Isn't it fun when there's an awkward bugger before you in the queue for the bus? Wouldn't life be easier if these difficult people would just disappear? Well now there's a means to that end, friend: it's called CAPITALISM!
So there I am with my bus ticket and the guy in front of me, with a pair of crutches, presents his ticket to the driver. Unfortunately it appears it's the wrong ticket. He wants to get back to Bristol, but the driver is having none of it because - according to him - the ticket is not valid in Weston super Mare. It's a Bristol zone ticket which doesn't cover the journey he's making. In response the guy makes an appeal to ignorance: why was he sold the wrong ticket then when he asked to go to somewhere that the ticket he was sold won't allow.
It doesn't really help that First Bus' ticket system is a complete nightmare. But that's the price of profit I guess. You might reasonably think the solution would be to just have one ticket and allow people to travel with it - after all it's not as if there's a whole raft of people just waiting to abuse this by spending all day making frivolous journeys. Even if that were the case, so what? It's not as if the buses aren't running and there aren't seats.
I digress.
You see this is a problem that only exists because of our economic system. I have no idea whether the guy was trying it on or not, I couldn't see the ticket. In the end he had to pay the difference and required the help of someone generous enough to give him 70p to do so. The driver was having none of it.
It's a problem because the driver is placed into a position where he has to assume the worst. It's his job that will be on the line once the accountants notice a shortfall in that route's takings. I did note that he seemed a little too eager to reach that conclusion, mind you.
There's no system in place for what happens to people left in that situation. What if it had been a school pupil? A person of limited capacity or old age? First doesn't care because...profit. They have to assume that guy is trying it on or tough shit. The only reason this situation exists is because First wants to make a profit. Despite the fact they are running what is essentially and entirely a necessary public service, their only priority is to ensure that they are not down £2.70. If you b the wrong ticket by mistake (yours or the drivers) that's too bad and you can expect, along with your crutches, to toddle off to who cares.
This everyday example, something we see all the time I would assume, is a perfect example of just how capitalism poisons us. In any other world those two people would have been birds of a feather. In fact they likely are: two members of the working class. I doubt that guy was the Secret Millionaire or something, or Undercover Boss. No, he's just trying to get by having to depend on the value of his labour, just the same as the driver, but the capitalist class, through the mechanisms of the system, set them against each other. It's another day at the master's table, count the crumbs plebs.
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