Review: Made To
Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America
By Giles Slade
Reviewed by Byron Anderson
Northern Illinois
University, USA
Giles
Slade. Made To Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 2006. 330 pp. ISBN: 0-674-02203-3 (hardcover);
US$27.95.
"Will
America's pyramids be pyramids of waste?" (p. 7). Made To Break
explores America's troubling technological waste problem, particularly e-wastes
with their high levels of permanent biological toxins (PBTs) from arsenic to
beryllium, cadmium, and others. This book concerns technological innovations
and obsolescence in all its various forms-technological, psychological, and
planned. Planned obsolescence is defined an "assortment of techniques used
to artificially limit the durability of a manufactured good in order to
stimulate repetitive consumption" (p. 5). Slade provides a 20th
century historical background to explain how we have reached the point of
producing an endless volume of e-waste products, from cheap throwaway
calculators to continuously upgraded cell phones. A lot of background material
is provided on the frenetic pace of computer development and obsolescence, with
a focus on microchips, word processing, and video games.
Planned
obsolescence, also called death dating, of products and goods is a uniquely
American invention that permeates many aspects of our lives. For example, the
automobile industry discovered early on that consumers were willing to trade up
for style, a discovery that led to the annual model change. Even national
defense is not immune to the lure of continual production and rapid-upgrades of
weapon systems. Slade supports this assertion concerning weapons upgrading with
some fascinating accounts of espionage and deception in the international arms
trade business.
As
American manufacturers learned how to exploit obsolescence, consumers
increasingly came to accept it. The book shows how repetitive consumption is
tied in with advertising, packaging and branding. The notions of "new and
improved" and "the next best thing" are incorporated as
techniques used to get good products to go out of style and be discarded. Other
techniques artificially limit the durability of manufactured goods as a means
of stimulating consumption. Rather than build a product that lasts a long time,
manufacturers shorten product life spans on purpose to create more sales and
counter overproduction. Product obsolescence became part of the nation's
promotion of progress and change which, in turn, stimulated the economy,
becoming for many a way to make money.
Made
to Break
is not an environmental indictment of society's waste or a laundry list of what
to do about e-wastes. Rather, it presents facts concerning e-wastes and allows
readers to draw their own conclusions. Slade does, however, conclude that
manufacturers will have to modify their practices and suggests that design
strategies should "include not just planned obsolescence but planned
disassembly and reuse as part of the product life cycle" (p. 281).
Slade,
an independent scholar and freelance writer, continues many of the ideas put
forth by economist Thorstein Veblen (conspicuous
consumption), journalist and social critic Vance Packard (subliminal
consumption), and others. The text is referenced and has a subject index. The
historical accounts alone make the book worth reading. Recommended.
Byron
Anderson <banderson@niu.edu>,
Acting Associate Dean for Public Services, Northern Illinois University,
University Libraries, DeKalb, IL 60115 USA. TEL: 815-753-9804, FAX:
815-753-2003.
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Electronic
Green Journal,
Issue 25, 2007
ISSN: 1076-7975