I read few books, including Beverly J. Silver on global proletariat (and automotive industries), but while writing about private automobilism from Marxist perspective and still feel, that something is missing. Maybe You know analysis of the cars as commodity fetish, or its role in alienating people from each other and from nature?
I invite you to read about transport economics. You need think the car as a media for transportations services.
You can watch a documentary film: suburbia. And start read the reason because the people want live in sub-urban neigtborhood and need more a more cars for each them family members.
Is clear, it is you do not is interesting in coleccionionist behaviour, status and power demostration.
Dear Luis, thank You very much. I think that marxist geographer David Harvey is right, that suburbanization - in postwar USA, but probably this is true in number ot other cases - was deeply political and economic, it has been attempt to appease potential trouble-makers. People with mortgage and bought on credit cars are focused on their consumption, not workers rights
I'm not quite sure what aspect of the connection between cars and capitalism you are pursuing or want to address. Freund (one example below) has written several papers/books on this subject. Part of the issue with the car-capitalism connection should include recognition of the fact that capitalism also organizes space (the geography of cities and the expansion of suburbs, for example), and that this is one of the long-term historical condition shaping transportation. Another part of the issue has to deal with the nature of the automobile industry itself. For example, there is the famous case of the General Motors "Street car conspiracy," which involved efforts by corporations to monopolize street car lines, and convert them into bus routes to facilitate certain corporate interests (see as an example: http://www.brooklynrail.net/NationalCityLinesConspiracy.html). Outside of these types of "dreaded" examples of conspiracy by capitalist industries, you also need to look at the structure of the auto-industry, and its roles in promoting highways. Then, there is an even larger issue -- the role oil plays in the growth of capitalism more generally, and how the auto industry and the car fit into that history. Weaving all this together is a big task. A few examples follow....
Freund, Peter, and George Martin. "The commodity that is eating the world: The automobile, the environment, and capitalism." Capitalism Nature Socialism 7, no. 4 (1996): 3-29.
Paterson, Matthew. "Car culture and global environmental politics." Review of International Studies 26, no. 2 (2000): 253-270.
Dear Michael, thank You very much for this in-depth answer, I am well aware, thar topic "capitalism and cars" is something what is demanding probably not an article, but rather a book, or even books. I know GM's "Street car conspiracy", of course, this is excellent example. I think that I could use more, let's say, more theoretical and grounded in Karl Marx thought approach - You know, car as fetish, role of automotive industry in development of capitalism etc.
Maybe tyou already know the classic 'The Social Ideology of the Motorcar' by André Gorz. It could be a good start --> http://notanothercyclingforum.net/bikereader/contributors/misc/gorz.html
Good luck
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