Monday, March 10, 2008

Pay Toilets Under Capitalism and Socialism

So, just back from a week in Italy I have yet again had the experience of having to pay to use toilet facilities in publicly owned entities in Europe, in this case, bus and train stations, where attendants sit at the entrance collecting the fees, but not obviously doing anything. This was also how it was in the old Soviet Union. However, toilets are universally free everywhere in the US, although I remember ones in hotels in the 1950s that one had to put coins in to get into the stalls (but not the urinals), meaning that I suppose there was gender discrimination back then (something to mention two days after International Womens' Day, celebrated big time in Italy).

So, anybody got any explanations for this curiosum?

11 comments:

Shag from Brookline said...

Assuming the payments are in cash, with Italy's historic avoidance of taxes it would appear that the attendants are the primary beneficiaries.

Myrtle Blackwood said...

I had my first encounter with a public pay toilet in Melbourne in 1969. I was 15 years old and even a few cents were difficult to find in the last day or two of the payweek. [Can you imagine what the wages were for a 15 year old untrained girl at the time?]

Several times I had to run a few large city blocks to locate the free toilet. Ironically they tended to be in large (private) department stores.

Fortunately all the toilets in Melbourne are now free; as far as I am aware.

Unknown said...

SO, you feel you should be able to use water, toilet paper, more water, hand sanitizer and retail space that these johns take up...FOR FREE ? ? ?

Penny up dude, the world is not free.

Shag from Brookline said...

Kramer on Seinfeld demonstrated the "worst case" in seeking relief for a call of nature: stall-ing can result in constipation. Regularity counts; start at home.

Myrtle Blackwood said...

An American-born friend of mine says that in Australia the provision of public toilets is really good compared to the US. She often refers to a park in San Francisco where no toilets are provided in order to discourage the homeless from settling there. Overall, she says, the situation is pretty bad in terms of the failure to provide an adequate number of facilities.

I really don't know how I would survive if I ever found myself in the US! And what if I needed medical treatment? Would my travel insurance actually pay for everything I needed? [Watched Mike Moore's 'Sicko' last Saturday night. Absolutely incredible realities over there.]

J.Goodwin said...

In the last couple years I've noticed tourist area toilets in Boston on the order of ones I saw years back in Paris. I haven't attempted to use one, so I can't report whether they are pay toilets or not. I suspect not, since there are free ones not 100 yards away in Faneuil Hall.

I always suspected that pay toilets were run by private entities. Renting a pushcart space and dropping a blinged out porta john on it.

Nothing particularly wrong with that as far as I can tell.

WOOF said...

30 years ago.
Driving some treacherous ,(scenic, ha),mountain road between Austria and somewhere I reached the peak. Snow in August at the time.
My companion entered the females facility, I the male.
I waited and waited . Finally entered the womens section to find my companion trapped inside the stall for want of the Pfenigs? to egress.
True tourist trap.

Anonymous said...

Harrod's Dept store in London. Couple of shillings, a few years back, to gain access to the most luxurious public accomodations on Earth. The cost might actually be worth the experience; cotton towels, men's cologne if you like, etc. Very posh. Frankly they could probably advertise the experience as a tourist draw.

NYC, during the '50s and the '60s,
I'm not sure when they where closed up, you needed a quarter to gain access to the toilets in the subway. Lord knows what the ensuing expense may have been to cure whatever malady you might incur while in those toilets. The other end of the extreme from Harrod's.

rosserjb@jmu.edu said...

Harrod's, eh? Finally the sort of free market capitalism private sector example I would expect, but which we so rarely see!

I more expect this in poorer countries, where in fancy hotels one often finds hordes of attendants handing out towels and such in the bathrooms. However, in those venues, entry is usually free and the payments are not required, but are expected. This suggests that at least one explanation for the phenomenon in places like Italy or France would be strong public sector unions with some sort of de facto policy to minimize unemployment. But it sure as hell is annoying if one really needs to go and is short of change.

BTW, in many of these countries McDonald's is often the only place one can find a free toilet. However, on this latest trip my wife needed to go and went into a McDonald's, only to find the womens' toilet locked. So much for International Womens' Day!

Oh yes, and in the past in the streets of Paris there were many free pissoirs that men could easily walk into and use, but no facilities for women or other functions. Those curious places gave the streets of Paris a very distinctive and pungent odor, no longer present. Now there are pay facilities that anyone of any gender can enter and close the door and use, if one has the right coins...

Barkley

Shag from Brookline said...

Does this mean that capitalism may be flush yet subject to creative destructionism?

rosserjb@jmu.edu said...

Well, if you don't pay for toilets, it might all go down the drain...