individual auto ownership

[Louis Proyect]

>what do you envision as a working alternative to individual auto ownership? 
>
>has anyone laid out a 'near-realistic' prescription for a mix of urban and
>rural and suburban (you dont really believe in black and white do you?)
>living that utilizes some form of shared and efficient low-occupancy
>transport? i'd be curious to hear about it. has anyone looked at how life
>would be different under such a regime? for example, would louis p. have to
>see his mom less often in upstate NY as a result? do such scenarios require
>massive relocations of people and industries into better organized hubs?
>
>les

There are no "working alternatives" under capitalism. I hate to sound like
an old-fashioned Marxist, but this is the truth. Capitalism is deeply
rooted in automobile production based on the internal combustion engine. It
initiated the cold war just so it could penetrate the closed markets of the
USSR, China, et al. Now that it has, it is hastening global warming which
threatens the basis for continued existence of the capitalist system
itself. This is what as known in Marxist jargon as a _contradiction_. The
mainstream greens have answers to all these problems, but none of them
address the underlying question of the means of production. That is why
Marxists have something unique to say about the problem, since our approach
is rooted in political economy rather than in moral exhortation.

Louis Proyect

(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)