this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2024
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Lol, high-speed rail in the US is a joke. California's HSR program started in 1996 and hasn't produced anything substantial in nearly 30 years. They might be able to get 1/3 of Phase 1 into operation by 2030. It's not even in discussion unless it's bundled with some kind of meme shit like depressurized train tunnels and eliminating safety measures.
In China, Deng started the Chinese HSR program around the same time and went from virtually none to being the world leader in kilometers of HSR with ~45,000 Km of operational HSR. To put that into perspective, that's double the rest of the world combined. In fact, China has more HSR in construction than the rest of the world has active HSR today.
There's this thing called land ownership which is a right...the state can eminent domain them but they'd have to fight it in court.
Doubt they have that in China, if your home is in the way of a planned development...it won't be soon. You don't buy land from the government there, it's on a lease basis.
That and everyone in politics has to be aligned. If the top down order is to build a HSR, no cog in the system can just slow shit down for the hell of it. Doesn't work that way in the US, as witnessed by the myriad times that the government can never approve the budget before it's due.
What is hilarious about your argument is that it takes far more land to build and maintain a highway, and yet we somehow never had any problems with forcing land sales with eminent domain clauses doing that.
It's almost as if the government is owned by a series of interests that are not actually interested in investing and maintaining efficient consumption minimum and economical modes of transportation, and instead focused on making a system that is efficient at creating profit for it's ownership class. It's almost as if, instead of a focus on the money to commodity cycle, there is a perverse incentive for a money to commodity to money cycle that means there is no real incentive to ever substantially invest to improve your commodity production.
Weird.
How many new highways do you see being built?? I've lived in California all my life and I've never seen a brand new highway being built. I've seen lanes expanded a few feet...But never a new one built.
Also, you can't just put rail tracks anywhere as you can with land.
The politicians clearly work for reelection. Unfortunately, when a human being is placed in a position of power you usually get this kind of thing. Power corrupts.
The highways weren't just magically placed there by the grace of God, they were built and expanded by the government using eminent domain. A highspeed rail system could be built using the same legal precedents, and would likely keep the highways from having to be expanded (ever).
What you are saying is that we could never build a new system in the same way that we built the old system, which is patently false, which is still different from your claim that China can avoid red-tape when the U.S. does not which is also false. The U.S. picks and chooses when it decides to uphold 'private property' because it only cares about the private property of those that buy the political system, it demonstrably does not care about general private property rights of those that inconvenience whatever the agenda is. Which means that the agenda COULD be High Speed rail, and it is not 'the law' or 'the government' getting in the way but private companies.
Also, for someone with a tenuous grasp on legal reality, I don't think you should be discussing the realities of rail-based civil engineering. Highways aren't particularly known for being good to work with on complex landscapes.
I am saying that the literal incentives of a profit-driven capitalist economy will always inevitably degrade the commodity process, incentivizing profit generation and rent seeking over industrialization and economizing commodity processes. It has nothing to do with 'corruption', 'power' or 'politicians', nor did I ever indicate that is what we were talking about. It is the system working as intended.
Oh I'll just tell the poor Americans I know whose homes were bulldozed for transportation infrastructure that it didn't happen because they could have fought it in court. Dumbass.
Don't wanna dox myself with details, but no, significantly smaller city
Sorry I meant to suggest that transportation infrastructure was/is often an excuse to raze black neighbourhoods and evict them all
Central Park being an example where they razed the homes and just put in a giant park instead
Damn, it feels like your hypothetical system is designed to protect the interests of the rich and screw over the poor masses, and over time, increase the power the rich already have and further screw over the poor. I have some notes.
Like can you imagine if such a system existed in the real world. If, say, they wanted to violate the "right" of land ownership for poor people to segregate cities by, idk, skin colour. They could separate them with massive, uncrossavle highways. The people that make cars and people who own oil fields will love that! The issue is that there may or may not be some poor people that live there. But even the ones that own land, well, they can be removed because of the system of eminent domain. Theoretically it'd also apply to the wealthy, so it looks like a fair system to the layman. But the rich can afford to take time off work and better lawyers. So on paper it sounds fair, but in practice, it favours those who are already wealthy!
And it would feedback into even more advantages for the wealthy. All those highways will require cars, which is good, but cars need fuel. The fuel will need to be moved vast distances, your need a line of pipes from the oil fields! But that would once again require you to build a... "Line of pipes" across vast distances. But there are natives living along where those lines would go! And they theoretically benefit from the right to own land as well! And they're disadvantaged due to being survivors of a genocide. Treaties or no, the lines will get out through their land, they can fight back but obviously they're unlikely to win.
This doesn't seem like a well thought out system. The only other thing the rich would have to do is to own media and education. Then they can pump out articles and curriculum one after the other saying this system is the only system that works! They can even tell people, over multiple generations, that this the only way, that the right to land is a human right (not food or water though, that would cut into the profits of some other rich people, obviously). And make it legal for the rich to have a stranglehold on the government, call it something other than corruption, make it sound less harmful. Eventually you can erode the political structure to consist only of 2 groups of people who both agree with your "right" to land ownership, so even if the masses wanted to (which they don't, thanks to media and education ;)), they literally can never change it
Yeah imagine if this system existed irl. It's a dystopia disguised as a normal country. And basically everyone in it would believe theres no other way, since any alternative has been demonized since before their grandparents were born.
Genius, and evil
"Our government is slow and inefficient can't take decisions in a timely manner (especially if it's decisions that benefit everyone at the expence of a fingernail of the bottomline of some rich dickhead for some reason
), that's how you know it's truely democratic" 
Unfortunately it's not democratic...It's a representative democracy where the representation is horrible. Yes, I'm no fan of the way the country is.
Well, glad you at least halfway recognise that the US is not a democracy
America: bulldozes entire neighborhoods to build highways, displacing everyone with minimal compensation.
China: Nail house.
There's this thing called tribal sovereignty, which is a right. Doubt they have that in the US; if your tribe is in the way of a planned settlement... it won't be soon.
So...it's a good thing when someone can torpedo a massive infrastructure project that will benefit millions just because they don't feel like selling "their" land? Because they have a slip of paper that says they own a bunch of land, they can personally decide whether or not millions of people have access to public transport? Is that the argument you're making? That capitalism is a superior system because someone who is rich and powerful enough can inconvenience or even destroy the lives of millions just cause they can?
It's not a good thing in the long run if someone can do that. I'd have loved the HSR from NCAL to SCAL, would have avoided all those hours on the 5.
There are pros and cons basically, there isn't a system that is perfect.
Yes, you're absolutely right, there's no such thing as a perfect system (and us communists aren't trying to pretend our system is perfect either, that's a common misunderstanding. The goal is "better" than what we currently have, not "perfect.")
But in the case of this example I would say the cons far outweigh the pros. A system that focuses on the people first and doesn't give the rich special priority and privileges would be a better society in general, wouldn't you?
For the greater good is definitely a good way to go. But I'd be careful about who decides what is good and what isn't.
In this case, I'd love HSR.
As opposed to what the US has now, which acts in the interest of the greater evil?
China has it's issues, but at least it represents the people (as evidenced by passing policies in the interests of the people over capital)?
hey genious, what's a nail house?
no investigation, no right to speak
Find a nail house in the way of a magalev.
Find proof that someone was forcibly moved to make way for a maglev
Some landowners in Shanghai prevented the maglev from connecting all the way to the other Shanghai airport by just protesting and crying about their property values.
[citation needed]
In fact there are many exemples of the opposite happening, China having to build around something because the person(s) refused to move and China didn't force them to.
IIRC, you can say no to private development but not to the state. Either way you're well compensated if you give up your land.
Yeah, technically the state owns all land, including the land that holds both personal and private property, so they are free to use that ownership, but they are also required to compensate the people who own property on the land. This is basically just a rephrasing of Eminent Domain.
Yes I can flip a coin and half the time it lands on heads I can then claim that heads is always going to be the outcome of all coin flips.
I worked with a guy back in the day who was a dual citizen and owned homes back there. They were far ahead of us in terms of transportation, payments and conveniences. He went back every year for a month to party, even taking a few of us along.
All those nail houses you see are homes near roads, do you see one in the way of a HSR? You can't build a HSR around a home like you can with a road.
Yeah you can't get in the way of public development in China. If they want to run a rail through your house they'll give you a fat stack of cash and move you into a nice new apartment. The system works.