ABSTRACT
The life-world is, so to speak, what an ecosystem looks like from the standpoint of individual beings within it. The use-values that represent the utility of commodities are inserted into life-worlds, the point of insertion being registered subjectively as a want or desire, and objectively as a set of needs. As capital penetrates life-worlds, it alters them in ways that foster its accumulation, chiefly by introducing a sense of dissatisfaction or lack so that it can truly be said that happiness is forbidden under capitalism, being replaced by sensation and craving. As there is no single commodity more implicated in this than the automobile, the people might round out this section with some thoughts about "automobilia" and its related syndromes, including the newly discovered disease of Road Rage. As the logic of automobilia unfolds, new levels of disintegration appear, and even people deeply acculturated into the ways of motorcars crack under the strain of contemporary vehicular life.
