Comment on Too bad we can't have good public transportation
theacharnian@lemmy.ca 3 weeks agoI don’t know if this analysis is true generally, Japan is pretty fucking capitalist.
I would argue it’s more a matter of what wing of the capitalist oligarchy has the upper hand. In the US and Canada, it’s the extractive fossil capital and that ultimately holds power. In Japan, or the Netherlands it’s more the manufacturing.
Don’t extrapolate from the US to capitalism in general. It’s more nuanced than that.
Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Whilst I can’t speak in an informed way about Japan, I can about The Netherlands and they have been degrading in terms of quality of public services during the Neoliberal era.
Certainly by the time I left (about 15 years ago) the trend was well establish in that country of having Scandinavian levels of tax (but only for people, not for companies) and ever more American-level of public services. For example, they don’t have a National Health Service (instead they have Health Insurance) even though taxes there for individuals are significantly higher than in countries which do have one such as Britain or Portugal.
They also use to have a high level of public housing but haven’t been building much of it in the last few decades and now have a giant realestate bubble.
The Netherlands is a great example of how even countries which started with a higher level of policies geared towards the good of the many, having those decay over time as we get further and further away from the post-War era, especially during the Neoliberal years.