Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/06/15
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 05:25 AM 6/15/06 -0400, Chandos Michael Brown wrote: >I'm curious, Marc, where in Veblen you find a critique of "planned >obsolescence?" He had a keen eye for the vicarious and the conspicuous (and >I often talk about the culture of Leica when I teach Veblen), but I just >don't recall, after many years of assigning him in the classroom, that he >has much to say about this subject. Alfred Sloane came along just as Veblen >was shuffling off this mortal coil, and the phrase itself, "planned >obsolescence" is a neologism of the twenties and thirties, and grew out, so >far as I understand, of the automotive industry, about which Veblen had >little to say. > >I'm reasonably well read in the literature of consumer culture in 19th >century America, and this is the first I've heard that this practice >consciously articulated itself during that century. Chandos You are absolutely correct and I mis-spoke: it has been more than two years since I have taught Veblen and my copy of his works is buried away pending our move. I ought not work from memory, even on tangential points. I should have written that the concept of "planned obsolescence" dated to the 1920's or before and that the term was first concocted by Brooks Stevens in 1954. It gradually entered the popular vocabulary and was attacked by Vance Packard in 1960 in his THE WASTE MAKERS, a book which took Stevens to task for his advocacy of planned obsolescence. Sorry for the error. Marc msmall@aya.yale.edu Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!