Ending the depression through planned obsolescence

by Bernard London

My plan would rectify the fundamental inequalities of our present economic system, in which we follow a hit-or-miss method, one getting much more than he needs or can use, and another less or nothing. We should learn to use our material resources so that all can partake of them, yet so that none will be any poorer or worse off than today.

In our present haphazard organization, the product of the worker’s toil continues to benefit and produce income for its owner long after the one whose sweat created it has spent and exhausted the meagre compensation he received for his labor.

The worker’s wages are exhausted in a week or a month in the purchase of food, clothing and shelter. He has for himself little that is permanent to show for his hours of toil, whereas the owner of the building or machine which the worker’s labor helped to construct has a unit of capital goods which will last for years or even decades. The man who performed the work received as compensation only enough to purchase comfort and sustenance for a short time, and he must continue to labor if he wishes to go on living. The product of the worker’s hand, however, is a semi-permanent thing and produces income for its owner for an indefinite period of years. In the end, not only is the original cost of production repaid and interest yield on the investment, but far more besides. This very lasting quality of the product of the worker’s toil results to his disadvantage, for a time comes such as we are passing through today, when there is an excess of capital goods and the worker is told: “We have enough production of wealth; we are going to use up what we have and need no more for the present. You laborer, go and find work elsewhere. We do not need you now.”

And so the worker, whose sweat wrought this vast store of material goods, suffers from poverty and want, while the country is glutted with everything. My plan would correct this obviously inequitable situation by arbitrarily limiting the return to capital, to a stipulated period of years, after which the benefits would revert to the people.

The situation in which the country now finds itself, in which there is poverty amidst plenty, is well illustrated by the analogy of a great giant standing in a pool of fresh water up to his lips, yet crying out that he is thirsty because he is paralyzed and cannot stoop to drink. His muscles must be enabled to relax, for him to bend down in order that he may quench his thirst. So, too, the paralysis which prevents our economic society from consuming the abundant supplies of raw materials and manufactured commodities which glut our markets must be cured before normal conditions can be restored.

Furniture and clothing and other commodities should have a span of life, just as humans have. When used for their allotted time, they should be retired, and replaced by fresh merchandise. It should be the duty of the State as the regulator of business to see that the system functions smoothly, deciding matters for capital and labor and seeing that everybody is sufficiently employed. The Government will have the power to extend the life of articles for a year or two (upon agreed terms), if they are still useable after their allotted time has expired and if employment can be maintained at a high peak without their replacement.

If a machine has been functioning steadily for five years or so, it can fairly be considered dead—dead to the one who paid his money for it—because he has had all the use of it during those five years and it will have paid for its life by its earnings in the five-year period. Then it should go to the workmen, through the State; its life can be prolonged if the factories are already busy and there are no unemployed. But if by its replacement idle workers can be given jobs and closed factories reopened, then this machine should be destroyed and new (and probably improved) apparatus produced in its place.

The original span of life of a commodity would be determined by competent engineers, economists and mathematicians, specialists in their fields, on behalf of the Government.

In the course of 30 years under this arrangement, most construction and production would undergo a fundamental change for the better, as old, dilapidated and obsolete buildings and machines disappeared and new ones appeared in their place.

During this period some manufactured commodities would have been destroyed and replaced 15 times, others 10 times, still others 5 times, etc., depending on the span of life allotted to each, in order for it to earn sufficient for its purpose before it dies. We must work on the principle of nature, which creates and destroys, and carries the process of elimination and replacement through the ages. There would be no overproduction, were this method adopted, for production and consumption would be regularized and adjusted to each other, and it would no longer be necessary to send our surplus goods to find outlet in foreign markets. We would not then, as we do today, have to sell these goods on credit and later have to beg for our money, which in the long run foreign nations do not want to repay anyway.