A sturdy fiets is a thing to behold, preferably at least a couple of decades old, with a patina of rust for that timeless quality.
As I was writing this piece, I was thinking about how dedicated the Dutch are to physical infrastructure, but shockingly indifferent to what you might call immaterial infrastructure: all the facilities and se…
A sturdy fiets is a thing to behold, preferably at least a couple of decades old, with a patina of rust for that timeless quality.
As I was writing this piece, I was thinking about how dedicated the Dutch are to physical infrastructure, but shockingly indifferent to what you might call immaterial infrastructure: all the facilities and services that enable a society to be functional and civilized. There's money for roads, dykes, and canals. But paying for teachers, policemen, and healthcare workers? People are apparently not a good public investment. There's a lot of rot here that doesn't meet the eye.
That indifference is shocking. It's a rejection, ironically, of capitalism. I'm not sure what to call it other than the product of a mephitic, gaseous fantasy.
It's born of a strange mixture of fear and of contempt for the public. These technocrats believe they are non-ideological, that economic questions must be left to them -- and their experts! They worship at the secular altar of "efficiency", and living, breathing human beings are inefficient. Or something. I wish I knew.
A sturdy fiets is a thing to behold, preferably at least a couple of decades old, with a patina of rust for that timeless quality.
As I was writing this piece, I was thinking about how dedicated the Dutch are to physical infrastructure, but shockingly indifferent to what you might call immaterial infrastructure: all the facilities and services that enable a society to be functional and civilized. There's money for roads, dykes, and canals. But paying for teachers, policemen, and healthcare workers? People are apparently not a good public investment. There's a lot of rot here that doesn't meet the eye.
That indifference is shocking. It's a rejection, ironically, of capitalism. I'm not sure what to call it other than the product of a mephitic, gaseous fantasy.
It's born of a strange mixture of fear and of contempt for the public. These technocrats believe they are non-ideological, that economic questions must be left to them -- and their experts! They worship at the secular altar of "efficiency", and living, breathing human beings are inefficient. Or something. I wish I knew.