On a global scale, daily urban mobility is consistently confronted with traffic congestion, resulting in delays to various types of travel, including but not limited to supply, production, freight transport, and consumption. Moreover, traffic congestion exerts a deleterious influence on social reproduction, with major negative effects on the working class: long commuting times, high spending on oil, automobile maintenance, and so on. Consequently, it can be regarded as a source of friction in production and social life, and therefore poses a problem for capitalism. Nonetheless, despite the problems posed by the phenomenon, a consistent upward trend in traffic congestion has been observed on an annual basis in numerous cities across the globe.^[1]

In this sense, the increase in traffic congestion in contemporary cities is highly paradoxical when one considers that capitalism always seeks "the annihilation of space by time," that is, the reduction of travel times so that physical distances cease to be important, since “capital by its nature drives beyond every spatial barrier. Thus, the creation of the physical conditions of exchange..."^[2] The goal is to reduce the cycle time of capital accumulation so that profits can be obtained as quickly as possible. This is even more relevant when we consider that cities around the world are home to both the majority of global production and population.

However, urban traffic congestion has only increased, especially in third-world megacities. Despite the existence of reformist and radical solutions to reduce it within capitalism itself, these are not usually applied (for example, traffic congestion charges along with densification and the provision of mass public transport, like trains or subways, and improvements in non-motorized means of travel like bike lanes). While there may be multiple material and political circumstances that prevent this, such as a lack of public funding or Not in My Back Yard (NIMBY) politics, there is one factor that is not often mentioned or theorized, which is that traffic congestion is favorable to the process of capital accumulation itself. It exerts a controlling effect on society, disciplining workers, reducing upward pressure on wages, and hindering their political organization.

Congestion –or traffic jams—in itself means longer travel times (which increase as circulating vehicle numbers grow over time in cities). This is why workers have to spend extra hours before and after their working day to get around. These periods of time are not considered part of the working day and are not recognized by employers. This extended, unpaid workday causes stress and fatigue. In cases like that of Mexico City, certain commutes can account for up to 50% of the legal workday.

In this context, workers can have their leisure time severely restricted. Such constraints on personal time can have significant consequences, including reduced opportunities for recovery, leisure activities, and familial interaction. Additionally, the restriction on personal time can also impede the ability to engage in political activism.

Without time to undertake the collective battle —for example, to form unions— there is no pressure to demand higher wages or benefits within companies and in society. This gives way to a disciplined workforce through the silent compulsion of the market.^[3] In other words, through labor competition and economic pressures. In fact, this effect can be so great that it offsets the increase in circulation times in the capital accumulation cycle. That is, by keeping wages low, the profit margin is maintained (or increased, depending on capital investments).

Furthermore, these long commutes generate interclass conflicts and, as a result, reduce class solidarity. It becomes a struggle for space on public transportation, for the use of sidewalks, and for the use of traffic space, which can turn violent (even leading to fatalities from being run over, collisions, etc.). The conflict between bikes and cars is an example of this. Various groups (NGOs, cyclists, environmental groups, etc.) promote bicycle use with a confrontational stance against car use, calling for the removal of traffic lanes or parking spaces in favor of bicycle infrastructure. This is perceived by car users as a new problem for traffic flow and a factor that contributes to traffic congestion, creating a conflict with cyclists. This prevents workers from realizing that they share a common situation, acting as an impediment to the creation of a proletarian class consciousness. In this sense, it not only limits and prevents free time for political organization, but also harms the basic class solidarity needed for such an organization. The result is an urban space that reinforces the capitalist ideology of free competition, of every man for himself.^[4]

This depoliticizing effect is linked to urban expansion and workers' housing. It is no longer like in the days of the Industrial Revolution, portrayed by Engels in The Condition of the Working Class in England, when workers used to live very close to the factories and in the same neighborhoods, which allowed for ongoing coexistence and the creation of stronger social ties. Today, workers' housing is scattered and distant in cities (with different forms of home ownership or rental), creating a wide variety of routes and distances to travel to work. Thus, traffic and urban expansion and dispersion create a physical barrier that hinders class organization and solidarity. Simultaneously, the denser the traffic, the more it generates street-level environments (due to noise, pollution, etc.) that reduce local community ties.^[5] These situations create adverse material conditions for social, community, and proletarian organization.

Clearly, there is a limit to traffic growth, especially when it negatively affects the cycle of capital accumulation, and that moment is when capital drives and encourages innovation to eliminate, or rather reduce, this contradiction and maintain the cycle of capital accumulation. Infrastructure is the solution in most cases, for example, the construction of more and better roads, highways, and transportation services to improve overall production conditions and services.^[6] Innovation also plays an important role, as in the case of the development of the subway. The initial idea behind the creation of the subway was to avoid the congestion of freight carriages and people in the Victorian streets of central London, which were covered in mud, feces, garbage, etc., by means of an underground train that ultimately materialized into the service we know today. Thus, the more developed a city is, in capitalist terms, the better its infrastructure will be in order to reduce the contradictions generated by traffic.

It is important to note that traffic also allows for the accumulation of certain types of capital, especially those linked to the production, use, and maintenance of automobiles. On the one hand, it is clear that greater use of motor vehicles implies more wear and tear and increased energy consumption. This leads to high consumption of gasoline, diesel, oils, spare parts, fixtures, and maintenance services. Economic activities and their linkages are so extensive that they require a huge mobilization of material and human resources inside and outside cities. This generates cycles of capital accumulation on a global scale. The oil, auto parts, and automotive services industries are examples of this.

On the other hand, the construction and traffic control services sectors benefit and can absorb large amounts of surplus capital in infrastructure projects.^[7] The more traffic there is, the more urban roads and highways wear out, which means multimillion-dollar investments year after year for maintenance alone: repaving, signage, traffic lights, cleanup, etc. These activities have a global reach, given the type of urban development and transportation dominated by automobiles in today's capitalism.

Similarly, increased traffic puts pressure on infrastructure and traffic management solutions to prevent the deterioration of general production conditions and services. This entails large investments in both types of solutions, either by governments or by companies. The former is the simple construction of road infrastructure by the government or the implementation of vehicle and traffic control systems, while the latter involves large private infrastructure projects, such as toll roads, or traffic management systems, like parking meters. Large companies engaged in these activities know that increased traffic leads to more revenues through fees for the use of infrastructure or the services they control. Their capitalist income is pure traffic. Furthermore, these large works of infrastructure end up being subsumed under financial capital as they are financed through various financial schemes.

Finally, each improvement in infrastructure, especially in suburbs and cities, allows for new cycles of urbanization and absorption of surplus capital, thus generating a new cycle of accumulation. This cycle generates greater dependence on car use, as planning and land use patterns are ultimately based on it (something that has been called “the car dependency cycle”).^[8] This creates a vicious cycle of increased traffic that is negative for social reproduction (longer commuting times, more alienation, and so on), but not for the reproduction of capital.

This creates a spatio-temporal fix^[9] that is useful for capitalism, and involves the construction of new automobile and urban infrastructure, new housing, new production of goods and services for its inhabitants, as well as the sale of vehicles, with new paces and speeds of production. A whole new space and time are created for capital. A cycle of more traffic, more infrastructure, more urban expansion, and more traffic, all of which will continue until its internal contradictions make it unviable.

This is how traffic is useful to capitalism, both politically and economically. While in the short term it alters the productivity of certain types of companies, it compensates the whole accumulation cycle with its disciplining power over labor and the series of economic activities that give way to the accumulation of certain types of capital.

Obviously, this will vary depending on the uneven development of capitalism around the world. In more developed economies, it appears that urban expansion has reached its zenith. This phenomenon has precipitated a crisis in urban governments, as evidenced by the case of Detroit, US. The city has gained renown for its preeminence in the automotive industry and its history of financial insolvency. In rapidly growing economies, such as China, the increase in motorization and urban infrastructure has resulted in substantial cycles of capital expansion. For instance, David Harvey posits that China's substantial urbanization has contributed to the resurgence of capitalism after the global financial crisis of 2008, which was created by a housing bubble in the US (mainly with automobile-oriented land use patterns). From 2011 to 2013, China's cement consumption increased by nearly 45% compared to the total cement consumption in the United States during the entire 20th century.^[10]

While it is true that capitalism has the capacity to regulate and manage traffic, reducing it to minimal levels in certain urban environments (as observed in some European cities), motor vehicles and their associated consequences, such as traffic, are inherent to the technical necessities of capitalism. Paradoxically, these apparent negative consequences for the circulation process can also be politically exploited as a means of controlling the working class. In the absence of traffic, a different form of capitalism would emerge, rather than an alternative economic system. In this regard, socialist-style planning must also take into account a new model of cities and urban mobility—one that is not based on motor vehicles, whether they run on fossil fuels, electricity, or are autonomous. A non-capitalist and egalitarian economic system would actually imply the disappearance of traffic and its causes.

1. For example, see the results of the 2025 TomTom Traffic Index https://www.tomtom.com/traffic-index/ and Inrix Global Traffic Scordcard 2025 https://inrix.com/scorecard/

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2. Karl Marx, “Exchange of Labour for Labour Rests on the Worker’s Propertylessness,” in Grundrisse: Notebook V – The Chapter on Capital, Marx-Engels Archive, accessed August 10, 2025, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch10.htm.

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3. Søren Mau. 2023. Mute Compulsion: A Marxist Theory of the Economic Power of Capital. Verso Books.

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4. Lefebvre argued that capitalism and the bourgeoisie produce spaces that reproduce and reinforce the dominant ideology. See Henri Lefebvre. 1992. The Production of Space. Wiley.

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5. Donald Appleyard, “Livable Streets: Protected Neighborhoods?” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 451 (1980): 106–17, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1043165.

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6. Gustavo Garza. 2013. Teoría de las Condiciones y los Servicios Generales de Producción. El Colegio de México.

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7. David Harvey. 2010. The Enigma of Capital and the Crises of Capitalism. Profile Books.

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8. Based on Todd Litman, Win-Win Transportation Solutions: Cooperation for Economic, Social and Environmental Benefits (Victoria Transport Policy Institute, 2006), https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237268418_Win-Win_Transportation_Solutions_Cooperation_for_Economic_Social_and_Environmental_Benefits.

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9. For a more detailed explanation of spatial arrangements and spatio-temporal arrangements, see "Spatial Fixes, Temporal Fixes and Spatio-Temporal Fixes" in Noel Castree and Derek Gregory, eds., David Harvey: A Critical Reader (Wiley-Blackwell, 2006).

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10. Harvey, David. “The Significance of China in the Global Economy.” Anti-Capitalist Chronicles. Democracy at Work. January 17, 2019. https://www.democracyatwork.info/acc_the_significance_of_china_in_the_global_economy.

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