Do you remember repair shops from years gone by? They repaired everything from televisions and refrigerators to washing machines. So why, when a refrigerator shows signs of premature wear and tear or an expensive printer has not yet repaid its investment, are there no quick solutions available to get them back up and running? The answer is more complex and organised than we might think.
We are talking about planned obsolescence. This is not about the normal physical wear and tear that eventually renders a product unusable and ready to be discarded. Rather, it describes the process by which products become outdated or undesirable when newer, competing models appear on the market—long before the old ones have truly reached the end of their useful lives.
From this, we can understand the role of advertising in convincing us to replace the goods we have purchased with more stylish and “smarter” ones that offer more options and applications. If we are not easily convinced, we will find that our relatively new TV or smartphone starts to malfunction anyway, and that repairing it is too expensive or difficult compared to buying a new product.
The Christmas Eve that changed the world economy
In her documentary, The Light Bulb Conspiracy (2010), Cosima Dannoritzer explains the phenomenon of planned obsolescence. According to the documentary’s producers, the implementation strategy of planned obsolescence began with a secret agreement made in Geneva on Christmas Eve 1924. This agreement was made between major electric light bulb manufacturers at the time, including Philips (Netherlands), Osram (Germany), Compagnie des Lampes (France), General Electric (US), the GE Overseas Group, Associated Electrical Industries (UK) and Tokyo Electric. This created the first cartel, Phoebus, which aimed to control the global market for light bulb production and sales by modifying manufacturing patents to reduce the lifespan of light bulbs from 2,500 hours to 1,000 hours. Over the next two years, this operating life was indeed reduced first to 1,500 hours and then to 1,000 hours, leading to an exponential increase in sales.
Despite the fact that this cartel did not officially exist, German historian and journalist Helmut Höge discovered documents attesting to the secret agreement, production monitoring, and accounting for the planned obsolescence business 80 years later. Another German historian, Markus Krajewski, who researched the Osram corporate archives in Berlin with Höge, claims that the US government investigated General Electric in 1940 on suspicion of anti-competitive practices.
Giles Slade, a Canadian writer and social critic, is the author of the book Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America, published in 2007 by Harvard University Press. During an interview about his book on the Harvard University Press Podcast, Slade stated that one piece of evidence attesting to this deliberate strategy is a 1932 General Electric memo in which the head of research and development informed an executive director that he could guarantee a 60% increase in light bulb sales by reducing their lifespan.
Further evidence that the strategists were aware of the unethical nature of these measures comes from Tokyo Electric in 1927, which informed the Phoebus cartel that it had increased its sales fivefold but added that if severe punishment were to result from such initiatives, it would be unreasonable and would actually discourage them.
The goal of economic growth and the obsolescence of innovators
The same thing happened in the 1940s with the production of nylon stockings for women, created by the French company DuPont. The material was so strong that it could be used to tow cars. However, to boost sales, the brilliant chemists who invented the material were forced to weaken it to make it more fragile in order to comply with the manufacturer’s orders. The DuPont heiress herself talks about these changes, lamenting not only planned obsolescence, but also the awkward situation faced by inventors and innovators who had to deal with professional ethics issues.
In the aforementioned interview, Giles Slade discusses the shift towards obsolescence in the automotive industry during the 1920s and 1930s. General Motors adopted the strategy of frequently changing the construction and design of its cars through its representative Alfred P. Sloan Jr. in order to persuade buyers to purchase what was considered the “latest craze” in the field. As a result, by 1931, it had surpassed Ford’s sales figures. This can be explained by the fact that Henry Ford was a modest, hard-working engineer[1] with a passion for improving his production processes alongside his employees. He followed the engineering principle of creating the best and most durable cars possible and refused to collaborate with banks, saying that they were good at only one thing, and that was playing tricks and juggling money.
In the documentary, historian Markus Krajewski said about obsolescence that the important thing is that this idea, as an institution, still exists. How did it take root in today’s production processes in the Western world? The first official proposal to reduce the lifespan of products by law seems to have come from the American broker Bernard London. This was proposed against the backdrop of the 1929–1933 economic crisis as a means of reviving the economy by increasing consumption. In 1932, London published a paper entitled “Ending the Depression through Planned Obsolescence.”
At the time, London was not taken seriously. Such a thing could not be imposed by law. However, in the 1950s, industrial designer Brooks Stevens launched a strategy of seduction through advertising and design in the United States to accelerate the pace of product consumption and replacement with more stylish and fashionable products, even when the old products were still functioning. This was psychological obsolescence, and Stevens defined it publicly: “Instilling in the buyer the desire to own something a little newer, a little better, a little sooner than is necessary.”
Since then, this commercial strategy has spread throughout the Western world and, following the revolutions in the Eastern bloc, has also taken hold there. Until then, socialist countries had operated on the principle of saving resources and ensuring product performance. They had no market economy, free enterprise, or competition mechanisms. They had a state-planned economy that was faced with limited resources and a limited market: that of the COMECON member countries. Under these conditions, planning for product obsolescence would not only have been tactically and technically impossible, but also economically damaging.
Serge Latouche, a Frenchman, is a critic of consumer society and of the political strategy of reviving the economy by increasing consumption, especially in times of crisis. He gives lectures in various countries to encourage a change in this dangerous mentality. He says that anyone who believes that infinite economic growth is compatible with a planet of finite resources is either a madman or an economist! The problem, he says, is that we have all become economists. With this growth economy, we are like a car racing at full speed without a driver; we will either crash into a wall or fall off a cliff into the abyss.
Waste production reached its peak
The battle between inventors of good faith and those employed by corporations, who adapt to the demands of manufacturers, has been won by the latter. In engineering and design schools, theories about the “life cycle of products” have emerged as a covert way of addressing planned obsolescence.
Latouche lists three factors that sustain the mentality of economic growth through excessive consumption: advertising, planned obsolescence, and bank credit. We are encouraged to purchase perishable goods that we neither need nor can afford, but for which we borrow from banks.
Supporters of this mentality apparently believe that it is a natural technological advancement in production and that, ultimately, the consumer is in control in a free society. An article in The Economist states: “Consumers sometimes see planned obsolescence as a sinister plot by manufacturers to fleece them. But Philip Kotler, a marketing guru, says ‘much so-called planned obsolescence is the working of the competitive and technological forces in a free society—forces that lead to the ever-improving goods and services’.” It is easy to see the flawed reasoning in appealing to authority here. Kotler is undoubtedly a renowned marketing expert, but that does not mean we should limit ourselves to his opinion on such a complex issue.
Those who criticise this mentality respond that people who are deceived by advertising and marketing, bank policies, and attractive products with a short lifespan do not choose freely. Moreover, they are misled into believing that the new purchase is a better, more durable object and that novelty automatically implies improvement. Testimonies from people who have investigated various types of products show the opposite: they are designed to break down after a certain amount of time or after a certain number of uses, and it is deliberately made difficult or too expensive to repair them.
Huma Kamis, from the Swiss-French Consumer Federation (FRC), states in an article: “For the past eight years I have been doing comparative tests. It is indisputable that the obsolescence is programmed in.” The article also mentions that, in February 2011, the Franco-German television station ARTE broadcast a documentary about how a well-known company had programmed its printers to malfunction after 18,000 prints without offering maintenance services.
The most serious consequence of excessive, artificially forced consumption is that our planet is being stripped of its resources at an alarming rate and filled with non-recyclable or unrecycled waste. Ghana, for example, has become a dumping ground for electronic waste containers from various economically advanced countries. This is not an isolated situation, but one that is becoming increasingly common and threatening the lives of future generations, especially given that there is no support from international legislation. This waste contains highly toxic substances that seep into the water table and spread over large areas.
At the eleventh hour, non-governmental organisations and various associations have emerged to campaign for a non-polluting industry and the protection of the environment. Avaaz.org, for example, is an international campaigning network spread across 18 countries with over 38 million members who fight “to ensure that the views and values of the world’s people shape global decision-making.” On 21 September 2014, Avaaz.org organised the largest march for climate action, with over 650,000 people taking to the streets around the world to demand changes to environmental policy.
At the same time, thinkers such as Serge Latouche and Giles Slade are promoting a more modest lifestyle that is immune to fads and encourages saving electricity, fuel, and water, as well as recycling materials. Initiatives have also emerged to open workshops that reuse discarded materials or repair and recirculate defective products. One such workshop is La Bonne Combine (The Good Deal) in Switzerland.
As Mahatma Gandhi observed, “‘Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.” Let us hope that our civilisational progress will take this wisdom into account, and that common sense and ethics will not also become obsolete.
