product (allow ing celebration of the great economy) and is highly
efficient from the point of view of the corporations w ho ow n the
place. T he costs that are transferred to the public, like the taxi
fares those poor w orkers in T rinidad have to pay, aren’t measured.
Los Angeles had a very extensive public transportation netw ork that
w as simply bought up and destroyed.
Yes, and the same w as true around here. Earlier in this century,
you could get all around New England via electric railw ays.
W hy do w e have a society w here everyone has to drive a car,
live out in the suburbs, go to big shopping malls? In the 1950s, the
government began a huge highw ay construction program called the
National Defense Highw ay System. T hey had to put in the w ord
“Defense” to justify the huge sums they w ere pouring into it, but in
effect, it w as a w ay of shifting from public transportation like
railroads to a system that w ould use more automobiles, trucks,
gasoline and tires (or airplanes).
It w as part of one of the biggest social engineering projects in
history, and it w as initiated by a true conspiracy. General Motors,
Firestone T ire and Standard Oil of California (Chevron) simply
bought up and destroyed the public transportation system in Los
Angeles, in order to force people to use their products.
T he issue w ent to court, the corporations w ere fined a few
thousand dollars, and then the government took over the w hole
process. T he same happened elsew here. State and local
governments also joined in, and a w ide range of business pow er. It’s
had enormous effects, and it certainly didn’t happen by market
principles.
It’s still happening. One new plan in Boston is to dismantle parts
of the public transportation system and privatize them—to make
them more “efficient” (they claim) by letting private tyrannies run
them. It’s obvious w hat they’ll do. If you’re the head of a
corporation that runs the transportation system and your
responsibility is to make sure your stockholders make money, w hat
w ould you do? Cut off unprofitable routes, get rid of unions, etc.
T here’s quite a bit of activism against sw eatshops that
transnationals like T he Gap, Disney, Nike, Reebok, etc. profit from.