Planned Obsolescence

One Dimensional Man (1964)

Advertising, public relations, indoctrination, planned obsolescence are no longer unproductive overhead costs but rather elements of basic production costs.

Industrialization and capitalism (1965 [1964 in German])

Planned obsolescence, methodical anti-reason become social necessities.

The individual in the great society (November 1965)

Even today, long before the start on the road to a free society, the war on poverty might be waged far more effectively by a redirection rather than increase of production, by the elimination of productivity from the areas of socially necessary waste, planned obsolescence, armament, publicity, manipulation.

It is perhaps conceivable that something like full employment can be attained by an expanding war or defense economy, plus an expanding production of waste, status symbols, planned obsolescence, and parasitarian services.

Generally, and perhaps most important, reconstruction would require the elimination of all planned obsolescence, which has become an essential prop for the system inasmuch as it insures the necessary turnover and the competitive rat race.

Obsolescence of socialism (April 1965)

The system tries to overcome this difficulty through intensified productivity of labor, enlarged reproduction of the military establishment, planned obsolescence, psychological exploitation superimposed on (and covering up) economic exploitation: systematic stimulation of demand, "synthetic" creation of needs.

And aggressiveness permeates the language of the politicians and newspapers, the images of the mass media, the profitable commercial violation of nature, the productive process itself: in planned obsolescence, safety last, etc., the growing militarization of society, and is mobilized, sanctioned, and financed by the U.S. Congress: quote Senator Russell.

Repressive tolerance (1965)

The toleration of the systematic moronization of children and adults alike by publicity and propaganda, the release of destructiveness in aggressive driving, the recruitment for and training of special forces, the impotent and benevolent tolerance toward outright deception in merchandizing, waste, and planned obsolescence are not distortions and aberrations, they are the essence of a system which fosters tolerance as a means for perpetuating the struggle for existence and suppressing the alternatives.

Against the emphatic insistence on the part of spokesmen for labor, I maintain that practices such as planned obsolescence, collusion between union leadership and management, slanted publicity are not simply imposed from above on a powerless rank and file, but are tolerated by them and the consumer at large.

Socialist humanism? (1965)

Humanism must remain ideology as long as society depends on continued poverty, arrested automation, mass media, prevented birth control, and on the creation and re-creation of masses, of noise and pollution, of planned obsolescence and waste, and of mental and physical rearmament.

Obsolescence of Marxism (1966)

For this state is faced with the increasing difficulty of absorbing the rising economic surplus, which is itself a result of the rising productivity of labor. Temporarily this difficulty is overcome by the intensified productivity of labor, by the reproduction of a huge military establishment, by planned obsolescence and by scientific stimulation of needs and of demand.

Liberation from the affluent society (1967)

And it is a society growing on the condition of accelerating waste, planned obsolescence and destruction, while the substratum of the population continues to live in poverty and misery.

Aggressiveness in Advanced Industrial Societies (1968)

Its main characteristics are: (1) an abundant industrial and technical capacity which is to a great extent spent in the production and distribution of luxury goods, gadgets, waste, planned obsolescence, military or semimilitary equipment – in short, in what economists and sociologists used to call ‘unproductive’ goods and services; (2) a rising standard of living, which also extends to previously underprivileged parts of the population; (3) a high degree of concentration of economic and political power, combined with a high degree of organization and government intervention in the economy; (4) scientific and pseudoscientific investigation, control, and manipulation of private and group behavior, both at work and at leisure (including the behavior of the psyche, the soul, the unconscious, and the subconscious) for commercial and political purposes.

The movement in a new era of repression: An assessment (1971)

Most generally, the blatant conflict between the vast productive forces and their private control and utilization, demands the increasing restriction, perversion, and distortion of the productive forces. It demands constantly renewed planned obsolescence and waste.

The reification of the proletariat (1979)

In this greatly enlarged working class, the gap between intellectual and material labour is being reduced, knowledge and education are generalized ; however, these achievements are invalidated to the degree to which the system reproduces itself through the productivity of unproductive labour, which does not increase the social wealth, but rather destroys and abuses it through the production of waste, planned obsolescence, a self- propelling armament industry, management of consciousness and subconsciousness, etc .

Under these circumstances, a "counter-consciousness" emerges among the dependent population (today about 90% of the total?), an awareness of the ever more blatant obsolescence of the established social division and organization of work.