My readers might not suspect it, but I am quite fond of a lot aspects of modern liberal culture. I listen to NPR with enthusiasm. My favorite Washington D.C. neighborhood is the Gay enclave around DuPont Circle. I like sushi. I also think that being able to rent a bicycle for a modest fee and peddle all over Paris sounds like a smashing idea, if ever I get to Paris. I would love to have something like that available in D.C. or maybe New Orleans.
Well, the French have such a thing, and they call it Vélib'. For a Euro a day you can rent one and ride it about, then turn it in at the nearest station. For about 43 bucks you can get a year's pass. That's the solution to global warming, and maybe burning off a few pounds of bread and fine wine.
Unfortunately, Vélib' has enemies, as the New York Times reports:
Many of the specially designed bikes, which cost $3,500 each, are showing up on black markets in Eastern Europe and northern Africa. Many others are being spirited away for urban joy rides, then ditched by roadsides, their wheels bent and tires stripped.
With 80 percent of the initial 20,600 bicycles stolen or damaged, the program's organizers have had to hire several hundred people just to fix them. And along with the dent in the city-subsidized budget has been a blow to the Parisian psyche.
Eighty percent! Theft is one thing. Vandalism is quite another. The anti-Vélib' activism is partly a result of the social decay in France. In a nation where a favorite activity of the youth, and especially of the immigrant youth, is to set cars on fire, what do you expect? But it appears that the vandalism has political backing.
Bruno Marzloff, a sociologist who specializes in transportation, said, "One must relate this to other incivilities, and especially the burning of cars," referring to gangs of immigrant youths burning cars during riots in the suburbs in 2005.
He said he believed there was social revolt behind Vélib' vandalism, especially for suburban residents, many of them poor immigrants who feel excluded from the glamorous side of Paris.
"It is an outcry, a form of rebellion; this violence is not gratuitous," Mr. Marzloff said. "There is an element of negligence that means, 'We don't have the right to mobility like other people, to get to Paris it's a huge pain, we don't have cars, and when we do, it's too expensive and too far.' "
This kind of "social revolt" shows the limits of the modern welfare state. It is difficult to see how a modern welfare state can be much more generous than that of France. Moreover, the welfare state in France has effectively locked out a lot of people, and especially immigrants, from the productive economy. And so a simple if rather expensive vehicle, meant to save the world from global warming, becomes a target of barbarians. I like a lot of liberal culture. I am just not sure it's sustainable.
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