13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An interesting look at obsolescence, October 26, 2006
Giles Slade opens this monograph with a flurry of astounding facts: in 2004, 315 million working PCs were thrown out in North America alone, and in the following year over 100 million cell phones joined them on the trashheap. That's tons of electronic equipment-larded with non-biogradable components and toxic waste-filling up garbage dumps around the world.
What drives this rush to trash? According to Slade, it obsolescence, rather than failure. Your last computer likely didn't wear out-you junked it because a faster, lighter, and spiffier one came out.
Since the Great Depression, it's been clear that consumption, rather than production, drives the economy. With America getting more efficient at producing goods, it follows that, to precent another economic downturn, someone has to convince people to buy more goods.
Slade traces the roots of "repetitive consumption back to the beginnings of branding and packaging in the middle of the 19th century. Over time, the American ethic of thrift collapsed before social pressures to buy new, rather than save the old. The first several chapters nicely sketch the cultural changes-and their underlying economic drivers-that created the annual model change. Similarly, producers began obliquely discussing "planned obsolescene." This could mean, in the case of automobiles, that the customer would decide on his own to buy a more up-to-date car in the latest model, or, in some cases, that internal components unable to be replaced would fail after a set lifespan. "Death dating" products was a controversial practice, but many in various industries (particularly consumer electronics) supported it.
The author is at his best when he is talking about the pivotal players-such as GM's Alfred Sloan and RCA's David Sarnoff-and the modern development of planned obsolescence. He also deftly handles the transition from mechanical obsolescence to psychological obsolescence-the thing that makes some people buy a new car every two years, despite the fact that their old one still works fine. Advertising and marketing efforts convinced the public that, in almost every case, newer was better. Slade uncovers just how our disposable goods, from razors to Razrs, came to be.
The book veers slightly in a chapter on "Weaponizing Obsolescence," which details a compex scheme under which American counter-espionage agents allowed the Soviets to "steal" plans for technology that was designed to fail. While it's a compelling story-you can easily see that this is a screenplay in the making-it takes the book a little off course, and might have been better as a standlone article or book in its own right. Also, there might have been more discussion of another force driving disposable electronics: rising wages and lower costs of finished goods. The parts needed to repair your broken DVD player are probably not expensive, but buying an hour of a trained mechanic's time to repair it is likely more than the original cost. Therefore, it makes more sense to throw it out and buy anew than to get it fixed. Surely, that's got just as much to do with the rise of disposabiltiy as clever marketing.
All in all, this is a good book that raises many troubling questions, particuarly this one: what are we going to do with all of our "obsolete" trash? I recommend it for anyone who's interested in the history of technology, the economy, or consumer electronics.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Smart, engaging history, October 13, 2006
This book ain't perfect. Slade neglects to carefully distinguish planned obsolescence from other sorts. And the Cold War chapter really doesn't belong in the book. But there are no conspiracy theories here; the only conspiracy in Slade's argument is the profit motive. That is, to the extent that selling products with a short lifespan is more profitable than the alternative, companies will seek to do it. Far from being a lunatic "theory," this is marketing 101. And Slade -- as Vance Packard did before him -- documents it with the words of marketers themselves.
Libertarians who believe that the market delivers only teddy bears and chocolates aren't going to like this book. But for the rest of us, it's an engaging, critical look at how we got to a place where $400 music players and fancy cell phones have become throwaway items.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Superior Text on the Question of Permanence, May 20, 2010
This review is from: Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America (Paperback)
I had read "Made to Break" years ago, as a teenager, and I remember it being the first nonfiction book I really liked. It opened doors for me, and I went with gusto into such classic texts as "The World Without Us" and Jared Diamond's dense-but-meaningful "Collapse." "Made to Break" got me ready for stuff like that.
It was therefore with some surprise that I found the book to be much narrower in scope than I had remembered it to be. Although it deals with broad trends of the 19th, 20th and early 21st centuries, it goes through them more as a series of museum exhibits than as flowing phenomena (as "The World Without Us" does, for instance). Readers are reintroduced to such inborn phenomena as the yearly model change, the Cold War and what it really means to own a cell phone. Even though Slade is working outward from example, rather than inward from concepts in abstraction, the text is never confusing and rarely boring.
Those who question consumer society at all, whether in whole or in part, would do well to have a look into the events that brought us to where we stand today - and what it means when something is indeed made to break.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
![[Start the discussion]](http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/x-locale/communities/discussion_boards/start-new-discussion-sec._V192250339_.gif){kind=small}
