{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","title":"Time for Things Labor, Leisure, and the Rise of Mass Consumption","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9780674250529","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","id":"10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","uuid":"10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","title":"Time for Things Labor, Leisure, and the Rise of Mass Consumption","normalized_title":"timeforthingslaborleisureandtheriseofmassconsumption","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9780674250529","isbns":["9780674250529","9780674250536","9780674979512"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":355,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Time%20for%20Things%20Labor%2C%20Leisure%2C%20and%20the%20Rise%20of%20Mass%20Consumption","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3/search"},"page":{"printed_page":237,"pdf_page":245,"physical_index":245,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"e561f5cbeb8dd48b3531d7a900600f472f3fbb7c5ebf44af59a153035f882372"},"chapter":"FOR","content":"7. The Response of Business to Accusations of Planned Obsolescence\n\nThe intensity of the concerns about planned obsolescence meant that companies, as well as individuals working in business and marketing, felt some pressure to address the issue. The response of business to planned obsolescence varied from sympathy, to puzzlement, to defensiveness, to leveraging the issue through marketing campaigns in order to increase sales. How business responded to the concerns about planned obsolescence sheds some oblique light on the nature of public worries about the matter.\n\nA significant number of people in business felt that the criticisms of planned obsolescence were justified. This is indicated by a survey of 10,000 “business executives” about the matter conducted by the Harvard Business Review in 1959. Of the 3,100 respondents, two-thirds agreed that “too large a part of our present economy is based on superficial product obsolescence.”39 Nonetheless, the gravity of the accusation that industry practiced planned obsolescence prompted many businesses to formulate some kind of defensive response. A number of diferent strategies were followed. One common strategy on the part of business to the controversy was to argue that, without planned obsolescence, there would be a shortfall in efective demand, which would damage the economy and therefore ultimately harm consumers by putting their jobs in jeopardy. Top GM executives, interviewed in a 1960 New York Times article, admitted that annual model changes were “one of the most highly controversial aspects of the automobile industry” but gave the practice a positive spin by describing it as a manifestation of the “challenge of change.” They argued that model changes were ultimately justifiable because of the supposed benefits of the practice for customers, workers, manufacturers, and the economy.40 In a somewhat similar vein, rapid model changes were portrayed by some business figures as necessary to achieve the economies of scale that ultimately made consumer durables afordable. John F. Gordon, GM president and chief operating oficer, defended his company’s practice of annual model change by arguing that “little or no annual change [in style] would cut sales, and hence make each car more expensive,” claiming that “the extra cost would be suficient to ofset any saving resulting from not changing models” (a view echoed by Herman F. Lehman, GM’s vice-president in charge of the Frigidaire division).41 If car owners did not “upgrade” their vehicles to new models every year, Gordon argued, they “would continue to use the same car as long as it gave satisfactory service. There would be no incentive to replace it. Obviously, this would cut our annual sales in half. . . . With volume reduced, each car would cost more to produce, and I am sure that this increased cost would more than ofset any saving resulting from not changing models.”42 The reasoning here is quite strange. On one level it sets out quite clearly the high-volume logic of Fordist industrial production while making an association between what works best for the manufacturer with large capital investments (stable and high demand) and the interests of the consumer. Yet it is entirely unclear what the benefit to the consumer is supposed to be, for the argument is quite circular. The argument is that frequent model changes are required in order to make cars cheap enough for them to be replaced more frequently than is, from a strictly functional point of view (the view according to which the function of a car is to transport people safely and comfortably from point A to point B), necessary. So rather than having one entirely serviceable car over a six-year period, the consumer comes to own several cars over that period. What is also striking about GM’s defense of its practice of frequent model changes is the conspicuous absence of the argument that value is a subjective matter—so if consumers want new cars, even though those that they own are still perfectly functional, that must be because there is genuine added value in newness. Rather, GM defended the practice of style obsolescence in terms of its role in stimulating real innovation, its importance in stabilizing the economy, and controlling price. GM’s executives were then justifying a rapid product cycle in terms of its positive efect on social welfare. The social benefit argument was extended to include the role of planned obsolescence in facilitating a healthy secondhand market, which made durables available to socioeconomic groups that would not otherwise be able to aford them.\n\nMoral Panic about Utility\n\n237","previous_page":236,"next_page":238}