Planned obsolescence

DEFINITION: Engineering of a product such that its style or function guarantees the product’s replacement after a given period of time

Manufacturers’ policies of planned obsolescence promote the sales of new products by ensuring that consumers will be prompted to replace the products they own at an optimal rate of consumption. Environmentalists have noted that planned obsolescence harms the environment in several ways, including by increasing waste and contributing to the consumption of resources.

Planned obsolescence was identified as a promising approach for the makers of consumer products as early as the 1920s, when mass production, well under way in the developed world, attracted exacting empirical research that exposed to analysis not only every minute aspect of production processes but also consumer spending practices. In 1932 Bernard London’s famed pamphlet Ending the Depression through Planned Obsolescence made a virtue of the process of planned obsolescence by blaming the Great Depression on consumers who used their old cars, radios, and clothing much longer than statisticians had expected they would.

The term "planned obsolescence" entered the popular vocabulary in 1954, when Brooks Stevens, an American industrial designer, used it in the title of an address he gave at an advertising conference in Minneapolis. Stevens defined planned obsolescence as instilling in the buyer the desire to own something a little newer, a little better, a little sooner than is necessary. By 1959, the phrase was in such broad everyday usage that Volkswagen was able to capitalize on it by turning the virtue into a vice, launching what would become a legendary advertising campaign that distinguished Volkswagen as the automobile manufacturer that did not believe in planned obsolescence.

Forms of Planned Obsolescence

Planned obsolescence was further sealed in the public consciousness as a vice rather than a virtue in 1960, when the cultural critic Vance Packard published his book The Waste Makers. This study of modern society exposed planned obsolescence as the systematic strategy of unscrupulous business leaders who were taking advantage of a mindless public of greedy and wasteful consumers, who in turn were fast becoming debt-ridden in a frantic race to feed their advertising-inflamed desires with products they did not need. Packard distinguished between two forms of planned obsolescence: obsolescence of desirability, or psychological obsolescence, which involves the continual evolution of the aesthetic design of products to manipulate consumers into believing the products are out-of-date, even when they remain functional; and obsolescence of function, which involves the purposeful engineering of products with technical or functional limitations that limit the products’ life spans so that customers will need to buy replacements.

A further form of planned obsolescence is systemic obsolescence, which is the practice of altering the systems in which certain products are used so that the products’ continued use becomes difficult or impossible within those system settings. Software companies often employ this practice in their design strategies, introducing new software that is incompatible with the previous generation of software and thereby rendering the older software effectively obsolete. The lack of compatibility between generations of software products forces consumers to purchase new software prematurely. Developers of computer hardware products sometimes employ similar strategies, designing new products that are incompatible with older parts and connector plugs. Another way in which manufacturers effect systemic obsolescence is to cease production of replacement parts for older products and to stop offering maintenance services for those products.

Influence on Consumers

Planned obsolescence is a tempting policy for manufacturers because it trains the public in consuming practices that have high potential to increase sales of consumer products. Under the influence of planned obsolescence policy, consumers move beyond the limited realm of necessity purchasing and into the infinite realm of desire. From vehicles to deodorants, from real estate to technological products, people are conditioned to replace their belongings, not because their possessions no longer serve them well but simply because those belongings have been around for a while.

As fierce competition in globalizing trade markets puts growing pressure on producers to increase profits, planned obsolescence becomes an increasingly powerful temptation in corporate decision making about product engineering. Manufacturing companies constantly seek to minimize production costs, often using the least expensive components they can find, many of which are produced in countries where regulations on manufacturing processes are weak or nonexistent. Such practices further ensure that products will enjoy life spans that barely exceed their warranty periods.

Planned obsolescence has been a powerful force in shaping consumer practices across the globe. Arguments for and against planned obsolescence remain appealing to both producers and consumers. Producers defend planned obsolescence as an essential driving force behind product innovation and economic growth. They highlight its tendency to promote research and product development, pointing to the many products that have become less expensive, more useful, and better designed as a result of planned obsolescence policies. Although consumers resent the idea that functional everyday products are designed to break easily, they rarely complain about the policy of planned obsolescence as it pertains to the latest fashions and exciting new gadgets.

Although public outcry is muted, there is little doubt that planned obsolescence policies cause significant harm to society and to the environment. In encouraging consumption at the highest levels, planned obsolescence is hardly good for consumers, many of whom go into debt for the sake of owning products they really do not need. Continual replacement of products also results in the depletion of natural resources and increasing rates of environmental pollution, as new products are manufactured to keep up with consumer demand. What to do with old products that are replaced poses a growing challenge as well, as waste management has become an immense problem, especially in the cities of industrialized nations. Landfill space has become increasingly hard to find, and some consumer wastes, such as cast-off electronic devices (electronic waste), pose special pollution problems because they contain toxic components.

Environmentalists argue that consumers should seek to reduce their consumption of new products, reuse those already existing products they can, and recycle whatever materials they can from products that are no longer useful in their original forms. In these ways, people can counter the results of manufacturer policies of planned obsolescence.

Bibliography

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