this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2024
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It's amazing what you can accomplish by exploiting Chinese immigrants to do the most dangerous work for $1/day (half of what white Canadians were paid for less dangerous work) (source).
So building a high performance rail network in the 21st century will cost a lot more, but it will still be worth it.
That of course is a sad fact of our history. However, the productivity of the average worker is also much greater than it was back then. We aren't exactly laying down large infrastructure projects with gangs of guys using hand tools anymore, or at least not nearly to the same degree. So I think we can keep production costs down (relative to inflationary differences between then and now) minus the racial oppression and awful working conditions.
It's not a question of productivity now, it's a question of organization. Our governing institutions are too full of rent seekers and mafias now to do the kinds of things it did post WW2. Nobody can do anything big anymore because the system fights them. We can't even stop daylight savings time, which basically nobody wants to keep doing
Canada today is almost certainly less corrupt and rent seeking than the literal Gilded Age, when the country was founded! In fact, the Pacific Scandal was our first major political scandal, involving political bribery by railroad investors and leading to the resignation of John A Macdonald.
I really have to push back against this pessimism about government. It only serves conservative pro-privatization interests to push that narrative. The problem is political will. Voters easily approve major new highways in ON. We would get rail if voters demanded it. So letβs start a movement!