Stop Signs
Cars and Capitalism on the Road to Economic, Social and Ecological Decay
In North America, human beings have become enthralled by the automobile: A quarter of our working lives are spent paying for them; communities fight each other for the right to build more of them; our cities have been torn down, remade and planned with their needs as the overriding concern; wars are fought to keep their fuel tanks filled; songs are written to praise them; cathedrals are built to worship them. In Stop Signs: Cars and Capitalism on the Road to Economic, Social and Ecological Decay, authors Yves Engler and Bianca Mugyenyi argue that the automobile’s ascendance is inextricably linked to capitalism and involved corporate malfeasance, political intrigue, backroom payoffs, media manipulation, racism, academic corruption, third world coups, secret armies, environmental destruction and war. When we challenge the domination of cars, we also challenge capitalism. An anti-car, road-trip story, Stop Signs is a unique must-read for all those who wish to escape the clutches of auto insanity.
About the book
In North America, human beings have become enthralled by the automobile: A quarter of our working lives are spent paying for them; communities fight each other for the right to build more of them; our cities have been torn down, remade and planned with their needs as the overriding concern; wars are fought to keep their fuel tanks filled; songs are written to praise them; cathedrals are built to worship them. In Stop Signs: Cars and Capitalism on the Road to Economic, Social and Ecological Decay, authors Yves Engler and Bianca Mugyenyi argue that the automobile’s ascendance is inextricably linked to capitalism and involved corporate malfeasance, political intrigue, backroom payoffs, media manipulation, racism, academic corruption, third world coups, secret armies, environmental destruction and war. When we challenge the domination of cars, we also challenge capitalism. An anti-car, road-trip story, Stop Signs is a unique must-read for all those who wish to escape the clutches of auto insanity.
What people are saying
John Bellamy Foster, co-author, The Ecological Rift“Bianca Mugyenyi and Yves Engler’s Stop Signs is at one and the same time an entertaining, fact-filled anthropological tour of the land of Homo Automomotivis, and the first all-out global ecological critique of the American automobile addiction.”
Katie Alvord, author of Divorce Your Car! Ending the Love Affair with the Automobile“With wit and originality, Mugyenyi and Engler weave travel tales into a convincing argument against the auto economy, culminating with a fresh call to leave car culture behind.”
David Cadman, Vancouver city councilor, International President ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability“This book is a must read for anyone who wants to understand the impact of the private automobile on our urban transportation options.”
Richard Bergeron, Montreal city councilor, urban planner and author“You come away shaken, but ready to roll up your sleeves and to contribute, however modestly, to constructing a new world in the 21st century.”
Carbusters“Probably the most comprehensive assessment of the power of the automobile… Stop Signs is a powerful tool for raising awareness of the multiple and self-reinforcing ways automotivism dominates us.”
Chicago Tribune“A stocking stuffer that might possibly reform, or more likely honk off, your favorite gas-guzzling SUV owner.”
Canadian Dimension“Stop Signs takes the myriad problems associated with a world obsessed with cars and wraps them up in a concise, compelling, and at times even funny, plea to quit the automobile.”
Contents
- Freedom from Cars or Freedom for Cars—Ft. Lauderdale
- Driven Round the Bend—St. Louis
- Vehicular Homicide—Chicago
- Vroom, Vroom, Cough, Cough—El Paso
- Cars Make You Fat—San Antonio
- Good-bye, Downtown—Mobile
- Billboards—Everywhere
- Parking Is a Losing Game—Atlantic City
- People Are Obstacles to Progress—Atlanta
- Auto-Eroticism—Miami
- The State Religion—Salt Lake City
- Behind the Wheel It’s Me, Myself and I—Portland
- Fueling the Fire—Baton Rouge
- Driving Global Warming—New Orleans
- An Insatiable Thirst for Land—Phoenix
- Tankers,Transit and Terror—New York
- Inefficiency Pays—Flagstaff
- An Industry’s Power
- If You Take on the Car, You Take on Its Friends
- Self-Interest, Bullying and a Willingness to Break the Law
- If You Can’t Find a Market, Create One
- Control the Message
- Teach Your Children Well
- Senator, I’d Like to Take You for a Ride
- Public Subsidies for Private Gain
- Spinning the Keynesian Wheel
- Conclusion—Capitalism and Cars Will Drive Us to Extinction
- Bibliography