Where did the concept of planned obsolescence come from?
It stemmed from the 1920s in the United States, with obsolescence identified as the main means of ensuring economic prosperity. Christine Frederick, an early advocate of applying Frederick W. Tayler’s Scientific Management techniques in the home, became a convert and argued the case for obsolescence in a book, Selling Mrs. Consumer, published in 1929. “The machine and power era,” she wrote, “makes it not only possible but vital to apply in the home the doctrine of creative waste. By this term I mean the relaxation, by those of us who can afford it, of the old desperate grip most of us had upon values and utility in goods.” Instead of holding on to possessions, a readiness to “scrap” or lay aside a product before its natural life of usefulness was completed, in order to make way for the newer and better product, was now the essence of order. This included a willingness to apply a large share of one’s income, even if it pinches savings, to the acquisition of the new goods or services or
