Presentation at 20th Conference of the Association for Heterodox Economics 6th July 2018

1. Sustainability Research Institute
SCHOOL OF EARTH & ENVIRONMENT
The system of car provision:
elements of a political economy of car
dependence
Giulio Mattioli*, Cameron Roberts, Julia Steinberger, & Andrew Brown
*Sustainability Research Institute &
Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds
G.Mattioli@leeds.ac.uk
20th Conference of the Association for Heterodox Economics
6th July 2018

2. The ‘Living Well Within Limits’
research project (2017-2021)
• Interdisciplinary project
• How to decouple energy/CO2 use from human well-being?
• Question typically approached using neoclassical lenses
(utility theory, ‘green growth’)
 leading to standard sets of questions and answers
2

3. Research question:
 What influence do social and technical
provisioning systems have on the levels of
resource use associated with well-being?
(in two sectors: electricity and passenger transport)
A conceptual pathway around
mainstream economics
1. Needs-based understanding of human well-
being;
2. “Satisfiers” of human needs as flexible,
culturally & historically specific;
3. Provisioning systems and heterodox economic
view of supply chains;
4. Energy services rather than energy supply.
Idea
1
Idea
4
Idea
2
Idea
3

4. The political economy of
car dependence
 a ‘car dependent transport system’ = one in which high levels of car use have
become a key satisfier of human needs, largely displacing less carbon intensive
alternatives (Mattioli, 2016)
[narrowed down the scope: no freight, no air travel / shipping, no efficiency of
vehicles/fuels]
Our work:
 investigating the political economy of car dependence, adopting a SoP approach
 critical literature review in a number of fields
4

5. The ‘Systems of Provision’
(SoP) approach
• approach to concrete research within political economy that originated in
consumption studies (Fine, 2002; Fine & Leopold, 1993; Fine et al., 2018)
• recognises the specificities of any one provisioning process, whilst at the same
time incorporating understanding of the more general dynamics of the capitalist
system
• applied to e.g. housing and water (Bayliss et al., 2013)
Key lessons (for our work):
1. ‘vertical’ analysis framework
 understand consumption as closely related to production (and vice-versa)
 significant factors vary by SoP - no factors with general applicability
2. significance of history
 “prevailing state of affairs rests heavily on past forms of provision” (Fine et al., 2018, p.40)
3. inductive approach
5

6. Identifying the
‘elements’ of a SoP
• “Each SoP consists of the multiplicity of factors that lead to and shape
consumption. These are wide-ranging…” (Fine et al., 2018, p.30)
• “… by their nature, SoPs are unique. The SoP approach, then, is necessarily
heavily inductive in application, leaving researchers to identify the nature,
scope and content of particular SoPs in practice” (p.33)
• “… not simple, not least in identifying where one SoP begins and the other
ends” (p.33)
• for research purposes it is usually necessary to shine a spotlight on the
elements of the SoP that are of particular relevance to the issue under
consideration” (p.34)
6

7. 5 key elements
7
Automotive
industry
Provision of car
infrastructure
Car dependent
land-use
patterns
Provision of
public transport
Cultures of
consumption

8. 1. Production:
the automotive industry
 high capital intensity / large economies
of scale
 endemic overcapacity / overproduction
 low / declining profit margins
 need for continued expansion of the
market
8
(Nieuwenhuis & Wells, 2003; Orsato & Wells, 2007; Wells, 2010; 2013; Wells & Orsato, 2005; Wells et al.,
2012)
production of all-steel car bodies

9. 2. The provision of car
infrastructure
• the appropriation of road space for
car use in the early phases of
motorisation: from ‘shared’ to ‘car
dominated’ space
• physical and social reconstruction of
city streets (as motor thoroughfares)
 resulting restrictions and
immobilizations for other modes
• the state creating ‘use value’ for the
car-as-commodity? Making cars
‘worth buying’
• ultimately creating the need for cars
9

10. 2. The provision of car
infrastructure
Road building legitimized in multiple
and contradictory ways:
 required BY & FOR economic growth
 for popular consumerism & regional
development
 solution to problems (congestion,
safety) caused by motorisation
 mainstream economics appraisal
tools (CBA, value of travel time
savings)
At the same time:
 road network expansion results in
increased car ownership/use
(‘induced demand’)
 tends to fuel self-reinforcing cycle
 economic interests (‘road lobby’)
stand to benefit from it…
 …and actually influence policy-
making
10
• road network expansion enables accommodation of mass vehicle production
• the public sector aspect of car dependence

11. 3. Car-dependent land use
patterns
• the built environment strongly influences car ownership and use
• low density, low street connectivity, monofunctionality → car dependence
• ‘urban sprawl’ typically presented as unintentional outcome of market and policy
‘distortions’, and lack of planning
• alternative Eco-Marxist perspective (Gonzalez 2005; 2006)
 1930s US sprawl actively promoted/subsidized by federal government with
‘hidden welfare state’ instruments (Howard, 1993; Logemann, 2002)
 ‘stimulus’ to demand for consumer durables & energy, to absorb
overproduction in key industries
 environmental inefficiency of sprawl = a feature, not a bug

12. 4.The provision of public
transport
• car dependent land-use patterns make PT provision more difficult,
put higher coordination burden on viable public transit
• in suburbia PT can provide ‘anywhere-to-anywhere’ service that is competitive
with the car only with ‘multi-modal network planning’ (Mees, 2010):
 system based on high frequency, transfers, coordinated timetables, multi-
modal integration, cross-subsidization
 requires public control of ‘strategic’ & ‘tactical’ level of PT provision
(operational level can be private/tendered) ►political economy dimension
• since 1980s-1990s: push towards deregulation / privatisation of PT:
 UK since 1985: most extreme example
 EU: since 1995 green paper (but didn’t get as far)
 Global South: from traditional to ‘informal’ public transport service

13. 5. Cultures of consumption:
the ‘car’ culture
Individual factors predisposing drivers to prefer car travel over alternatives
 emotional and psychological attachment for driving
 habits, embeddedness of car in everyday practices
Macro-level cultural repertoires / ‘techno-tales’:
 from road transport as embodying modernity & progressivism…
 …to mundane necessity for which there is no alternative
The material culture of the car commodity:
 from class distinction to (sub)cultural distinction (Gartman, 2004)
 from signifier of ‘freedom’ to ‘cocooning’ (appeal as personal space)
(Wells & Xenias, 2015)

14. Interconnections
14
Automotive
industry
Provision of car
infrastructure
Car dependent
land-use
patterns
Provision of
public transport
Cultures of
consumption
advertising road lobby
stimulus
coordination
burden
synergetic
developmentstigmatisation
of PT

15. Conclusions
• entrenched in several key sectors of society/economy
• ‘escaping car dependence’ only possible if we understand interconnections
• addressing only one aspect means being foiled by all others
• links with some broader dynamics of capitalism (e.g. overproduction,
deregulation/privatisation)…
• …but some of the key factors are specific (e.g. built environment)
• applying heterodox economic ideas to environmentally unsustainable
production-consumption patterns: promising area (where mainstream economics
has failed)
• SoP useful to integrate insights from different fields/disciplines
15

16. • http://lili.leeds.ac.uk
• Twitter: @liliproj
Sustainability Research Institute
SCHOOL OF EARTH & ENVIRONMENT
Thank you for your attention!
G.Mattioli@leeds.ac.uk
http://lili.leeds.ac.uk
@liliproj

17. …and now:

18. References
Bayliss, K., Fine, B., & Robertson, M. (2013). From financialisation to consumption: The systems of provision approach applied to housing and water.
FESSUD Working Paper No. 02.
Fine, B. (2002). The world of consumption: the material and cultural revisited. Psychology Press.
Fine, B., Bayliss, K., & & Robertson, M. (2018). The Systems of Provision Approach to Understanding Consumption. In: Kravets, O., Maclaran, P.,
Miles, S., & & Venkatesh, A. (Eds.). (2018). The SAGE Handbook of Consumer Culture. Sage.
Fine, B., & & Leopold, E. (1993). The World of Consumption. London, New York: Routledge.
Gartman, D. (2004) ‘Three Ages of the Automobile The Cultural Logics of The Car’, Theory, Culture & Society, 21(4–5), pp. 169–195.
Gonzalez, G. A. (2005). Urban sprawl, global warming and the limits of ecological modernisation. Environmental Politics, 14(3), 344-362.
Gonzalez, G. A. (2006). An eco-Marxist analysis of oil depletion via urban sprawl. Environmental Politics, 15(4), 515-531.
Howard, C. (1993). The hidden side of the American welfare state. Political Science Quarterly, 108(3), 403-436.
Logemann, J. L. (2012). Trams Or Tailfins?: Public and Private Prosperity in Postwar West Germany and the United States. University of Chicago
Press.
Mattioli, G. (2016). Transport needs in a climate-constrained world. A novel framework to reconcile social and environmental sustainability in transport.
Energy Research & Social Science, 18, 118-128.
Mees, P. (2010). Transport for suburbia: beyond the automobile age. Routledge.
Niewenhuis, P., & Wells, P. (2003). The automotive industry and the environment. CRC Press.
O’Neill, D. W., Fanning, A. L., Lamb, W. F., & Steinberger, J. K. (2018). A good life for all within planetary boundaries. Nature Sustainability, 1(2), 88.
Orsato, R. J., & Wells, P. (2007). U-turn: the rise and demise of the automobile industry. Journal of Cleaner Production, 15(11), 994-1006.
Wells, P. E. (2010). The Automotive Industry in an Era of Eco-Austerity. Elgar.
Wells, P. (2013). Sustainable business models and the automotive industry: A commentary. IIMB Management Review, 25(4), 228-239.
Wells, P. E., Nieuwenhuis, P. A. H. F., & Orsato, R. J. (2012). The nature and causes of inertia in the automotive industry: regime stability and non-
change In: Geels, F., Kemp, R., Dudley, G., & Lyons, G. (Eds.). Automobility in transition?: A socio-technical analysis of sustainable transport.
London: Routledge.
Wells, P., & Orsato, R. J. (2005). Redesigning the industrial ecology of the automobile. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 9(3), 15-30
Wells, P., & Xenias, D. (2015). From ‘freedom of the open road’to ‘cocooning’: Understanding resistance to change in personal private automobility.
Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 16, 106-119.