Another excellent essay! The main criticism I've heard of Marx is that he failed to see the rise of the middle class. In other ways, however, most countries have adopted Marx's social message. I remember when the Wall fell in 1989, the Nation had an excellent article titled "Borderline Marxists." The point of the article was that West Germany had put into practice much of Marx's social message (minimum wage, free medical care, etc.). So, it wasn't a simple case of the Wall's coming down proving that Adam Smith was right and Karl Marx was wrong.
And many of us don't want to get out of our cars and onto public transportation at all. Having your own transportation allows unfettered freedom of movement, which is baked into the American DNA. Outside those in a few large cities, Americans are not likely to entirely depend on someone else's schedules to decide where and when to travel. In addition, like other "public" utilities, public transportation operates at the whim of government. It used to sound tinfoil-hat nutty to say so, until COVID mania showed us how eagerly government can overstep its bounds.
If I may introduce a bit of humor into a serious discussion:
Drink is the curse of the working class. (Karl Marx)
He had it wrong: Work is the curse of the drinking class. (Groucho Marx)
Another excellent essay! The main criticism I've heard of Marx is that he failed to see the rise of the middle class. In other ways, however, most countries have adopted Marx's social message. I remember when the Wall fell in 1989, the Nation had an excellent article titled "Borderline Marxists." The point of the article was that West Germany had put into practice much of Marx's social message (minimum wage, free medical care, etc.). So, it wasn't a simple case of the Wall's coming down proving that Adam Smith was right and Karl Marx was wrong.
And many of us don't want to get out of our cars and onto public transportation at all. Having your own transportation allows unfettered freedom of movement, which is baked into the American DNA. Outside those in a few large cities, Americans are not likely to entirely depend on someone else's schedules to decide where and when to travel. In addition, like other "public" utilities, public transportation operates at the whim of government. It used to sound tinfoil-hat nutty to say so, until COVID mania showed us how eagerly government can overstep its bounds.