The automobile did not end up dominating American transportation by chance -- or by public choice. There was a plan by auto makers to buy up and destroy mass transit companies. General Motors led the way.

In the 1920’s, many American cities and towns were connected by a network of electric railroads and interurban trolleys. Within cities, electric street railways, trolleys, and elevated trains moved large numbers of people easily and cheaply.

But between 1920 and 1955, General Motors bought up more than 100 electric mass transit systems in 45 cities, allowed them to deteriorate, and then replaced them with rubber-tired, diesel-powered buses. Buses are more expensive, less efficient, and much dirtier than electric/rail systems -- and of course automobiles are even less efficient than buses. In 1949, General Motors was convicted of criminally conspiring to replace electric mass transit with GM-manufactured diesel buses. The court fined GM $5000 and forced H.C. Crossman, the GM executive responsible for carrying out GM's policy, to pay exactly $1.

Cities where GM managed to eliminate electric/rail systems and replace them with buses and private cars included New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, St. Louis, Oakland, Salt Lake City, and Los Angeles.  Before GM converted the city to buses and private automobiles, Los Angeles was served by the largest electric/rail mass transit system in the nation.

The systematic sabotage of the U.S. electric/rail mass transit systems by automobile corporations points to a serious problem: the ability of "private" corporations to effect sweeping changes in public life and culture, without public accountability or even debate.