As it turns out it doesn’t actually cost that much on regular transit, there’s an AIRPORT SURCHARGE because it’s an “airport train”.
No wonder Americans don’t use public transit, even when the system exists it’s ridiculously difficult and expensive to use.
Why do Americans think everything has to profit?
Because that’s the foundation and definition of capitalism. The market will provide (as long as there’s profit to be made).
Not saying it’s right though.
That’s not the definition or foundation of capitalism, it’s the definition of a market economy.
The foundation of capitalism is a system where investors can pool small amounts of money together on big projects, to share risk and reward. Historically to fund trading ships on their way to the indies.
So it destructures ownership, which has a million ripple effects on the organization and economy.
You’re describing corporatism.
Not at all, corporatism is a system where interest groups have a high amount of power : guilds, syndicates, unions, etc…
Capitalism literally refers to pooling capital together from multiple sources to allow shared risk taking and allow for the creation of companies that can get bigger by having more than one owner.
This eventually leads the way for pension funds and multinational corporations whose sole purpose is to extract maximum value for pensioners and billionaires.
Sounds way more like corporatism to me. Capitalism is just when the private investors own businesses for profit. Pooling capital from multiple sources and reducing risks are not fundamental properties of capitalism, and are much more representative of Limited Liability Corporations specifically.
The foundation of capitalism is private ownership of the means of production. Nothing about it actually requires multiple owners pooling resources, that’s just convenient.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism
In the context of “Why do Americans think everything has to profit?”, then the point is that the train is considered only for the profit it can make, and not for the environmental etc benefits. This is a result of the market economy as you rightly state (and private ownership of transportation).
Not only must everything profit, it must profit MORE than it did previously. If you make $10 million selling widgets last year, and make $10 million again this year, well that’s a failing business and you should be fired.
If you predict that your business will be up 5% this quarter, and it’s only up 3%, that’s considered a disaster, and the stock price will drop, and that CEO is still in trouble. Repeat every quarter.
I’m not seeing that in the OP