Someone on the list probably knows the details of Greyhound's history. As I vaguely remember it, first (in the 70s?) broke a strike, then purchased some other company, _then_ sold off its bus operations, so the Greyhound of today is no longer the same company even.
I rode Greyhound frequently (and over long distances) in the '50s and early '60s, and found it a very comfortable way to travel. Then a few years ago I took a Greyhound to Chicago, and seating arrangements had been radically changed, worse than airline seats even. A miserable trip-- cramped and acutly uncomfortably.
I wouldn't mind urine smell if they had the old roomy and comfortable seats! :-)
Carrol
^^^^^^^
CB: There may be an sort of Marxist irony here, in the area of the fulfillment of needs giving rise to new needs.
I believe the old buses didn't have bathrooms on board. We can imagine all the old problems of people having to wait for a stop to go to the bathroom. Now with the convenience of bathrooms on board, a new need arises - cleaning the bathrooms regularly - and the failure to meet this need vitiates, somewhat, the advance made by putting bathrooms on the bus.
Generalizing this type of thing, we see how many of the advances in technology of modern capitalism can end up creating unmet needs that didn't exist before the advances. This is another level at which lack of _deep and comprehensive_ planning in the anarchy of production, anarchy of inventions, in capitalism can turn technological wizardry into "Sorcerer's Apprentice" phenomena. The net effect can be a wash ( or lack there of) for the quality of life.
It is not just planning for the wants and whims of the mass of consumers, but the planning for complex concatinations of cause and effect of production ( dialectics) that the market won't do. It is also often the "cleanup" phase that the market doesn't care about, doesn't deal. Garbage collection is left to the government, etc. New forms of production usually bring new forms of waste as a byproduct. Entrepreneurs are not much into dealing with wasteful byproducts of production.
Miseanism fails to notice that the "market" often acts like a bunch of idiots.