[lbo-talk] The War on the Car

Michael Perelman michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Mon Nov 14 15:05:20 PST 2005


Of course, the work schedule might limit your ability to shift time around, but your point is interesting. Illich was trying to be provocative, just to get people to rethink cars.

On Mon, Nov 14, 2005 at 03:19:46PM -0700, John Costello wrote:
> On 11/14/05, Michael Perelman <michael at ecst.csuchico.edu> wrote:
> > ivan illich once wrote [echoing Thoreau on Trains] that the average velocity of a car was
> > slower than walking when one took into account the time spent earning the money for the
> > car, caring for it, parking it ....
>
> Average over what time-scale? Having a car allows you to shift all
> that time spent to periods when it's more convenient for you. If I
> want to get from Tucson to Globe, I would rather be able to do that in
> 3 hours and spend time at work earning the money to pay for the car,
> than having to do it in the 25 hours it would take me to walk the
> distance.
>
> There's a similar calculus involved in hybrid or battery-powered
> vehicles. It may be true that there's no net pollution gain from
> battery-powered cars. But over small enough space scales, they can
> make a huge difference. Los Angeles would breathe a lot easier, yes,
> at the expense of having to figure out what to do with all those
> batteries. Didn't we have a discussion here about whether or not the
> third world is vastly underpolluted? :-7
>
> --
> John S Costello
> joxn.costello at gmail.com
> "All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age
> of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind."
> -- Adam Smith
>
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-- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu



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