PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION AND FARE HIKES

 

Many working class people can barely make ends meet, and they depend on public transportation to commute to work and shop for necessities. Yet governments are raising the fares, claiming that they need  the money from the hiked fares to pay back loans from banks and to pay for the public transportation itself.

 

In an egalitarian society, people who worked reasonably (as discussed here and in this egalitarian law) would ride public transportation for free.

 

PDRBoston distributed this leaflet in Boston when the public transportation fare was hiked (in the Boston area the public transportation is called the MBTA or T for short). Here is a comment one of our members posted on a forum hosted by a Massachusetts state senator:

 

The T should be free for every person who is a) working (for pay or otherwise if it is useful work such as caring for a child or elderly person at home), b) honestly looking for work, c) a retired worker, d) a child too young to work or e) a student or apprentice. How come?

 

Because the above listed people (the working class) collectively create ALL the products and services of our society--including the entire MBTA, from the trains and trolleys and busses and the laying of the rails, to driving the vehicles and maintaining them etc. etc. They have already paid--IN FULL--for the MBTA by WORKING. They don't owe a penny more, in fares or anything else, to anybody. And they certainly don't owe a penny to bankers--who don't do useful work--who claim we owe them a debt for "loans" to the government. Our government should have taken the money from them by taxing them, not borrowing the money from them and promising to pay it back with interest.

 

The MBTA provides customers and workers to the big businesses in the metropolitan area. Tax these big businesses and let the riders ride for free. If the big businesses go elsewhere, then do the same thing where ever they go, even if it's another country. If riders rode for free, then the efficiency of the T would rise dramatically: no more waiting on the Green line for passengers to pay one at a time at the single front door while the other doors remain closed!

 

But, you might say, my proposal is impossible. It would take a revolution. Well then, so be it. Let's have an egalitarian revolution and create a sharing economy: From each according to ability, to each according to need. That's how most people think it ought to be.