Caught him mention this here, decided to look up the project.
Seems neat. There's a few different routes that have been proposed over the years, changing with the political conditions I guess? Train gang will be fans of it.
For Bolivia I think the obvious merit is that it provides much more port access options for a landlocked country which is probably essential for maintaining their sovereignty.
Argentinian here, exact same situation. Everytime I think about all the petrol wasted in carrying those fucking beans by truck I wanna kill someone.
Btw, we used to have trains from Buenos Aires to Valparaíso.
the worst part is that the farmlords know this. of course they do. they are the ones with the beancounters who track how much soy is lost because the trucks shake a lot. but another problem is that if you have to go through a thousand little tolls and little local ports to get exports out the country, you're also financing a horde of petit politico dynasties. and hell, they'll use environmentalism as a mask for their agenda no doubt about it.
Been around beancounters all my life and they absolutely would love to have trains but the fucking neoliberals pulled all the copper from the walls decades ago to pay for the loans they took (in behalf of the State) from themselves at immense rates so they sucked up all reserves, and then any penny from the sell of any public asset, and that's why we don't any fucking train around. And THEN they took even more loans but from the IMF to immediately pay themselves.
If you wanna know the future of, say, the UK or Spain, just look at Argentina. And no, there won't be any tipping point where the populace seize the means of production as long as the US is still alive.
there's also, like, not all the farmlords are equal right? i don't know how consolidated land is in argentina. but brazil's agricultural frontiers are relatively recent. there's big farmlords and there's 'middle class' guys. the latter are the ones who'd love to see trains everywhere. the former have so much money to throw around they are already living their best life. why would they give a shit? so what you're left with is some politician saying 'well at least high value industrial goods can still use the roads' but of course they won't, the international market is a competition.
Exact same situation. Tho some IMMENSE farmlording companies just have their own trains, bought for pennies from the State (wink wink) in the nineties.
No they don't run passenger services, just cargo.
best part is when you go to an agri belt state and, strangely, the paved roads are all confined to around the governor's lands :pain:
Oh absolutely, the paved roads are shit everywhere (unsurprisingly) cuz trucks destroy them quickly and it's fucking expensive to repair them.
We are a fucking agricultural colony but we aren't even "good" at it BECAUSE of capitalism and extreme shortermism and incompetence from every single component of the State (big capital, small capital, finance capital, politicians, bureaucrats,and dipshit ñoquis from any ideological flavor). So we end up with capitalism administered by feudal factions of old-money, new-money, populist dipshits, and milquetoast dipshits, all dressed up as "public servants" and all scamming each other and yelling about trickle down economics in the year of our lord 2023.
It's the fredo genes I tell you, the incompetence runs in our veins.
Sike, Florida is probably the same
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The big agro-oligarchs, yes. It's way easier to be a colonial administrator than to be the leader/powerplayer/burocrat of a real country.
South America is what would have happened if the Confederacy had won the Yank Civil War.
In ~1816, while discussing with people who supported independency from Spain, José de San Martín said "yo we need more national industry ASAP" and the agrooligarchs and dipshits who controlled imports from Buenos Aires Port pissed and moaned saying that would enanger Europe. They didn't want independency, they wanted to keep being a colony but able to trade with whoever they wanted.
ALL Argentinian history is a repetition of that same pathethic scene. Decade after decade. And in every turn the agrooligarchs and port dipshits (then replaced by finance capital) won.