July 12, 2005
Kamloops Daily News


We pay dearly for our cars.

We spend more on automobiles than we spend on health care,
according to a report called Reality Check: The Canadian
Review of Well Being.  In 2002, we spent $112 billion on
health care.  Compare that with the $118 billion spent to
own, operate, license, and register vehicles.

We spend about twice as much on vehicles as we spend on
groceries.  Governments spend most of their transportation
budgets ($13 billion) on building and maintaining highways.

Canadians spend 30 per cent of their income to purchase and
operate cars.  Add to that the emotional cost of 3,000
deaths to surviving friends and families and the loss of
wages caused by 230,000 injuries caused by motor vehicle
accidents.

Then there are the indirect 5,000 deaths caused by vehicle
pollution and even more deaths caused from obesity because
we must drive instead of walk or bicycle.

There's not much choice.  Cities are designed around the
car.  In many of Kamloops' communities, you can't find a
convenience store within a short walk.  You have to get in
your car to shop, go to work, and drive the kids to
activities.

Not only has the car shaped our living space of our cities,
it has shaped our very society.  Early in the last century,
the "Fordist" model, named after Henry Ford, helped raise
the standard of living of a large segment of society to
create a mushrooming middle class. 

Ford sensibly reasoned that his factory workers should make
enough money to buy his cars,  otherwise he couldn't sell
the volume of cars necessary to make automation profitable. 

Fordism aided in the growth of the three pillars of society
- - big labour, big business, and big government.   It gave
rise to the power of organized workers, benevolent
capitalism, the spread of wealth through disposable income,
and proactive governments.

Fordism helped suppress communism.  The growth of the middle
class demonstrated that capitalism could lift the poor from
their condition of poverty.  According to communism, the
condition of common workers could only be improved through a
revolution.

The resulting stable political system created an illusion of
opportunity for citizens through hard work, and the goal of
equality of nations through institutions like the United
Nations and the World Trade Organization.

But the Fordist Model and the middle class it created are
now fading.  Since the 1970s, capitalism has become leaner
and meaner in order to produce more profits through
efficiency.  Efficiencies have come at the expense of
salaries and the standard of living of average workers.

As the lights dim on the car era, wages have been driven
down by a race to the bottom.  Deregulation, free trade and
rapid technological changes have created so-called
"millennial capitalism."

Car manufacturers have abandoned Fordism.  The exceptions,
like General Motors, are facing financial troubles because
of the high costs of health insurance to their workers,
estimated at $1500 per vehicle sold.  Canadian GM plants are
more productive, in part, because health care covered by our
public system.

The Fordist model bypassed non-industrialized countries. 
The closest thing to benevolent capitalism that citizens of
majority world saw was magnanimous gestures of their
extravagant sheiks and royal families who sold oil to the
motorized western world.

While benevolent capitalism is withering in the
industrialized worlds, many emerging countries are coming
out of centuries of despotism and colonialism.

Now China repeats the mistake of the western world by
creating a car culture.  The accelerating Chinese car
society will raise the price of oil to the point that only
the most wealthy can drive.

The increased use of oil in emerging countries will
accelerate the demise of the car.  In a few decades, cities
will revert back to pre-automobile times.  Public spaces
will no longer be determined by the car.  Society will no
longer be shaped by Fordism.

The demise of the car era will be a mixed blessing.  We will
be more fit after we get out of our cars and walk.  But we
might not be more healthy.  Greedy millennial capitalism
will force the privatization of health care.  A dwindling
middle class will mean more poverty.

You would never know that the car era is dying from looking
at newspaper advertising sections devoted entirely to cars. 
They are filled with sheet metal sculptures to match our
every fantasy.

Soon, all the pretty cars will become symbols of a misspent
past.  They will make wonderful lawn ornaments.

David Charbonneau is the owner of Trio Technical
He can be reached at dcharbonneau13@shaw.ca

go back to my Columns in the