On Fri, 12 Apr 2002, James Heartfield wrote:
> Sorry, I was assuming a Marxist framework on wages, as being set by the
> value of labour power, meaning the basket of consumption goods that go
> to reproduce it. Allowing that this is socially fixed, a habitual shift
> to reduce expenditure would eventually lead to a lowering of the price
> of labour power.
>
> More likely of course is that travelling on the bus would fail to
> reproduce your labour power at the level that social relations expected,
> namely, you'd be too often late for work, and fail to command a high
> wage. In Britain - as I suspect in the US - the profile of bus users is
> low income, and they are punished for their low earning potential by
> wasting an inordinate amount of time on the bus.
It's interesting to me how this type of fastidious cost benefit analysis conveniently sweeps the public costs of auto culture under the rug. Where's the consideration of the negative health effects of pollution? Maintaining highways and roads? Costs of injury and death due to autos and trucks? Why aren't these part of your calculus?
Miles