/or of being able to escape from the rat race altogether.
  • Russ wrote: »
    Surely the conclusion is that democratic control of the means of production is superior to being dictated to by a handful of individuals with money?

    If democratic control means being dictated to by a handful of stewards appointed by majority vote, then frankly there's not a great deal of difference.

    I'm suggesting that the "being dictated to" bit matters more for human happiness than the qualifications for office of the dictators.

    Having a vote is a good thing. But it's not the important thing. A liberal monarchy is better than an elected totalitarianism.

    Human dissatisfaction with our systems of government isn't because there's not enough voting. It's because there's not enough subsidiarity and rights.

    There's a farmer somewhere complaining that his barn has no straw. Shall I direct them to this post?
  • I find it worrying that the Government has control of the Armed Forces. Surely in a free country we should all have our very own soldier.

    Similarly, the roads could be shared out. I could perhaps be allocated half a mile of the A6, paint it red and charge people to use it. Someone else could have a mile of unclassified road near Chipping Sodbury. Think how liberating that would be. My very own piece of road! Just what I've always wanted.
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    If you want to talk about transport, I think the contrast is between the individual-control-maximising system (everyone has a car) and the collectivist system (the state provides public transport). (*)

    But maybe socialists aren't ideologically committed to public transport these days, in the same way that the OP suggests that they're less committed to nationalisation ?

    The aim of the exercise being to distance the concept of socialism from the failed collectivist solutions that socialists stood for in the past ?

    (*)Yes, I know, it's more complex than that. Public transport makes sense at high densities, and mixed systems work better where there's a mix of densities. Gridlock gives nobody any choices...
  • Sighthound wrote: »
    I find it worrying that the Government has control of the Armed Forces. Surely in a free country we should all have our very own soldier.

    Similarly, the roads could be shared out. I could perhaps be allocated half a mile of the A6, paint it red and charge people to use it. Someone else could have a mile of unclassified road near Chipping Sodbury. Think how liberating that would be. My very own piece of road! Just what I've always wanted.

    This is my sort of reply to such arguments as well.
  • Russ wrote: »
    If you want to talk about transport, I think the contrast is between the individual-control-maximising system (everyone has a car) and the collectivist system (the state provides public transport). (*)

    But maybe socialists aren't ideologically committed to public transport these days, in the same way that the OP suggests that they're less committed to nationalisation ?

    The aim of the exercise being to distance the concept of socialism from the failed collectivist solutions that socialists stood for in the past ?

    (*)Yes, I know, it's more complex than that. Public transport makes sense at high densities, and mixed systems work better where there's a mix of densities. Gridlock gives nobody any choices...

    The "everyone has a car" is not working (I live in South East England, and I can assure you, it is not working).

    The answer is to provide good, cheap, reliable (subsidised) public transport. This would encourage people off their private vehicles onto public. It is not a "one or the other" - private vehicles are still needed. But it makes the choice real.

    For me, getting into my last office would have cost 5K a year, and taken me 90 minutes by public transport. Or, if I used an alternative, maybe less money and more time, and very restricted timeframes. That made it not a viable option.
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    The answer is to provide good, cheap, reliable (subsidised) public transport. This would encourage people off their private vehicles onto public.

    A technocratic answer would be that that may or may not be the answer for your area, depending on the density of land uses and patterns of trip-making.

    What's of interest for this thread is whether you think "encouraging people off their private vehicles onto public" is a good thing in principle. As part of an ideological commitment to collectivist solutions. When in fact what people really want is the control over their own lives that a car gives them.

    Or whether you're talking from local knowledge and any technocrat would agree with you.

  • "Collectivist" is an interesting choice of words there, as that harks to a particular implementation of a form of socialism, and is something that the majority of socialists would probably not consider as essential to socialism - or even something to be desired.

    In answer to the public transport vs private cars issue, there are many different converging arguments in favour of public transport, not all of them explicitly or exclusively socialist. From the more socialist side, favouring private cars over public transport biases opportunity to the wealthy, with those unable to afford their own car denied access to much that those with cars take for granted - where cars are prioritised it's almost inevitable that public transport is less frequent, takes longer to get to places and goes to fewer places (or, takes a very convoluted route to get there), and this means that some jobs are unavailable to people without a car, access to some leisure and retail facilities is harder etc. And, also from the socialist side, when public transport is in private hands with a profit motive this often results in even greater reduction of services to the profitable routes and higher fares. There are also environmental arguments in favour of public transport, which many socialists would agree with but aren't exclusively socialist in nature.
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    Russ wrote: »
    When in fact what people really want is the control over their own lives that a car gives them.
    Is this some sort of taste for paradox?
    One has more control over one's own life with a good public transport system than with a car. With a bus or train you get on, you spend the time on board doing something like talking or reading or even just looking out the window, and then you get off at a predictable place. In a car you have to keep your attention on the road and at the other end you have to faff about finding somewhere to park the thing.

    Now things may be different in the countryside where for economic reasons there isn't a good public transport system. But in the cities public transport gives more freedom.

  • Russ wrote: »
    Sorry, AFZ, not meaning to be cryptic. What I mean is the argument sketched out in the sentences following the bit you quoted.

    In other words that humans have a basic desire for agency, for control over their situation. And that collective ownership doesn't satisfy that desire, in the way that individual ownership does.

    Giving people a vote in how everyone does things collectively doesn't make people happy. It's only better than being told what to do and having no say at all. We do better at making people happy when we let everyone make their own decisions - have control - by individual ownership.

    Acknowledging that of course people have multiple desires...

    Sorry - I'm only just getting my head around this and not saying it very well.

    My quibble was that I don't think Socialism is "about collective ownership" nor do I think that helpful to the discussion because ownership is actually a very slippery concept.
    Russ wrote: »
    If you want to talk about transport, I think the contrast is between the individual-control-maximising system (everyone has a car) and the collectivist system (the state provides public transport). (*)

    But maybe socialists aren't ideologically committed to public transport these days, in the same way that the OP suggests that they're less committed to nationalisation ?

    The aim of the exercise being to distance the concept of socialism from the failed collectivist solutions that socialists stood for in the past ?

    (*)Yes, I know, it's more complex than that. Public transport makes sense at high densities, and mixed systems work better where there's a mix of densities. Gridlock gives nobody any choices...

    The "everyone has a car" is not working (I live in South East England, and I can assure you, it is not working).

    The answer is to provide good, cheap, reliable (subsidised) public transport. This would encourage people off their private vehicles onto public. It is not a "one or the other" - private vehicles are still needed. But it makes the choice real.

    For me, getting into my last office would have cost 5K a year, and taken me 90 minutes by public transport. Or, if I used an alternative, maybe less money and more time, and very restricted timeframes. That made it not a viable option.

    This is a really good example of how it really doesn't work like that.

    I agree, owning a car is great for lots of reasons. I own two of them. But it doesn't change the fact that I use public transport* and want to use public transport more and more but I can't because it is so inadequate.

    So I want to start with some stupid questions:
    1) Who owns the air?
    2) Who owns green spaces?
    3) Who owns the oil that's been buried deep underground for millions of years?

    And also, more importantly, why does said owner(s) of each have that claim? What makes it valid?

    One of the great fallacies of extreme capitalism** is the denial of hidden subsidies. Hidden subsidies are a real problem. Most of the arguments against socialism depend on (either deliberately or inadvertently) ignoring/denying hidden subsidies.

    When I drive my car around that pollutes the local atmosphere and the planet in general. One of the costs of that is that poorer air quality causes increased asthma which increases healthcare costs. I pay towards that because my taxes pay for the NHS with picks up the (monetary) cost of this. But only the monetary cost.

    Oil is too cheap. Oil is also too expensive.
    What I mean is that if when buying a litre of petrol we were actually paying in-full the environmental costs of oil production and usage - rather than these being left by the oil companies to be picked up by national governments/other people - then petrol would be a lot more expensive. That's the too cheap bit. The too expensive bit is that providing simple transport for oneself and one's family is expensive and a lot of people struggle to pay heating costs. (Obviously better fuel efficiency for both transport and heating is the answer here - in part).

    So, what would happen if the government slapped sufficient taxation on fuel to cover its full costs (either directly or indirectly by making oil companies pick up the costs) it would hurt the economy as a whole and the poorest the most. The truth is that we actually pay these costs in other ways instead and it's a hidden subsidy.

    Why does that matter? Because when people argue against funding public transportation properly because why should non-rail users subsidise rail passengers? it's a facile argument. I mean it sounds good but it's nonsense.

    If public transport did its job properly, air quality would improve, travel would improve thus making the economy more productive and the overall effect on the environment would be significant. That's not collectivism or any form of authoritarianism - it's simply choosing to subsidise one thing openly rather than another covertly. You can take that to an extreme if you like: How about: Anyone can own a car but they are responsible for paying for the road infrastructure to use and will be directly billed for ALL of the environmental impacts and when traffic jams occur for the economic cost (to the wider economy) of the congestion that they are part of. That would then make public transport much more competitive in a direct sense. It would be a disaster or course and it would seriously harm the economy. Hence, the economic choice has always been for the past 100 years to basically support the car as it pays off on the national level.

    But we could equally make the choice to support public transport instead. It is in reality a choice.

    Your freedom to drive a car whenever and wherever you want impacts on my freedom to walk safely in a city, to breathe the air without causing me harm etc. It is not simply a choice of ownership vs collectivism because whilst I own my car; I do not own the road or the green spaces given up to make the roads or the air or the oil reserves, all of which I draw on to have this freedom.

    This argument about 'ownership' is superficially appealing but deeply flawed, because ownership is a complex concept and never an absolute.

    AFZ

    *I am avoiding public transport because of Covid-19 at the moment - I don't want to be exposed and carry the virus into my workplace (a children's hospital).
    **Democratic socialists don’t ‘not believe in capitalism’ but the anti-socialists often argue from a position of ‘extreme capitalism’ which presume that markets are some of sort of natural phenomenon when they’re not; they are shaped by the rules and regulations we choose to put on them.
  • Dafyd wrote: »
    One has more control over one's own life with a good public transport system than with a car. With a bus or train you get on, you spend the time on board doing something like talking or reading or even just looking out the window, and then you get off at a predictable place. In a car you have to keep your attention on the road and at the other end you have to faff about finding somewhere to park the thing.

    Now things may be different in the countryside where for economic reasons there isn't a good public transport system. But in the cities public transport gives more freedom.

    As long as you want to go where the train/bus/tram goes, of course. And as long as you want to travel at the same time as it does. And can afford to take more time - sometimes considerably more time - getting there.
  • Which are all arguments for more trains/trams/buses on more routes, more frequently. Because where there is a route the difference in time isn't that great. Back when I occasionally went into the university I could drive, and it takes about 30min plus the time taken to find a parking space and any delays - if I drove (usually because there was a group sharing the car or I was going somewhere else afterwards) I left an hour for the journey. Or, I can get the bus which takes about 60-70min to get to a stop 5min walk from the university. If I get a clear run in the car and find a parking space instantly I save 20min or so, but it's not unusual for the bus to be quicker. And, especially for a full day event, the bus is cheaper than the cost of parking the car (for a single person - 2 or 3 passengers swings the costs back in favour of the car). And, I can snooze on the bus, drink a coffee etc which I can't do driving. If it's a nice day and I've a bit more time, I can get the train into the centre of Glasgow in 45 mins and it's a bit over half an hour walk from there.

    On the otherhand, if I want to get to Stirling university the public transport options are awful, requiring me to get into Glasgow and then out again, then another local bus from the centre of town to the university, a journey of well over 2h when I could drive it in less than an hour. It shouldn't be beyond the whit of man to devise a bus route that directly connects two of the bigger towns in Scotland, especially as the route could start and finish beyond both towns in sensible places. Why isn't there such a route? Because government planners think it's better to have cars stuck in traffic on the M73 and M80 than invest in more bus routes.
  • In answer to the public transport vs private cars issue, there are many different converging arguments in favour of public transport, not all of them explicitly or exclusively socialist.

    Of course, from the public health point of view, public transport presents more challenges than private cars, which is of current relevance.

    You also potentially make different tradeoffs in a private car vs public transport. I'd like a nice comfy seat, but if we're talking about public transport, I'd like to know that it's been properly cleaned since the last time someone pissed on it, or vomited, or spilt their drink / lunch / whatever. If it's my own seat, I know its history, and will clean it if I do any of those things to it. If it's a public seat, I don't know that, which leads you to want a different optimization in seat design, which is less comfortable.

    I've lived in three different UK cities since adulthood. In all of them, I found that I would regularly beat the bus on a bicycle (the fact that a bus has to stop frequently to pick up and set down passengers keeps its average speed down). It wasn't even worth thinking about a car - it would take longer than the journey to find a place to park.

    One challenge for public transport, however, is that you have to pay a driver (and people are expensive) whereas with private transport, people drive themselves for free. The second challenge is that the marginal cost of operating a personal car is small - most of the costs are associated with owning the thing in the first place. Once it's sitting outside your house, whether you use it or not doesn't change the cost of depreciation or maintenance very much. The marginal cost is basically petrol, a small amount for distance-related maintenance, and whatever it costs to park, pay road tolls etc. In almost all cases, this is going to be a lot less than the cost of public transport, unless you're going somewhere really congested, where the premium you have to pay to park a car dominates.

    Because of this, public transport vs car isn't usually a choice made per individual journey. Unless you're going into a congested area with expensive parking, the car wins on marginal cost, unless you have public transport that is sufficiently reliable and pervasive that you can own fewer cars.

    Dafyd wrote: »
    One has more control over one's own life with a good public transport system than with a car. With a bus or train you get on, you spend the time on board doing something like talking or reading or even just looking out the window, and then you get off at a predictable place. In a car you have to keep your attention on the road and at the other end you have to faff about finding somewhere to park the thing.

    When I drive to work, I leave home when I'm ready. If I want to spend five minutes extra eating breakfast, dealing with some surprise issue, or just taking a longer shower, I can do that. I drive to work, following the same route I always drive, park in the same place I always park, and go to work. When I'm ready to leave, I leave. If I have to work late, it's not a problem. If I want to stop at the supermarket on the way home and pick up some shopping, I can.

    With a bus or a train, you're right that I wouldn't have to drive the thing. But if I try and read on the bus, I'd get motion sickness. Trains aren't so bad, but there isn't really enough space on a commuter train even to effectively operate a laptop on your lap, so although you're right that I could "do things" on the bus or the train, they're not actually useful things, so that doesn't actually present an advantage over driving a car.

    (I can read a book on the train, and I do, as a way of passing the time. But it's not actually enjoyable - it's just better than being bored. I actually enjoy reading a book when I'm sitting in a comfortable armchair with a nice cup of tea - both of which are in quite short supply on trains.)

    With a bus or a train, I have to conform myself to the bus or train's schedule - I don't have any flexibility. If I'm late, I'll need to wait for the next one. If I'm not traveling at peak time, "the next one" might not be for quite a while. If the transport is sufficiently frequent that you don't bother with timetables - you just turn up and get on the transport that will arrive in a few minutes, this issue goes away. IME, that's only close to true of densely populated areas in big cities, and tends to stop being true at unpopular times. If I've unexpectedly had to work late, and it's 2am, I don't want to wait another hour for the bus.


  • It shouldn't be beyond the whit of man to devise a bus route that directly connects two of the bigger towns in Scotland, especially as the route could start and finish beyond both towns in sensible places. Why isn't there such a route? Because government planners think it's better to have cars stuck in traffic on the M73 and M80 than invest in more bus routes.

    Well, you could add routes until every possible combination of start point, end point and departure/arrival time is covered - but at that point you’re back to private travel anyway.

    Public transport works best as a system of local hubs connected by high-speed services, with services to local destinations radiating out from each hub. Which towns are hubs and which are local destinations will be determined by how many people make the journeys.

    In this way, public transport shares a problem with democratic control - its great if you’re happy to go along with the majority, but it sucks if you’d rather go your own way.
  • The biggest advantage of public transport over private car for me is if I’m going somewhere where I’d like to have a few beers and can’t stay the night.
  • Doc TorDoc Tor Admin
    edited January 25
    Which towns are hubs and which are local destinations will be determined by how many people make the journeys.

    No. Where the hubs are and where the spokes are need to be determined by how many want to make the journey, if such an option was available. Furthermore, we need to retool our built space to make it easier, not more difficult to get to places. Repatriating retail space back into the centre of communities, rather than locating it on a ringroad where only cars can get to it would also democratise the choices for carless members of society.

    There's a well-known uplift in house prices for streets near to light rail stations. Putting regular bus services into rural locations can mean the difference between a village thriving and a village dying.
  • The biggest advantage of public transport over private car for me is if I’m going somewhere where I’d like to have a few beers and can’t stay the night.

    If you're going to be having a few beers you shouldn't be driving.
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