Deregulation surely does not minimize transportation costs for smaller
communities and to distant communities. For them deregulation is often a
disaster. Before deregulation many smaller cities had to be served as the
price airlines had to pay for lucrative routes. Now these cities have to beg
airlines to serve them and even when they are served fares are high, and
there is no competition at all.
Cheers, Ken Hanly
----- Original Message -----
From: Doug Henwood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2001 5:51 PM
Subject: [PEN-L:11367] Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Airline deregulation
> David Shemano wrote:
>
> >Of course big money influences politics. Marxians share that insight
with
> >everybody else. However, to the extent that Marxists insist that the
state
> >represents capitalist interests, which in turn is manifested by big money
> >contributions to politicians, how in the world did airline deregulation
> >occur? The major airlines, a concentrated interest, almost all opposed
> >deregulation and presumably made major contributions to politicians.
> >(Opponents in Congress included John Danforth (R-MO), the Senator from
TWA,
> >and Elliott Levitas (D-GA), the Congressman from Delta.) Who supported
> >deregulation? The capitalist intelligentsia and Ralph Nader? Again, if
big
> >money controls, how did airline deregulation occur?
>
> Support for dereg was common in the 1970s, both to promote
> competitiveness (before the word was fashionable) and to bring down
> inflation. It was an important part of the right-wing agenda that was
> taking hold of U.S. elites in the 1970s. Brookings and AEI were
> supporting it, as were Ralph Nader and William Simon.
>
> Greg Tarpinian of the Labor Research Association used to say that
> Teddy Kennedy promoted air and trucking dereg because he came from a
> merchant capital family - bootleggers - and merchants always want to
> minimize transportation costs.
>
> Doug
>
