I wanted to write an anarchist book about transport. This is not a simple task, and the connections are not easy to make. It must be for this reason that the last attempt was made as long ago as 1943 by George Woodcock in his pamphlet Railways and Society.
Anarchism is a social ideology that argues for a self-organising society without government.
Transport on the other hand, in the ordinary sense of conveying people or goods from place to place, is an activity heavily regulated by government. This was true of the regulation of shipping and railways in the 19th century. Samuel Plimsoll spent years hearing terrible tales of the loss of life in unseaworthy ships whose owners had no scruples about the risks to passengers and crews, and amassed fortunes through their ruthlessness. After years of effort he achieved the passing of the Merchant Shipping Act, requiring the Board of Trade's inspection of ships, and the painting of the Plimsoll Line to show the limit to which a vessel might be loaded. Even in the 1980s we learned how willing the owners still are to break the rules in order to achieve a quick turnaround in port.