Planned Obsolescence
In The Story of Stuff video, Annie Leonard explains how the economy works by extraction, to production, to distribution, to consumption, to disposal; however, I believe that all this wouldn't work if it weren't for the consumption by people. Leonard also mentions that President Eisenhower's Council of Economic Advisor Chairman said that "The American economy's ultimate purpose is to produce more consumers’ goods." In addition, Leonard says that idea of consumption works by two strategies which are "planned obsolesce" and "perceive obsolesce" that makes people think that they have to buy useless stuff continuously and put their priorities aside such as healthcare, education and justice. We live in a world where the most important thing is money and what for people want money? People don't want money because they worry about food of everyday. Moreover, they are worry about fashion and to have luxuries that only money can gives, so people will feel "happy."
The idea of consumption is not only about our needs, but also about fashion and luxuries. For example, people not only want a pair of shoes, a jacket, a bag or a cell phone, but they want all these items from brands like COACH, GUCCI, JORDAN or Apple thinking that they would look better with them on it. In addition, they want the entire collection if it’s possible, so they continue buying stuff. Also I know people that buy shoes a lot, and they still have shoes from last year never wore it. Some of my friends change their cell phone every time that a new generation of the i Phone comes out and they don’t know what to do with their old ones. People buy a lot of stuff all the time without thinking on how much it cost because there are people who can afford it, and those who cannot would do anything until they do. Moreover, we are not conscious about where all these stuff comes from or where will go to.
Annie Leonard states that the rate of happiness went down since the 1950’s at the same time that the “planned obsolescence” started to be on. Some German philosophers argue that people confuse happiness with pleasure. Therefore, they think that they are happy when buying stuff. For instance, Christmas holidays everyone thinks about presents to give and buy. All the stores have publicity using images of families sharing and having good time, but presents all around. People are convinced that they need to buy and get stuff in order to have nice moments with family when in reality what it makes them happy is to share time without conditions of money or luxuries.
In conclusion, we should start thinking not only what or how to get stuff but the consequences before and after in order to make sure that what we get makes us happy and not unhappy to others. As Annie Leonard said, “People created it, and we are people too, so let’s create something new.”
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