It’s often said that certain services like public transit have to be publicly owned allegedly because they are “common pool goods”. Most of these services run at a considerable financial loss as well. Rather than turn a profit, the response is almost always to force taxpayers to cover the deficits, however much they grow. But it doesn’t have to be that way. As the folks at the Mises Institute point out, private ownership of mass transit was actually a reality at one time:
For example, the golden age of the New York City subways was at the beginning in 1904. That’s when a private management company built much of the system—because the city was at its debt limit and couldn’t do it—and made a lot of money, helped clear slums in Lower Manhattan, and created what was called “an engineering marvel” by author Robert Caro in the book The Power Broker, a biography of uber-builder Robert Moses.
Later the subway system was taken over by the government because the private management system—over 37 years—was never able to raise the nickel fare. The government took over and started to wreck the system.
Is there a publicly owned mass transit outfit that turns a profit? Should they (except for improvements)? Will the money be pissed away anyways (dumb question). The best example of “common pool goods” is a public restroom. The kind of place you avoid unless you are really desperate.
Moses is not entirely a positive figure. He destroyed many of New York City’s thriving ethnic neighborhoods to build expressways.
It goes without saying, “Anything the government touches always turns to $h*t.”
See: $11 Billion spent thus far on a “high speed” CA train with exactly ZERO lin.ft. of track laid, ZERO train cars constructed, ZERO electrification, ZERO new electrical capacity built, ZERO electronic train control systems designed or built.
ZERO + $11B taken from the taxpayers thus far = ZERO
And these fine, fine, State bureaucrats now “estimate” the total project cost at: $130 B. Hahahahahaha ha ha ha … try TRIPLE that amount.
Mayor Gonedyke of Calgary following Newscum’s lead. For every $billion spent the line becomes five to ten miles shorter.
https://www.calgary.ca/green-line.html?redirect=/greenline
Like liberal thought and theory, this notion has been bastardized, absconded with and progressively perverted.
Progressives are not (real not party of) liberals because they think they can decide our rights, IOW play God.
They are also statists not individualists, so they are a derivative of Marxism, not liberalism. It’s the deepest fake.
A close second is “public goods,” which again are ill-defined and smeared by semantics as outlined above.
Public goods, from an economic theory perspective, are “non-rivalrous” and “non excludable,” the former meaning one person consuming them doesn’t (necessarily) exclude others from using it, like national defense and police patrols. While they are certainly scarce goods, their overall profile is everyone uses it at once.
Non-excludable, OTOH, means whether one pays for it or not, it is nevertheless supplied because it can’t be excluded. The Fire Department doesn’t check to ensure we paid our property taxes before putting fires out.
Very, very few products or services meet this definition, but become perverted to be public goods because the public demands through their vote it be provided in that manner, such as healthcare as some argue, or somehow some politician decides their public provision is synonymous with the public good, but that is simply statists begging their own question. As far as the mix or public/private goes, debate no longer happens, replaced by incrementalism.
Don’t be fooled by statists’ BS rhetoric. The government that governs the least always governs the best, because it is run by naturally flawed humans, all with their flaws, biases and interests.
Same with the education system and medical system.
The MTA in NYC is mindboggling. They are currently sitting on a deficit of over $40 Billion. It’s estimated that the amount they owe will be upwards of $59 Billion by 2029. Anyone who has spent any time at all in NYC will contribute/ witness/ understand the absolute gold mine(s) they are sitting on. Two Tunnels, seven bridges, subways, buses, local railroads.
Concerning the tunnels: The Lincoln tunnel shakes out between $14 and $22 per car. Trucks pay an additional $16 per axel. The Lincoln Tunnel is usually backed up…so that’s a steady revenue cash cow. The GWB is about the same, as are the other bridges and tunnel. It’s a ridiculous amount of revenue collected daily. AND STILL, they owe over $40 Billion at this moment in time.