In the next two chapter sections, drawing on matters discussed earlier in the book, I consider on a more general and theoretical level the significance of the controversy around planned obsolescence. The sections explore two distinct but related themes. The first, which has been touched on throughout this chapter, is the possible connections between the concern about planned obsolescence and the moral foundations of mid-century corporatist capitalism. The second is what the controversy reveals about the relationship between aesthetics and use value.
- Planned Obsolescence and the Moral Economy of Mid-century Corporatist Capitalism
There are a number of plausible explanations for the decline in the concern about planned obsolescence from its peak in the 1960s. Although the auto industry backed away somewhat from the practice in the early 1970s, in the economy as a whole planned obsolescence, in the form of frequent model changes, had by that time become ubiquitous. Perhaps by the last quarter of the century the practices associated with planned obsolescence had become so widespread that they, in efect, dropped into the background, becoming part of the taken-for-granted framework of the consumer economy. Alternatively, Detroit’s retreat from yearly model changes might have placated the current of opinion that fixed on that as the most egregious manifestation of planned obsolescence. Or maybe it was simply that any moral disturbance tends, in the absence of further provocations, or because of the intrusion of new ones of an entirely diferent sort, to run its course. Outrage, after all, takes some efort to sustain, and there are many competing demands on people’s energy and attention in modern life. Another possible explanation for the fading of concerns about planned obsolescence is that consumer durables themselves changed in nature, becoming increasingly technological. Consumer durables, construed as technological artifacts, are inscribed in a narrative of inexorable product progress, according to which technical obsolescence is inevitable. And indeed, the rate of actual technical progress, demonstrated for example by the success of Moore’s law at predicting the rate of increase of computer processor speed, must have made the “dynamic” or “progressive obsolescence” interpretation of the rapidity of the consumer product cycle seem more convincing. Perhaps people came to agree with Charles Babbage’s (1832) contention that obsolescence is a natural process in an industrial economy.
Moral Panic about Utility
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