铁路的诞生地_美文_趣味英语-查字典英语网

铁路的诞生地

The people become inured to it, sold the lie that this system is cheaper and more efficient.

Yet the truth is, private companies perfectly adapted, as they are, for making profit can only do so much good when it comes to providing services from which little money can be wrung out.

Columnists for the likes of Bloomberg have decried China's investment in its rail network as unwise, given the heavy burden of debt it entails and the inherent difficulties in turning a profit.

True enough, going by the information that is publicly available, it would seem that State-owned China Railways Corporation only makes serious money from one line it operates the massively popular Beijing-Shanghai route.

But why should everything be boiled down to profitability?

Surely, this is the very reason for the existence of a public sector - to provide the services that, otherwise, the market would not.

Unfortunately, in Britain, nationalization is still a dirty word - the UK's left-leaning Labour Party even felt forced to scrap their commitment to it in 1995, in order to win a general election two years later.

Successive rightwing Conservative governments have regarded public ownership as a necessary evil, to be tolerated only until you can find some private interest that will take it off your hands.

Yet I would posit that when it comes to those public goods and services that are needed, but not necessarily profitable - why would you leave it to the wolves?