In the whole discussion about cars in our society, I find
that far too little attention is paid to all the functions
they have beyond being means of transportion (and beyond
their function as a fetish). For many people they are like
an extra room, they can - and sometimes do - live in. I have
observed myself: I carry around various items of clothes,
medicines, books, etc. I sometimes take a short snooze in
my car. It serves as a place in which I store and carry
around more things than I could otherwise manage. I use it
as a place in which I can be alone for a few minutes on a hectic
day or read a book while waiting for something. All these
things, I think, need to be taken into account when alternatives
to the car are being designed or people will continue to cling
to their mobile shells.
Marianne Brun
On Thu, 12 Jun 1997, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
> Michael P. & Bill L.,
>
> Thanks for your replies and useful references. I am not in disagreement
> with the fact that automobile is a heavily subsidised mode of transportation
> favoured by both Keynesian planners and auto industry itself. If I remember
> correctly, Baran & Sweezy explain that "love affair" by the automobile's
> capacity of "surplus absorbtion" or wastefulness in plain English -- which
> according to these autors is a primary driving force of monopoly capitalism.
>
> Having said that, however, the question that I posed deals primarily with
> the problem of the effectiveness of "planning from above" rather than
> finding structural explanations of the phenomenon in question. That is,
> given the benefits individual capitalists as well capitalists as a class
> derive from the promotion of automobile as the main mode of transportation,
> the support the capitalist class and the capitalist government lend to the
> promotion of this means of transportation is hardly surprising. Yet, that
> does not explain the popularity of this mode of transportation among the
> population. There were many sponsored from above programs that failed to
> gain popular support despite massive efforts to promote them, for example
> atomic energy. Why were automobiles different?
>
> My own thinking goes into the direction of looking into the motives of human
> actors in addition to structural factors, to explain macro-economic
> phenomena. Those motives cannot be explained in terms of rational decision
> making (like cost benefits considerations, etc.). Rather than being
> rational profit maximizers, humans ("primitive" and "civilised" alike) tend
> to be ritualistic fetish collectors. That is, they tend to make their
> decisions based on the perceived symbolic value of the expected outcomes,
> rather than by calculating the cost/benefit balance of those outcomes. Even
> when they say that cost/benefit calculations were the primary factor behind
> their decisions, that is often an ex post facto rationalization rather than
> real motives. The popular discourse over the "market economy" as a panacea
> for all social problems - even those "traditionally" considerd market or
> transaction failures -- or "balancing the budget" by pinching pennies from
> social programs while leaving the multi-billion dollar coprorate wealthfare
> intact is a case in point.
>
> In case of automobiles, the success of government/corporate popularisation
> efforts can be explained by the "ontology" of a motor vehicle that lends
> itself to becoming a fetish or rather a hierophany (=embodiment of a
> symbolic or a religious value). That ontology includes three elements: the
> ability to move across large distances with relative ease, the box-like
> shape, and the fact of being a machine. Those properties can become
> hierophanies of such cultural values as "freedom" (freedom of movement, as
> well as the enclosure of an "individual space" separated from the
> environment -- which may explain why the automobile has a greater appeal
> than the motorcycle -- the later cannot physically separate an individual
> from the environment), and "modernity" (by virtue of being an incarnation of
> technological progress). Of course, the collective "agoraphobia" or fear of
> public places in the American society needs an explanation, but that is
> another story.
>
> It is that fetishistic appeal that made the difference between the failure
> and the success of sponsored from above programs to diffuse a technological
> solution. That is clear when we contrast automobile with nuclear energy --
> that latter cannot be easily made into a fetish, especially after Hiroshima.
>
> If my interpretation is correct, the implications for public policy,
> planning, and building a just society are quite substantial. For one thing,
> that suggests that people will not simply choose a more rational (i.e.
> efficient or cost-effective) alternative. Instead, they will chhose a
> solution that gives them a greatest symbolic gratification, regardless of
> its economic costs. In fact, the more disposable income people have, the
> more they are willing to pay for that symbolic gratification.
>
> That explains why far form being eradicated, racism seems to be a permanent
> fixture of modern capitalism, Milton Friedman notwithstanding. People
> simply have more disposable resources to bear the cost of de facto apartheid
> (schools, communities, jails, etc.) that gives them the sense of
> superiority (the "things are not that bad as long as there is someone below
> me whose ass I can kick" mentality). This also explains why college
> graduates by and large prefer corporate pecking order to more egalitarian
> and democratic form of organization. Hierarchy may be economically costly
> to the society (von Hayek) and individuals (except the bosses), but it is a
> hierophany (incarnation) of managerial efficiency, so "fuck the economic
> cost, we will have a hierarchy". Public transportation, as Mike's missive
> shows, may be more cost efficient, but automobile is a hierophany of
> individualism, freedom, and progress so again, "fuck economic efficiency, we
> will have the inefficient and costly, but symbolically gratifying automobile
> based transportation."
>
> The question for the Left: how do we translate our vision of a just society
> into popular mythologies and hierophanies with a potential for mass appeal.
> The Bolsheviks did that by riding on the myth of industrialisation as the
> purveyor of progress (cf. the motion picture "I'm Cuba" now available on
> video). With the death of that mythology died the appeal of the Left. The
> current attmempts of "futurologists" and politicians like Gingrich or
> Clinton to revive the corpse of that mythology are simply pathetic and do
> not seem to have any large or lasting success. The appeal of "nature" and
> "natural life style" is limited to upper classes who grew up surrounded by
> modern technology and beacme fed up with it -- but it would be rather
> difficult to sell that myth to a worker in latin America, Eastern Europe or
> Asia who yearn for "less nature" (=shantytowns, vermin, and disease) and
> more technology (=decent homes, no backbreaking manual labour, and higher
> living standards). Any suggestions?
>
> PS. I will be away for about a week, so I will not be able to respond to any
> postings this list on this or other subjects until I come back. Sorry.
>
>
>
>
> wojtek sokolowski
> institute for policy studies
> johns hopkins university
> baltimore, md 21218
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> voice: (410) 516-4056
> fax: (410) 516-8233
>
>
>
