ABSTRACT
The rhythm of air pollution control in Southern California has the meter of its economic base: the political economy of smog in Southern California is the political economy of growth. The history of air pollution control in Southern California was examined and revealed a number of periods during which substantial institutional change occurred. The vision behind the utilitarian model and the mainstream political economics it represents is an image of human relations reduced to the exchange relations of the market. Except for the initial agitation leading up to the creation of the Los Angeles Air Pollution Control District, citizen activism throughout the 1940s and 1950s focused primarily on supporting the efforts of the local agency. The supply and demand for clean air described by the exchange relations of the utilitarian model accounts for only two of the three dimensions in which power is exercised by the capitalist class.
