Re: OT Hot paper

[Harry Binswanger hb@xxxxxxxx]

Flash wrote:
> There are other important factors, too. For example, the need for
> corporations to occupy a workforce steadily. Supposing the ten-year light
> bulb could be made profitably, as Harry describes. Supposing it would
> require some slightly longer amount of time to build one of them than to
> build the sort which lasts only one year. What is the workforce going to
> do the rest of the nine years waiting for the first generation of bulbs to
> burn out? The manufacturer is going to pay them to sit around on their
> buttocks?
I don't follow you here. Light bulbs aren't sold to only one customer.
There's no waiting around, it's a permanent change in the structure of
production. If it takes less labor to make the more durable light bulb,
that's a *good* thing. The labor that had to be used in the production of
light bulbs is not available for the next-most urgent task (as signalled by
the wage rates, according to supply and demand).
> Also, most consumers buy on price (that's how Wal-Mart got to be the
> world's number one retailer); only a few consumers buy quality regardless
> of price. And even those who do buy quality, don't buy everything on
> quality. They buy only some things for quality regardless of price, and
> the rest they buy on price. One consumer might buy a top quality
> automobile and his light bulbs on price; the next consumer might buy
> quality light bulbs but cut-rate cars.
Yes. The job of the company is to produce whatever the public, through it's
dollar-votes, demands. If more people want cheap, disposable products (a
preference not to be faulted), businesses should and will supply them
instead of the higher-quality more durable versions. My point is that this
means the opposite of "planned obsolescence"--which is supposed to be some
nefarious business practice foisted on unwilling consumers. Put it this
way: if the consumer *wants* "obsolescence"--products that are cheaper but
less durable--the "planning" here is being done by the consumers not the
businesses.


Harry Binswanger
hb@xxxxxxxx