Made to Break
I picked this book up last week. It is a fascinating read and helps to explain how American ideas of disposable good have shaped global capitalism and created a planet of waste.
If you’ve replaced a computer lately–or a cell phone, a camera, a television–chances are, the old one still worked. And chances are even greater that the latest model won’t last as long as the one it replaced. Welcome to the world of planned obsolescence–a business model, a way of life, and a uniquely American invention that this eye-opening book explores from its beginnings to its perilous implications for the very near future.
Made to Break is a history of twentieth-century technology as seen through the prism of obsolescence. America invented everything that is now disposable, Giles Slade tells us, and he explains how disposability was in fact a necessary condition for America’s rejection of tradition and our acceptance of change and impermanence. His book shows us the ideas behind obsolescence at work in such American milestones as the inventions of branding, packaging, and advertising; the contest for market dominance between GM and Ford; the struggle for a national communications network, the development of electronic technologies–and with it the avalanche of electronic consumer waste that will overwhelm America’s landfills and poison its water within the coming decade.
Filed under: Giles Slade, Upset The Setup, obsolescence | 8 Comments
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I really appreciate the fact that people are still reading and getting a lot out of Made To Break. It won an award for best environmental book of the year last summer and has recently come out in paperback. I live in Canada where it’s hard to buy any book from Harvard University Press, but my friends in the States say they see it in a lot of bookstores. This makes me really happy. We have to change our habits of consumption and I wrote Made To Break to show people that the gluttonous level of consumption we now accept as normal is the result of an ideology that was deliberately constructed by manufacturers and marketers during the twentiety century. Now, these old-school habits are producing levels of toxic waste that endanger the planet. Time to deprogram ourselves and our children. Thanks for the mention. Giles Slade
Dont forget about perceived obsolescence! thats the tactic used to sucker us into throwing our perfectly good stuff away and buy new stuff just to keep up with the Jones’
there is a good teaching video at
http://www.storyofstuff.com/
that takes you from raw material to land fill.
Tell the children the truth!
I first learned about the concept of obsolescence and the logic of recycling from my Gramma who is an Iowa Republican and now 92. She was married in the dust bowl during the great depression (her first engagement ring was made from a chewing gum wrapper folded into a “silver” band), and raised two children during the depression. She washed tin foil, plastic bags and glass jars and reused them. She grew her own vegetables and strawberries. She had the toaster FIXED when it was not working anymore. She put a layer on when she was cold, and took a layer off when she was hot. These were not (and are not) concepts and actions that belonged to a political ideology. They were the response to the very real threat of running out of everything you needed.
This could be one of the most important conversations of our lifetime. The money and power behind manufacturing ‘products’ drives golbal economies, politics and environments.
I cant wait to read Made to Break, I hope to borrow it from UTS then pass it along to the next. I wont buy it new because I dont need to, but would love to send the author a direct donation for his very improtant work…
I used a Palm IIIxe for almost eight years before I finally upgraded, and that was because I finally found an affordable smart phone solution that let me cut one gadget out of my life (thanks for reminding me to send off this used cell phone recycling envelope.) Folks would clown but that old Palm did everything I needed it to do. I worked my Win95 PC until 2004 when it was no longer compatible with the drivers required by my other gear, then I gave it to a friend who desperately needed a machine with which to do some writing. It could have kept going because I added RAM, a hard drive and was diligent with my spyware/virus/defragging routines. I was running Cubase, SoundForge, recording entire projects on that thing and burning CD promos. Not too bad for a Packard Bell P.O.S.
I’ve got tons of stories about my own aggravating experiences with the buy and replace culture.
The built-in wireless on my laptop died and I was either getting ridiculously costly quotes on fixing it or advice that I should just get a new machine. I ended up buying a wireless card that while relatively inexpensive was not my preferred solution.
I was repairing some fixtures in my bathroom and was at Home Depot looking for CLR to clean off the hard water mineral deposits. The sales associate looked at me like I was dumb and told me that no one does that and I should just buy new fixtures. Of course he might have just been trying to get me to spend money but I left and got a $1.50 bottle of white vinegar from the bodega instead. A few new washers and other doodads and some elbow grease and it was all good.
I’m getting a migraine just thinking about what’s going to happen when analog television ends. Recycling options are already proliferating and you can also retrofit an older television for digital signals but I think most Americans are just going to put their tv out for bulk trash pickup and scoot right to the local big box store to scratch that newness itch.
I’ve always been technologically savvy but for me technology is about finding the right solution to meet a specific need. Once that need is met I’m not upgrading based on style whims. Word to old software.
Word up Stylus – I’ve been making beats recording mixes doing vocals on old PCs for a minute now. Its funny how cats get all oh I need an Intel Mac and Protools to home record…Hopefully the linux audio apps will get better, because there is no reason cats like us cant to do quality in house production on a pentium 4…
This all has me thinking about Hip Hop’s role in perpetuating the perceived obsolescence of goods (phones, gear, etc etc etc…) More on that later.
My first attempt at going to college came in the fall of 93. At the time I was still convinced that the whole “computer revolution” was a passing fad and struggled through the first semester with the electric typewriter that carried me through highschool. Eventually swallowed my pride and bought a seniors obsolete computer (At&T PC 6300 still sitting in my closet)which used a giant floppy format which I couldn’t get outside of radio shack.
I currently have that, a MAc Centris 650 that I was using till about 96, and the Mac Powerbook 145B that I used through 02.
What am I supposed to do with these things? I’m a guy who likes listening to my two 78 players and refuses to just throw things away if still ave a possible use. I can’t turn on the Powerbook anymore but would really like to get my papers off of it.
tkg, keep em until you go back to school again. then maybe you can get extra credit for a history degree. j/k – dc does some municipal e-recylcing 2x a year. I will post when it comes close…
So my cellphone finally dies and I go to Sprint Store in Silver Spring.
I haven’t purchased a new cell phone in about 5 years and the guy at the counter says to me:
“Hey you’re local!!”
Me: “yeah”
Salesman: “How come I never see you hanging out round here?”
Me: “Round here?”
Salesman: “Yeah I never see you hanging out in the store here”
FUCK!!!
I look around and realize that cellphone stores have become the record stores, book stores of the 21st century. Place people hang out and socially window shop and occasionally buy whatever upgrades or new phones get their attention. People were behaving the same the way I might loiter in Kramer Books and then buy an interesting book that I probably will never read.
People go to the Sprint store to hang out.
I was blown by the whole thing.
It’s not just planned obsolescence. But apparently phones have become the functional equivalent of books, magazines, records…with stores filling similar social functions as record stores, book stores or magazine stores.