I think perhaps James is relying on the common senseical working class response to questions like, "Would you like to own a nice new car?"...But if they are asked if they would like efficient, comfortable, and cheap public transportation, even those who think of themeselves as 'middle class' will be quite interested in the idea.
James is often talking about the need to increase value...Well, nothing works better for real estate prices than to put a nice new subway near an apartment building.
Carrol's point about desires being socially shaped is entirely on the money too. It appears 'natural' to think of or have fantasies about a Mercedes Benz. But if all the energy that is put into getting people excited about a car they will not be able to afford, or be able to save them time getting to work, were put into informing the public about real options in terms of comfortable and affordable public transportation, hey...it'd be interesting to see the results...Of course, capitalist development and capitalist value does not rest on such real choices...though it does create the potential for such choices to be made...
Steve
On Mon, 20 Sep 1999, Carrol Cox wrote:
>
>
> Jim heartfield wrote:
>
> > Charles:
> >
> > Car emissions have been reduced in noxiousness by more than 90 per cent
> > over the last fifteen years, which means that you could have multiplied
> > car ownership five times and still reduced pollution.
>
> Were petroleum supplies to increase to infinity and pollution from autos
> reduce to zero, cars would still be obnoxious. The automobile is the
> chief barrier keeping me to get to Chicago (I live 135 miles away)
> in decent time. The last 20 miles are almost always clogged (and half
> the time the car overheats from start and go motion), the preceding
> 80 miles are intermittently clogged by construction, and the fact that
> most people move by automobile keeps the AMTRAK schedule too
> infrequent.
>
> Arguing from alleged "working class" preferences is simply silly. Our
> options are set by capitalism, and one prefers the least obnoxious of
> the various alternatives. And then one makes the best of it by learning
> to like the least obnoxious of the various alternatives. There is simply
> no way to provide the necessary parking spaces, and as a result
> travel is often slower today than it was 80 years ago. In the 1930s
> my mother could travel 6 miles to work in 15 minutes. In the 1970s
> and 1980s it took me 2 hours to travel 2 miles (I had to get there
> that long before class to get a parking place). In the 1990s they
> put up a parking structure, but for a fee that few of the clerical
> staff could afford and I could afford only because we were a two
> income family. The main objection to the auto is that when it
> becomes the main mode of transportation it becomes a torture
> machine like the wheel or the rack -- but unlike the wheel or the
> rack, we have to fool ourselves into thinking we enjoy it.
>
> Carrol
>
>
>