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QUOTATION OF THE MONTH >>
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"Unlike the vacuum cleaner, the radio, or the bicycle, which retain
their use value when everyone has one, the car, like a villa by the
sea, is only desirable and useful insofar as the masses don't have
one. That is how in both conception and original purpose the car is a
luxury good. And the essence of luxury is that it cannot be
democratised. If everyone can have luxury, no one gets any advantages
from it. On the contrary, everyone diddles, cheats, and frustrates
everyone else, and is diddled, cheated, and frustrated in return."

-Andre Gorz, an Austrian and French philosopher, who recently passed
away. Read more about him in the special news section.
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SPECIAL NEWS SECTION: OBITUARY >>
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In Memory of Andre Gorz

Once called the "sharpest brain in Europe" by Jean-Paul Sartre, André
Gorz was an Austrian and French philosopher, journalist and political
theorist. He is primarily known for his writings on the themes of work
and political ecology, and for being a co-founder of the Nouvel
Observateur weekly. In the carfree movement, however, he is best known
for his essay "The Social Ideology of the Motorcar."

Gorz himself responded positively to a letter from Carbusters several
years ago, requesting permission to make the paper available on our
website, where it can now be found in several languages:
www.worldcarfree.net/resources/free.php. Gorz was also one of the few
socialist thinkers to embrace Ivan Illich's central argument in
"Energy and Equity", that the human and natural environments are both
degraded by increases in energy use and speed.(my emphasis added)



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Labels: bicycle, carbon, RIDE SLOWLY, SLOW_bicycling