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by skissane 919 days ago
> I think if you look at actual class issues such as labor organization, healthcare, housing, public transportation, the adage of all US politicians being consevative stays (mostly) true

Australia is way ahead of the US at privatising public transport. Selling off public assets into private hands is a much bigger thing in the UK and Australia than the US. Some Australian states are now even privatising government services such as motor vehicle registration, driver licensing and land title registration. The UK and Australia also have a much bigger culture of commercialising government IP as opposed to the US culture of putting it in the public domain. People always think of the US as more capitalist, but I think these are examples of ways in which the US is less capitalist. Some of these Australian initiatives are almost bordering on anarcho-capitalism (sans the competition part). And they aren’t necessarily the work of “conservatives” - the decision to partially privatise the motor vehicle registry in the State of Victoria was undertaken by the Andrews government, [0] which is arguably the most left-leaning of Australian state governments, in charge of Australia’s most left-leaning state

[0] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-01/victorian-government-...