Why are maglev trains still rare? - eviltoast

They were invented decades ago.

They have fewer moving parts than wheelbois.

They require less maintenance.

There’s obviously some bottleneck in expanding maglev technology, but what is it?

  • The current, dominant form of capitalism isn’t and doesn’t, though. It maximizes short-term profits and ignores all other medium and long-term costs. The efficient allocation of scarce resources doesn’t happen when inefficient allocation yields greater short-term profit. The stock market ensures that high short-term yields with lower total returns will be favored over the inverse. In particular, it emphasizes competition over cooperation, which is more resource wasteful for the gestalt.