Difference between revisions of "Anarchy 44/From the step of a bus"
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− | <div style="text-align:justify;">{{sc|There are certain areas of pub­lic and so­cial activ­ity}} that every man con­siders him­self qual­if­ied not only to com­ment, ad­vise or ponti­fic­ate about, but to lay down dog­matic­ally im­mut­able laws, state plans of action and an­nounce fu­ture poli­cies that if fol­lowed would ( he will as­sure the saloon bar reg­u­lars) pro­duce profit for all and vic­tory for some vauge and ill de­fined tar­get. Men who gaze into the in­ternal work­ings of an open {{w|pocket watch|Pocket_watch}} with the fas­cin­ated hor­ror of an hyp­not­ized rabbit will, with the aid of a pen­cil and a cap­tive audi­ence, re­site {{w|atomic plants|Nuclear_power_plant}}, lay out huge indus­trial {{w|town­ships|Township_(England)}}, trans­fer tens of thou­sands of their un­for­tunate fel­low coun­try­men half way around the world for the greater good of in­dus­trial pro­duc­tiv­ity and de­vise trans­port hells that not only would span the world even to the ut­most lim­its of the bar room counter, but would | + | <div style="text-align:justify;">{{sc|There are certain areas of pub­lic and so­cial activ­ity}} that every man con­siders him­self qual­if­ied not only to com­ment, ad­vise or ponti­fic­ate about, but to lay down dog­matic­ally im­mut­able laws, state plans of action and an­nounce fu­ture poli­cies that if fol­lowed would (he will as­sure the saloon bar reg­u­lars) pro­duce profit for all and vic­tory for some vauge and ill de­fined tar­get. Men who gaze into the in­ternal work­ings of an open {{w|pocket watch|Pocket_watch}} with the fas­cin­ated hor­ror of an hyp­not­ized rabbit will, with the aid of a pen­cil and a cap­tive audi­ence, re­site {{w|atomic plants|Nuclear_power_plant}}, lay out huge indus­trial {{w|town­ships|Township_(England)}}, trans­fer tens of thou­sands of their un­for­tunate fel­low coun­try­men half way around the world for the greater good of in­dus­trial pro­duc­tiv­ity and de­vise trans­port hells that not only would span the world even to the ut­most lim­its of the bar room counter, but would pop­u­late de­serts and jun­gles though at the same time turn­ing the hab­it­able parts of this earth over to the beasts and the birds. There are such men who would hesit­ate to switch on a tele­vi­sion set without the super­vi­sion of some qual­if­ied woman, yet left to them­selves would out-<wbr>Napo­leon {{w|Napo­leon|Napoleon}} by send­ing armies flat foot­ing across Europe, fleets of planes into other people{{s}}<!-- without apostrophe in original --> broad blue yonders, and navies across oceans, up rivers and down canals to win un­dec­lared wars for un­dec­lared ob­jects. Yet such is the fun­da­mental sim­pli­city of most of our human prob­lems that in most part they are cor­rect in their as­sump­tions. For un­like the ex­perts they ap­proach these prob­lems not from the ex­pert{{s|r}} wet-<wbr>eyed view-<wbr>point but from that of the so­cial user and suf­ferer. Time and time again the {{w|Unit One|Unit_One}} of the human race has been sac­ri­ficed without apo­logy for a draw­ing board mis­take; and mil­lions of men, women and chil­dren have lived out their short and miser­able lives to en­able an in­dus­trial­ist or a pol­it­i­cian to prove a thesis or show the share­hold­ers a pro­fit and when the second gen­er­a­tion ex­perts have arisen to lay their dry dead hands on new {{qq|facts}}, or with the wis­dom of hind­sight burn­ing bright within the rims of their rim­less spec­tacles, proven that all pre­vi­ous theor­ies were the in­tel­lec­tual dross of their dear old dad, then they in their turn will ex­pound heresy. Un­less they ac­cept the sim­ple and fun­da­mental truth that in­di­vidual man must not be sac­ri­ficed for a myth­ical fu­ture for pos­ter­ity and that the key and the test of all human activ­it­ies is the well being of each and every in­di­vidual. It is at this point that the saloon bar dreamer and the ex­pert make com­mon cause and reach a com­mon fail­ure. For what­ever plans they con­ceive, whether drawn in beer or {{p|290}}typed in tri­pli­cate, they are geared to their own par­tic­u­lar so­cial group­ing and can only be put into oper­a­tion at the ex­pense of less for­tun­ate people. But of all fields of so­cial activ­ity none oc­cupy the user more than that of mass human trans­port. Here is the one so­cial func­tion to which they are forced by cir­cum­stance of em­ploy­ment or pleas­ure to be the daily vic­tim. Each day in every town and city they stand in their queues wait­ing and wait­ing for the bus that never seems to come. They will crowd, in con­di­tions that rightly we would not allow anim­als to suf­fer, into the {{w|Under­ground|Rapid_transit}} sys­tems of the ma­jor cities of the world and they will vent their hate and anger on the lone and solit­ary bus con­duc­tor in the prison/<wbr>warder re­la­tion­ship that this mobile {{w|Kafka cir­cus|Up_in_the_Gallery}} cre­ates. For here is the one person who can be forced by eco­nomic im­prison­ment to stand and ac­cept their whines, their in­so­lence, their bit­ter con­tempt, their intel­li­gent ob­ser­va­tions or their stark bab­bling luna­cies. Yet of all men the bus con­duc­tor is the least able to help them for like them he is the vic­tim of a so­ciety that holds that pro­fit and not so­cial ser­vice must be the key-<wbr>stone of every com­munal en­deav­our, for it is a sys­tem that pan­ders to the bully among the pas­sen­gers and the whin­ing gut­less syco­phant among the em­ployed staff. And men will stand in rain-<wbr>swept queues and prove to their damp and in­dif­fer­ent neigh­bours that if such and such a plan were fol­lowed and put into im­medi­ate oper­a­tion they would have a trans­port serv­ice that would carry them with ease and swift­ness to their des­tin­a­tions. And they will hud­dle in the sway­ing bus search­ing for the small sliver of their fare wor­ry­ing and won­der­ing if they will reach their place of em­ploy­ment on time and what ex­cuse they can offer for their late­ness. |
{{tab}}And the ob­ject of their con­tained hat­red for­ces his way through the bus as ir­ri­ta­ted as the tra­vel­ler and hat­ing the col­lec­tive for its slow­ness and its in­so­lence and the stu­pid­ity and the ar­ro­gance of the small but vo­cal min­or­ity. As the pas­sen­ger is the pri­soner of those who plan our so­ci­ety for their own min­or­ity well-<wbr>being, so the con­duc­tor in his turn is the vic­tim of this same ab­stract au­thor­ity. Be­hind him stand an array of uni­formed and plain-<wbr>clothed of­fi­cials that de­mand that he shall be held re­spon­sible for every single un­col­lec­ted fare and even for the tra­vel­ler who would, by ac­ci­dent or de­sign, ride a hun­dred yards passed his paid jour­ney. For {{w|London Trans­port|London_Transport_Board}} obey the oldest of bad em­ploy­er{{s|r}} weap­ons: to gov­ern by fear and threats. Let a child of three be found on a crowded bus with­out a ticket and the bus con­duc­tor will be re­ported for an of­fi­cial inter­view with the Chief Depot In­spec­tor. Let any person, by ac­ci­dent or de­sign, travel beyond his paid jour­ney and the con­duc­tor will be held re­spon­sible and asked to ex­plain why he al­lowed such an in­ci­dent to hap­pen on {{qq|his bus}}. That it is liter­ally im­pos­sible for any man to know what ticket each per­son on a crowded bus is hold­ing or where each per­son has booked to should be self-<wbr>evi­dent and a simple test could prove it. A crowded bus holds sixty-<wbr><!-- no hyphen in original -->one people, ignor­ing the fact that people are con­tinu­ally board­ing and alight­ing, and the cold and clin­ical test is to have sixty-<wbr>one people stand­ing in a line. Let an of­fi­cial walk along that line and then let each in­di­vidual name a fare of his own choos­ing. Then let that same of­fi­cial again walk {{p|291}}along that line and cor­rectly re­name each and every one of the sixty-<wbr>one named fares. It is, of course, a men­tally im­pos­sible feat and London Trans­port, as every<!-- 'ever' in original --> other em­ployer knows, is aware that this fact is self-<!-- no hyphen in original -->evi­dent, but they work on the an­cient and his­tor­ic­ally tested thesis that fear is the eas­i­est weap­on to con­trol those you hire and that tar­gets of work should always be pitched beyond the work­man{{s}} cap­abi­lit­ies. Its out­come is that a man works like a rat in a {{w|Pavlov|Ivan_Pavlov}} trap with­out any ap­par­ent super­vi­sion yet always with the know­ledge that at any mo­ment a uni­formed of­fi­cial will check the bus or that at any time of the day and night he is under the un­known super­vi­sion of plain clothed of­fi­cials tra­vel­ling on these self same buses as fare pay­ing pas­sen­gers. It could be held that tis is but the trivia of any dis­con­ten­ted staff, were it not that within our present so­ci­ety a whole organ­iza­tion is built upon men and women doing what is a com­pletely time-<wbr>wast­ing func­tion. For it is on the basis of what the con­duc­tor col­lects in fares that our trans­port ser­vice is planned or cut. | {{tab}}And the ob­ject of their con­tained hat­red for­ces his way through the bus as ir­ri­ta­ted as the tra­vel­ler and hat­ing the col­lec­tive for its slow­ness and its in­so­lence and the stu­pid­ity and the ar­ro­gance of the small but vo­cal min­or­ity. As the pas­sen­ger is the pri­soner of those who plan our so­ci­ety for their own min­or­ity well-<wbr>being, so the con­duc­tor in his turn is the vic­tim of this same ab­stract au­thor­ity. Be­hind him stand an array of uni­formed and plain-<wbr>clothed of­fi­cials that de­mand that he shall be held re­spon­sible for every single un­col­lec­ted fare and even for the tra­vel­ler who would, by ac­ci­dent or de­sign, ride a hun­dred yards passed his paid jour­ney. For {{w|London Trans­port|London_Transport_Board}} obey the oldest of bad em­ploy­er{{s|r}} weap­ons: to gov­ern by fear and threats. Let a child of three be found on a crowded bus with­out a ticket and the bus con­duc­tor will be re­ported for an of­fi­cial inter­view with the Chief Depot In­spec­tor. Let any person, by ac­ci­dent or de­sign, travel beyond his paid jour­ney and the con­duc­tor will be held re­spon­sible and asked to ex­plain why he al­lowed such an in­ci­dent to hap­pen on {{qq|his bus}}. That it is liter­ally im­pos­sible for any man to know what ticket each per­son on a crowded bus is hold­ing or where each per­son has booked to should be self-<wbr>evi­dent and a simple test could prove it. A crowded bus holds sixty-<wbr><!-- no hyphen in original -->one people, ignor­ing the fact that people are con­tinu­ally board­ing and alight­ing, and the cold and clin­ical test is to have sixty-<wbr>one people stand­ing in a line. Let an of­fi­cial walk along that line and then let each in­di­vidual name a fare of his own choos­ing. Then let that same of­fi­cial again walk {{p|291}}along that line and cor­rectly re­name each and every one of the sixty-<wbr>one named fares. It is, of course, a men­tally im­pos­sible feat and London Trans­port, as every<!-- 'ever' in original --> other em­ployer knows, is aware that this fact is self-<!-- no hyphen in original -->evi­dent, but they work on the an­cient and his­tor­ic­ally tested thesis that fear is the eas­i­est weap­on to con­trol those you hire and that tar­gets of work should always be pitched beyond the work­man{{s}} cap­abi­lit­ies. Its out­come is that a man works like a rat in a {{w|Pavlov|Ivan_Pavlov}} trap with­out any ap­par­ent super­vi­sion yet always with the know­ledge that at any mo­ment a uni­formed of­fi­cial will check the bus or that at any time of the day and night he is under the un­known super­vi­sion of plain clothed of­fi­cials tra­vel­ling on these self same buses as fare pay­ing pas­sen­gers. It could be held that tis is but the trivia of any dis­con­ten­ted staff, were it not that within our present so­ci­ety a whole organ­iza­tion is built upon men and women doing what is a com­pletely time-<wbr>wast­ing func­tion. For it is on the basis of what the con­duc­tor col­lects in fares that our trans­port ser­vice is planned or cut. |
Revision as of 19:52, 5 January 2019
From the step
of a bus
Within the last few years there has been a large influx of coloured and casual labour and it is thanks to them that much of the childish discipline of London Transport has had to be abandoned.
The pre-
The small child without the price of a bus fare will have to walk and the old men and women will drag themselves on their aching legs for the luxury of public transport is not for them, no matter how many buses clog the road. For without a handful of copper coins the phrase public transport is a dismal mockery. It is indeed a mockery to label any industry that operates on a profit basis a public service. One can have little sympathy with the broader mass of the lower-
Yet already they held in their hands an industry that could have been the show piece of public ownership and public service and this was the London Transport system. This system could have been the cornerstone for the whole of public ownership as envisaged by the John-
Here was an industry free of the dead hand of middle-
Without its hoards of parasitic officials, as free to use or reject as the water in a public fountain. Operated by the men themselves and answerable to each local council. Owned and controlled by the community it would be regarded not as the harlot among our pseudo social services but an accepted and indispensible part of our social fabric.