Planned Obsolescence by Jonathan Bird (Translated by Spirit Pony)

The following article has been translated from Hebrew. It was written by Jonathan Bird, an activist at the Israeli section of the Venus Project. The article talks about planned obsolescence.

Planned obsolescence (deliberate malfunctioning that occurs after a certain amount of time)

Did you know? The industry nowadays deliberately produces products so that they'll break and malfunction after a given amount of time.It's not just hi-tech electronic devices like printers, computers, DVD players, iPods and other music players, but also refrigerators, kettles, laundry machines, cars, lamps, batteries, clothes, shoes, and so forth.Essentially, we're not using the technology that's available to us today, because of the current economy's perpetual need for consumption.

"Classical economics was predicated on the belief that nature was niggardly and that the human race was constantly confronted by the spectre of shortages... However, modern technology and the whole adventure of applying creative science to business have so tremendously increased the productivity of our factories and our fields that the essential economic problem has become one of organizing buyers rather than of stimulating producers. The essential and bitter irony of the present depression lies in the fact that millions of persons are deprived of a satisfactory standard of living at a time when the granaries and warehouses of the world are overstuffed with surplus supplies, which have so broken the price level as to make new production unattractive and unprofitable." -- Ending the Depression Through Planned Obsolescence, Bernard London, 1932.

Remember the old, huge, brick-like cellphones? They used to never break. Our cellphones today are engineered in such a fashion that'll cause them to continue working properly, just shortly until after the warranty has expired, and then they start to break and malfunction. This is not accidental.For example, many printers today have a chip that counts the number of times the printer has been used. After a given amount of printouts, the chip creates a deliberate malfunction in the printer**, which requires it to be taken to a technician for fixing. The cost of fixing the printer is usually higher than the cost of simply buying a new printer, and so continues the cycle of perpetual consumption...

Why is this? Let us ask ourselves: what would happen, had we used our current technological capabilities, to produce only the best and most durable products?Well, the need for purchasing new products and fixing existing products would decrease, meaning there would be less jobs and less growth.Essentially, had we used our current technology and knowledge to produce products, the economy, as we know it today, would cease to function entirely.

So wait, how did this happen?

In 1929, during the great depression, several "problems" were discovered in the economy, when products were simply "too good" and "lasted too long". Planned obsolescence is a mechanism that was "developed" to solve these "problems", which caused the market to become saturated (no further demand for products), in the eyes of economists.Planned obsolescence helps to maintain the situation of perpetual consumption.

Not only is planned obsolescence a huge waste of manpower and resources, it also creates a huge environmental pollution.If cars, batteries, lamps, kettles and so forth, would have lasted for 15 years or more, we wouldn't have seen the mountains of trash and waste products that our society produces.

That is not a necessity, it is the direct result of a failed economic system.