Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/06/15

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Subject: Consumerism [was RE: [Leica] Digital Leica M]
From: chandos at cox.net (Chandos Michael Brown)
Date: Thu Jun 15 02:25:57 2006

I'm curious, Marc, where in Veblen you find a critique of "planned
obsolescence?"  He had a keen eye for the vicarious and the conspicuous (and
I often talk about the culture of Leica when I teach Veblen), but I just
don't recall, after many years of assigning him in the classroom, that he
has much to say about this subject.  Alfred Sloane came along just as Veblen
was shuffling off this mortal coil, and the phrase itself, "planned
obsolescence" is a neologism of the twenties and thirties, and grew out, so
far as I understand, of the automotive industry, about which Veblen had
little to say.

I'm reasonably well read in the literature of consumer culture in 19th
century America, and this is the first I've heard that this practice
consciously articulated itself during that century.

Cheers!

Chandos 

-----Original Message-----
From: lug-bounces+chandos=cox.net@leica-users.org
[mailto:lug-bounces+chandos=cox.net@leica-users.org] On Behalf Of Marc James
Small
Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2006 8:05 PM
To: Leica Users Group
Subject: Re: Consumerism [was RE: [Leica] Digital Leica M]

Mass production and consumerism -- "planned obsolescence" and the like --
date from the 1800's.  Social critics such as Thorstein Veblein noted this
at the turn of the last century.  In truth, there is nothing new under the
sun.  What has changed is that the dynamic has gone from marketing machines
with repairable components to marketing machines with replaceable
components.  The US military went through this in the 1970's and 1980's
when mechanics were, of a sudden, told to quit pulling components and
fixing them and to pull components and replace them with new components;
the ones pulled were then sent for rebuld but, today, are simply sent for
salvage -- the exterior frame is still good, and the materials inside are
worthy of scavenging, but the basic component is not worth rebuilding.

Microchip technology has howled down the price of basic componenets.  The
most modern auto I have yet owned is a 1984 Audi 4000S and I am continually
reminded of the sophistication afforded us by electronic controls.  (But,
damn, I STILL miss my '57 round-window Beetle on which I could fix
anything!)  My wife wants us to get all new appliances once we get moved to
Richmond and we shall do so.  We shall pay less than we did the last time
around and get appliances whose use-by date is determined solely by the
life of a microchip.  But the new item will still be more effective, more
efficeint, and offer more features than the older ones.  Hell, my wife and
I moved up from 1999 Nokia cell phones last weekend.  I am so bored by
technology that I will still not know all of the features of this telephone
when I trade it in for a new one in two or three years.  Hell, I cna't
figure out Photoshop 5, so who am I to talk?

I drive a five-speed as does my wife, but hers is a 2004 Hyundai Elantra.
It is intriguing to find out that my Audi, which was a lower-end luxury car
when marketed, has all of the features of Pam's Elantra, a lower-end car
for which she paid cash when she bought it.  Yes, I do get slightly better
gas mileage, but then, the Audi takes High-Test, so it all evens out in the
end.

Do not regard the changes in US marketing over the past twenty or thirty
years as remarkable as these changes have been going on sicne the
development of our commercial system in the late 1800's, and critics have
abounded ever since.

Marc

msmall@aya.yale.edu 
Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!




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Replies: Reply from bdcolen at comcast.net (B. D. Colen) (Consumerism [was RE: [Leica] Digital Leica M])
Reply from msmall at infionline.net (Marc James Small) (Consumerism [was RE: [Leica] Digital Leica M])
In reply to: Message from msmall at infionline.net (Marc James Small) (Consumerism [was RE: [Leica] Digital Leica M])