On Sat, 13 Apr 2002, James Heartfield wrote:
> That's just silly. The public benefits of auto-culture massively
> outweigh any losses. Or will you hold to the nostalgic proposition that
> life was much better in your great grandfather's day. You only have to
> compare the life conditions of societies without a car culture.
But you're conveniently sidestepping my point: when people total up the "costs" of car culture, they tend to take the losses for granted, because most of the losses are publicly subsidized. If I cut my car use 50%, and this reduces highway maintenance, health costs (e.g., reduced emphysema and asthma due to lower air pollution levels), and traffic fatalities, a thorough and careful assessment of the costs and benefits of existing patterns of auto use could easily demonstrate an economic benefit for workers if they reduce auto use.
Moreover, consider the larger geopolitical context. What are the costs of oil consumption as a subsidy for terrorist activities by organizations such as al-Qaeda that clearly benefit from oil consumption and profits? Let's face it: if we weren't so addicted to the auto culture in (especially) the U.S., less demand for Saudi oil would undermine funding of terrorist activities and thus provide significant benefits to workers (who have to pay with taxes and/or lives to fight terrorists).
So no, I'm not glorifying the life of the noble savage. But if we want to honestly assess the effects of a particular practice on workers, we shouldn't just conveniently sweep all the public costs of the activity under the rug (like Jim does) and focus on the obvious benefits.
Miles