Productivity stuck in traffic

We continue our discussion of the lessons that can be learnt from the Southern California experience regarding transportation policy options for Jamaica. That region typifies the new form of urban agglomeration, called the megalopolis, that has negated the early to mid-20th century spatial form of the city or urbanised region, which had one central hub that was surrounded by several suburban bedroom communities.

This megalopolis - with its digitally based globalised industries and vast multi-ethnic, multinational, industrial and professional and service-based working-class populations, distributed across a massive urban space - presents a formidable challenge in developing an efficient intermodal transportation system.

The economic and political leadership within the 186 municipalities of the five counties that constitute the megalopolis we call Southern California is trying to figure out a strategy for overcoming the legacy of an infrastructure that was designed primarily to facilitate the buying and selling of the automobile as the primary mode of circulating human energy throughout the region.

People movers

Halting steps have been made in the direction of introducing such things as a light rail and a metro-rail system as people movers. Planners have also introduced such things as high parking fees that are designed to encourage the use of these alternative forms of transport, particularly during the workweek. Keep in mind that Southern California is the home of the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the two largest ports in the United States.

Sixty per cent of all of the goods (commodities) entering the US pass through these two neighbouring ports, which are then transported by trucks and trains to various parts of the country. The battle for space on the freeways of Southern California - between the various segments of the working class (those in their private cars who are trying to get to and from work) and the truck drivers (the workers who are carrying the commodities to the warehouses and the various retailing establishments) - is something to behold.

There is a powerful car culture in Southern California which has been exported to the rest of the world. The car became a highly fetishised commodity (many regard their car as an expression of their identity) and, as such, it is going to be a challenge to wean people off their attachment to this particular commodity. It is interesting to note that, although California remains the largest auto market in the world, not a single automobile is currently assembled in this state. Southern California, however, has emerged as one of the leading design centres within the global automobile industry.

The technical restructuring that is occurring across all industries in light of the digital revolution is compelling the political leadership and transportation planners to rethink the process of how goods and people circulate not only within the region, but across the entire world. Globalised capitalist production - which is now organised along the lines of global supply chains and coordinated by the Globally Integrated Enterprise - necessitates a greater level of integration of all forms of transportation and communications. This includes air, land and ocean modes of transportation as well as on the information superhighway system that facilitates the accelerated pace at which information is being exchanged.

The capitalist state has become deeply immersed in this process, and it cannot be otherwise. This is because of the following fact: the political managers of the various jurisdictions cannot be successful in the global competition to attract and maintain modern industries, within their respective regions unless they are able to put into place, and constantly upgrade, the necessary social and physical infrastructures that facilitate the timely circulation of all forms of capital. (This includes merchant capital, which is involved in retailing; industrial capital that is tied to production; as well as banking and finance capital). In other words, they must constantly strive to minimise the numerous frictions that are inherently involved in the process of the production and circulation of commodities.

Boosting production

If the workers - the sellers of the commodity labour-power (their physical and mental energies) to the owners of the means of production - are spending an excessive amount of time in the process of going to the place where they will expend this energy in the making of other commodities, it stands to reason that they will not be as energetic. This means that they will be producing less wealth for the owners of the means of production.

And if the commodities that the workers are producing are spending too great a time in the journey from the factory to the places where they are intended to be sold, the owners of these commodities will be at a competitive disadvantage. In other words, in the capitalist economy, production and circulation are two sides of the same coin. If the circulatory system gets clogged with an excessive number of vehicles competing for the same space in which to transport energy in its various forms, the system as a whole becomes dysfunctional.

The conversation regarding transportation and energy policies in Jamaica, in order to be useful, will have to proceed from a clearer understanding of the restructuring that is taking place in all global industries. One of the most important lessons, which should be the starting point for any meaningful discussion of a rational transportation and energy policy, is this: Without the development of a comprehensive mass-transit system on the island that is affordable to all sections of the working class, there will be very little, if any, prospects for developing the productive capacity of the country.

The chief productive force of any society is the level of the skill of the population. If the working class is forced to endure long trips to and from work, as a consequence of an inadequate mass public transportation system, the prospects for increasing their productive capacity will continue to diminish.

The scientific and technological revolution is imposing greater and greater demands on all social classes and strata in contemporary capitalist society. The constant revolutionising of the means of production (the tools), which is a characteristic of the capitalist mode of production, is assuming even greater force in the context of digitised production. As I have stated in previous articles: The emerging technologies are not merely energy-saving but also labour-replacing (see, for instance: 'Japanese firm creates humanoid robot to replace factory workers' by Stephen C. Webster in Raw Story, December 28, 2011). This implies that no skill set that the worker possesses can be considered secure and safe from technical innovation.

Wasting workers' time

As long as capitalism remains in place, the only realistic option that the workers have, if they want to have food to eat, is to find ways of upgrading or learning new skills. This requires time and energy. If the workers' energies are being expended in traffic gridlock, such as in the Kingston Metropolitan Area, what time and energy will they have left over to devote to their professional development by attending continuing-education classes after work? Not to mention the impact on their physical health of toxic fumes that they are inhaling daily on the road.

Let's hope that there will be a concerted effort to place some of the supposedly incoming information technology-related jobs in places such as Portmore, which now serves primarily as a bedroom community for a large segment of the working class. This could begin the process, however small, of trying to lessen the spatial contradiction between living space and working space for some of the workers in this community.

In the meantime, these communities will have to organise and push for the development of a mass-transit system that can replace the primacy of the use of automobiles as the main means of transporting people to their place of employment throughout the Kingston Metropolitan Area. Also, building a bus and light-rail mass-transit system has the potential to create employment for a significant number of highly trained bus drivers, mechanics and maintenance workers.

A Concluding Note

In my opinion, there seems to an excessive intellectual fixation on small places such as Singapore, which detracts us from undertaking a serious scientific study of highly developed capitalist formations. If we want to develop a deeper understanding of the enormous challenges that are ahead for relatively small communities such as Jamaica, we need to pay more attention to how modern industry developed in the more advanced regions of the global capitalist economy, over time and space, and the social and political struggles that were and are associated with this process.

Trevor A. Campbell is a political economist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.comand tcampbell@eee.org.