Close but no Citroen
France is considering a law to forbid Planned Obsolescence. Seems to be properly aimed at ONE type of obsolescence, but it's not the type that matters most.

Planned Obsolescence actually comprises four distinct practices.

(1) Long-standing trick in women's clothing. New fashion every year. Your status drops if you continue wearing last year's style. Copied by many other industries like automobiles and appliances.

(2) Bigger version of 1. Build new neighborhoods and malls, create new kinds of jobs, abandon the old neighborhoods and jobs. Your status drops if you remain in last year's suburb or continue shopping in last year's mall. Your life ends if you have deeply mastered the skills of last year's job.

(3) Make things that can't be repaired. No user-serviceable parts. When one piece wears out, you have to replace the whole gadget.

(4) In electronic gadgets like printers, include a usage meter in the firmware. After a certain number of uses or hours, the device dies even though it's still physically OK. (Might call it the Alzheimer chip.)

= = = = =

This French law seems to be aimed mainly at (4) and partly at (1). It's solely about conserving materials, which is a good thing ... but it does nothing for HUMAN CAPITAL.

Polistra has been focusing on (2) and (3) for a long time. Both of these practices waste materials AND human capital.

When gadgets are designed to be REPAIRABLE, you keep them and value them more highly. More value means more pay for the people who make the gadgets in the first place, and non-outsourceable jobs for the repairmen.

When neighborhoods and jobs last longer, civilization grows deeper. Families and workers aren't spending half their energy on moving and adapting to new situations. Creativity increases as job skills and social skills become more unconscious.

Labels: infill, Гром победы

  ¶ 3:35 AM