by 2nd trick op
Passenger wrote:My point isn't the sensationalistic "news of the future" malarky, it's the idea that economic value is being destroyed by building it in the first place. The issue worth discussing is whether the public value added by the project is sufficient."Public Value" is an oxymoron; a buzz-phrase created by a self-righteous elite who believe they know what would be better for all of us if only they had access to the power to force their "enlightenment" on the rest of the world.
BTW, I will be very surprised if anything like this will be built in the USA under current conditions.
Like a lot of free-market advocates, I can understand that the growth of urban sprawl has created any number of areas where, all other things being equal, the consruction of mass transt systems would make more economic sense. But ours is an open society, governed through a parliamentary process which, over the years, has evolved (some would say devolved) toward one in which the immediate concerns of the electorate, and particularly, that simplistic, short-sighted creature called a "swing voter", take precedence over long-term planning
People tend to conveniently forget that few, if any or our Founding Fathers could envision a political structure in which participation would be extended beyond the realm of white, property-holding males. A substantial number likely believed that an agrarian, rather than an industrialized society, would remain the norm. The framers of the Constitution did not allow, to cite one example, the direct election of Senators, because in that day, the Senate was viewed as a more reclusive and introspective body, where the whims of the populace would be scaled back to meet the limits imposed by economic and societal reality.
As it turned out.the elecorate had a lot more reason and common sense than anyone envisioned at the time. But we may be entering a new sector of uncharted territory; one clouded both by the final end of the post-World War II ascendancy of American economic dominance and a need to plan for the replacement of fossil fuel as the principal feedstock of the consumer-driven economy.
But somehow, I can find it strangely, almost perversely heartening that the same forces that make the checkout counters at supermarkets and C-stores an insult to our intelligence might also fuel the resistance to those in high places and academic ivory towers and yes, the oversimplification depicted in the blog that started this thread (and which, BTW, is NOT part of the weekly content of National Review itself).
The path out of the woods is long, convoluted, and full of obstacles, but then, that's aways been the case.
What a revoltin' development this is! (William Bendix)