A (long) Sunday read:
In the UK around 8% of all passenger kilometres travelled is by rail, the rest is by road (including buses); In Japan its nearly 28% by rail.
What have the Japanese done to keep this high(er) share of rail use. In short, they have returned to a model of regulation that looks much more like how the railways were bought into mass use in C19th; Japan's geography may also play a role but there's much of interest in this analysis.
#railways #politics
https://worksinprogress.co/issue/why-japan-has-such-good-railways/
@ChrisMayLA6 Also note culture. Japans railsystem has become a source of natural pride and identity. That means that anything and everything goes, when it comes to preserving this reputation and institution.
I am convinced that if the UK rail system should achieve the same status, it would start to work better. Sadly, artificially implementing that status does not work.
I think that's an excellent point - the UK's railways have slowly but surely destroyed their reputation & as you say re-building that can only be organic not imposed...
@ChrisMayLA6 Let me add another theory. Since the uk railway does not have the best reputation, this also affects recruitment. But assume it achieves the swiss or japanese reputation, then all of a sudden, it would become a sought after, high prestige job, and this would further increase reliability and service mindedness.
Indeed, the current viscous circle that you identify actually, for a range of reasons needs to be replaced by a virtuous circle, but sadly easy to state & very difficult to engineer (at any speed)
@ChrisMayLA6 I call this the conservative paradox. No matter the party, left or right, once they win, their only aim is to preserve their status. That can mean some small shifts in how you count votes, or new directives to the public tv (see poland and hungary for this) but overall, the system is maintained, since you benefit greatly by it as long as you stay on top.
So once you win, there's generally no enormous reason to change anything.
Is there any country in the world that has
@ChrisMayLA6 successfully limited and/or reduced the power of politicians in recent times?
I'm not talking about going from authoritarianism to democracy, but more, if any western democracy ever managed to limit the power of politicians?
Not that I can immediately think of...
@ChrisMayLA6 Interesting. Another bug in democracy. I wonder if democracy, the modern version, is inherently unstable, so that it will turn into authoritarianism (overt or covert) within a few 100 years?
That's an excellent Q.: nothing in world history, despite the liberal pretence of the 'end of history' suggests democracy is the end-point... and that is also perhaps why democrats (with a small 'd') are not so good at defending it; they think its the natural political end point for humans, when actually as you suggest its contested & needs to be both defended & repeatedly argued/fought for - democracy is contingent on being supported (widely)
@ChrisMayLA6 Yes, I agree. Historically, monarchy (authoritarianism?) has been the most stable form of government.
I wonder if the future might not be pluralist? The is, layers of overlapping systems of governance, depending on the sector.
For instance, courts are monarchic, or at least aristocratic. In many countries, judges are elected for life.
@ChrisMayLA6 game for public servants, while judges, companies, ngo:s, foundations, grow more bold.
We'll have a web of parallell governance structures, and just like we see today, with the new multi-polar world order, we'll also see the same within regions, and even within countries.
Well the incidence of democratic system across the world is in decline so the pluralism as the global scale is already growing (whether that is a good thing is another matter; much depending on the forms of non-democratic system that replace them).
In-state, as you rightly suggest actually we already see a plural governance environment, and certainly (with privatisation for instance) its easy to see how the balance of the elements can change
@ChrisMayLA6 Good or bad? That is a subjective value question.
What I'm pondering is that given the multi-polar governance order, how can you govern and influence your life, by shifting your allegiance between these power centers?
Again, an interesting Q.: but don't we already do that; many organisations we deal with have particular governance structures that we navigate (here I'm thinking particularly of the UK health service) as well as our employer & the soft/social network governance of our locale
@ChrisMayLA6 We probably do. We all need to work, some of us, do interact with local politicians, or do have sidejobs, some join churches etc.
@ChrisMayLA6 In theory they should align with the government. In reality, sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.
Companies are a combination of meritocratic/libertarian/monarchic depending on if it is a highly centralized family company, with a strong leader, or a company that has managed to establish sound processes for rotating CEO:s, leaders, based on merit.
In the future, I see that democracy loses more power, and becomes more a gentlemans