If only communism could function under voluntarism.

Take China for example. A middle class person in China today lives like an upper class person compared to the 1700s. A poor person on average anywhere is doing way better than ever before…

Has there actually been a better century in terms of comfort and stability for most people

Libertarians are anti-war. Capitalism is not colonialism.

The reasons for farm subsidies are… Debatable. If you keep food cheap people don’t notice currency debasement as much. Personally I think it might make more sense for prices to rise to a point where farmers are profitable without subsidies. Those subsidies are value extracted from the tax payer anyway… You’re paying for it.

You’re right too in that buses and trains are a lot cheaper and should always out compete cars. How much do you think fares would have to rise to make public transport self sufficient ? Make it so it funds its own expansion and service improvement.

The Toronto Transport Commission is my local example. From what I can napkin math they get about 1 billion dollars in subsidies per year from the city (maybe some provincial and fed money too… I rounded up generously). They collect a little over 700k fares a day. Wouldn’t take much of an increase with like almost 250 million fares a year to close that gap.

Privatize the roads and have cars users pay their share of that infrastructure cost and get the burden off of working people and I bet a small share increase would be pretty affordable.

If you rented or bought a house close to a grocery store you’d mostly be able to do it. European cities were built when horse and carriage were still the best option. I think if city centres were designed to be car free and have everything organised to be walkable that’d be great for people who want that… There are certainly a lot of situations where someone needs to have a car … Here and in Europe.

A world where roads and public transit are all operated as for profit ventures without any tax ? Man now you’re talking … I’d love that

Yeah the US is a really poor example of a free market… I don’t think one exists for health care.

Me too

Yeah I just- put that in another comment. Made a funny crack about privatising roads to incorporate the true cost of infrastructure with tolls lol. Might incentivize more people to use transit.

I like trains too. Unfortunately they rarely go anywhere I need to go where I live. In Toronto they also sadly win out in the homeless urine category over my car.

I’m actually not really. Here’s at least a logical arguments one could make.

Healthcare is a scarce resource like all things. Making it universal doesn’t exempt it from that fact. Removing it from a competitive market will likely make it more expensive and prevent innovations which will keep it affordable. Competitive markets drive efficiency.

Government provided healthcare rations service availability based on criteria they set. A private system rations availability based on the indivual’s ability to afford the service. If people can afford the service additional capacity can be created with that money. Under a government system extremely long wait times are the norm … With health this may mean late diagnosis of cancer and other suboptimal outcomes.

People are generally more wealthy in the later years of their lives and also in need of more care. Under a public system the costs associated with an aging population will be disproportionately placed on younger people who still pay taxes in their prime earning years. With the number of working people constantly decreasing when compared to the number of retired baby boomers this is unsustainable under a public system.

At the end of the day I think free markets apply poorly to healthcare because you have no ability to comparison shop during a medical emergency. Also US seems to have the worst mix of regulated private healthcare which has kept costs the highest of any country. I do think most social democratic countries are basically screwed over the next 20 years with the demographics being what they are.

Everything is profitable if you raise prices. In a way you’re just offsetting a certain segment of the populations transportation costs to everyone else under that system. Maybe you could privatize the roads too and use the tolls to fund more buses which operate at a profit. Its fun think of insane libertarian free marker solutions to such problems :) Cars might be less appealing if people had to pay the associated infrastructure costs on a per km basis.

If you really want to you can structure your life in a way where food is close to home… did that through college. Paid for cabs for groceries … Walked and used transit or my bike. Was pretty miserable in Canadian winters and not very convienent. Plus pretty expensive… You can do it. Or just admit you like cars :) as long as most people secretly actually like cars and use them then society will be structured in a way to accommodate that. The world’s a big place and in order to have most of the things you need really close isn’t really entirely realistic.

Well two of probably a dozen or more requirements a week right? Your solution is “pay someone else with a vehicle” and after a certain number of times that makes less sense than just having a vehicle. Also imagine being a single mom who works with like 5 kids… Trying to manage that with paying for cabs or trying to use a bus…

For non urban people like me you unfortunely need a vehicle to get everything. I vastly prefer public transport if I’m going into a major city because parking is a major inconvience and expense.

Public transport in areas with low population density is unprofitable and poor service … Too few vehicles so long waits between pickups. My town has literally a single cab … Better be the first person to call if you need a ride to work …

I’ll take what’s the definition of strawman for 500 Alex.

Personal transport also has massive benefits. Try transporting a few sheets of drywall on public transport. Try moving a sick person to the hospital. Try living outside of an urban centre…

I like cars. They’re comfortable and convenient.

Go start a public transport company. If you’re right the market will reward you :)