Planned Obsolescence Quotes

• Perhaps it is this specter that most haunts working men and women: the planned obsolescence of people that is of a piece with the planned obsolescence of the things they make. Or sell.

  Studs Terkel

  Men, People, Pieces

  Studs Terkel (1975). “Working”, HarperCollins

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• Armaments, universal debt and planned obsolescence - those are the three pillars of Western prosperity.

  Aldous Huxley

  Civilization, Three, Debt

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• Planned obsolescence is not really a new concept. God used it with people.

  Robert Orben

  Funny Life, People, Used

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• Our whole economy is based on planned obsolescence.

  Brooks Stevens

  Environmental, Sustainability, Economy

  Quoted in Vance Packard The Waste Makers (1960), ch.6. This is thought to be the first use of the phrase 'planned obsolescence'.

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• Our whole economy is based on planned obsolescence, and anyone who can read without moving his lips should know it by now.

  Brooks Stevens

  Moving On, Moved On, Lips

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• Our whole economy is based on planned obsolescence...we make good products, we induce people to buy them, and then the next year we deliberately introduce something that will make these products old-fashioned, out of date, obsolete.

  Brooks Stevens

  Years, People, Next Year

  Quoted in Vance Packard The Waste Makers (1960), ch.6. This is thought to be the first use of the phrase 'planned obsolescence'.

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• In an age of multiple and massive innovations, obsolescence becomes the major obsession.

  Marshall McLuhan

  Innovation, Age, Obsession

  "Innovation is obsolete". Evergreen review, Volume 15, Issues 86-94, Grove Press, (p. 64), 1971.

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• Armaments, universal debt, and planned obsolescence - those are the three pillars of Western prosperity. If war, waste, and moneylenders were abolished, you'd collapse. And while you people are overconsuming the rest of the world sinks more and more deeply into chronic disaster.

  Aldous Huxley

  War, People, Three

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• Planned obsolescence is another word for progress.

  James Jeffrey Roche

  Progress, Obsolescence

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• Only one rational path is open to us - simultaneous de-development of the [overdeveloped countries] and semi-development of the underdeveloped countries (UDCs), in order to approach a decent and ecologically sustainable standard of living for all in between. By de-development we mean lower per-capita energy consumption, fewer gadgets, and the abolition of planned obsolescence.

  John Holdren

  Country, Mean, Order

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• The more subtle thing is more speculative. The world is well past its long-term carrying capacity for human beings living a European, much less an American, lifestyle predicated on planned obsolescence. International economic growth is largely a matter of accelerated movement of materials from mines and forests to the dump. Instead of saving and buying decent furniture we can pass on to our children, we charge our credit cards for shaped heaps of sawdust and glue that fall apart in less than three or four years.

  Denis Hayes

  Children, Fall, Past

  "The Rumpus Interview with Earth Day organiser Denis Hayes". Interview with Melissa Price, therumpus.net. April 22, 2009.

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• But planned obsolescence is possible only if the rate of technological change is contained.

  David Harvey

  Technological Change, Obsolescence, Rate

  "The Limits To Capital". Book by David Harvey, 1982.

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• Publishers, naturally, loathe used books and have developed strategies to depress the secondhand market. They bring out new, even more expensive editions of popular textbooks every three to four years, in a classic cycle of planned obsolescence.

  James Surowiecki

  Depressing, Book, Years

  "Class Action". www.newyorker.com. November 7, 2005.

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• Rant said that view of time was set up so folks won't live forever. It's the planned obsolescence we've all agreed to...'Nothing says you have to swallow this,' Rant told me. 'You can always just die.

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Views, Forever, Obsolescence

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• Like Godard, Tati is also remarkably appreciative of the odd beauty that can be revealed in the shapes, patterns and colors created by the technology of planned obsolescence.

  Vincent Canby

  Technology, Color, Shapes

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