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Summary Of Ill Fares The Land By Tony Judt

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Tony Judt starts off his book Ill Fares The Land with a very powerful quote, “There is something profoundly wrong with the way we live today” ( pg 1), but in that sentence, he doesn’t quite explain what exactly is wrong. Later on into the book he delves deeper into it, and explains what he means. He believes that as a whole, society is becoming more and more greedy, and focusing on the wrong things. He insists that capitalism is the bane of society, and leans more toward social democracy. He says that the wealth gap is absurd, and that the rich are getting too rich at the expense of the poor getting poorer. He attacks the moral compass of society’s, and digs deep into the welfare situation and all of the stigmas attached to it. One of his …show more content…

He agrees that privatization is sometimes necessary, but still isn’t a big fan. At first glance, his argument wasn’t very convincing. Most people assume that privatization is more efficient, it just makes more sense. However, he did make a good point when talking about railroads and efficiency. For a service to be classified as “ efficient”, it has to be a profitable venture, but for a public service like public transportation that is a not the case. To prove his points, Judt talks about railway systems that have been privatized versus one that is government run on pages 208 through 212. For a public service like this, you want a working railroad that is on time and can get you from place to place versus one that makes money but is barely operable and not very convenient. Privatization of railway companies just leads to the owners trying to line their pockets because it is a natural monopoly with no/ very little competition, instead of creating a train system that can be used by everybody. Therefore, Judt believes that railways should be a public good and regulated by the government, even if they have to operate at a loss. To put it into perspective, look at the military. The point of the military isn’t necessarily to be “efficient” and make a lot of profits, the main goal of the military is to keep our country safe. So in this instance, “efficient” does not mean profitable yet

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