Imagine if we made extremely durable things. Things that worked well for a very long time.
Then, we basically have to make one for every person, and then shut down our factory.
However, if you are a factory owner, you would like to have everyone continue to buy your products so that you can continue to make money. After spending your life building up the factory (or lives, as in Ford Motor Company) you are used to your income, and you don't want to give that up.
The path forward is clear, build things that fail, so that you can continue to make the things, and selling them, over and over again. Well, that is what the major corporations (the monopoly) decided to do. Instead of going down a path of providing the best product per price, something that could last a very long time, and then, when they have reached saturation, scale back production.
If you make something that doesn't last, are you selling it, or are you just renting it until the warranty expires? The next step, of course, is to just rent/lease the item. Forever getting payments, and the corporation provides the minimum it can.
This is not capitalism
What we live in today isn't anything we have a name for. Most people are taught that this is what Capitalism is, and this is just the way the markets work. We are taught that monopolies cannot exist in a free market. And then, are told that what we have is a free market.
There is no competition between corporations. Coke vs Pepsi is an illusion. Like the Steelers vs the Cowboys. It is a game, and it is just an illusion of advertising. And for advertising. (most of our programming comes from advertisements)
Ford is not outdesigning Chevy. In fact, they get together and talk about what/which "improvements" they will offer the public. (there are so many on the shelves that will never see the light of day.) And, if we actually had competition, everything written in 1970s HotRod magazine would be in cars today.
The reality is that the corporations work in lockstep. They use some markets as test beds for what they will offer to other markets in a few years.
We have refrigerators that were made when you grandma was young, that still run. And we have refrigerators, top of the line, that you can buy today that will not last the decade. Do you believe that we could fail to improve compressors?
We live in a world owned/controlled by a group of corporations. There is no competition. There is no free market.
Some say this is a corporatocracy, but this isn't about corporate survival. This is those who own/control corporations vs the people.
Competition vs Economies of Scale
A toaster manufacturer could make their toaster last twice as long by adding a bit more steel. About 12¢ worth of steel.
And the removal of that 12¢ of steel is touted as profit.
The real problem is, if someone wanted to make a better toaster, with that 12¢ of steel added back in, the toaster would cost $120 more. Without the economies of scale, you cannot even compete, even with you providing labor for free.
It is similar to Ikea vs custom cabinets. Ikea costs less than it cost for me to buy wood to build the same project. There is no room for competition. There is no, "just a little better than Ikea, i would pay a little more to have a little better". You will spend 2x Ikea if you build it yourself. You will spend 10x Ikea if you include a professional to build it for you.
Fortunately, there is a shift in building technology. Many professional wood workers now have a CNC router. So, they can cut out parts for what they need, as they need it. They can make things more efficiently now, but where it is truly better than Ikea is that the local shop can go to a much lower number of items. Whereas, with any large manufacturing corporation, there is a minimum number of units required to be produced each month, or they go out of business.
In the near future, new things are going to be invented, and they are going to be produced so rapidly, and the ability of guys in garages to build things themselves that corporations that have controlled our world, are just going to fail.
This level of changes is what is needed to overcome the economies of scale. Where a factory can build it cheaper than you can yourself, with free labor.
There are so many illusions we live under
We believe that we have choice, but really, we can only decide if we have a blue wrapper or a red wrapper. Any real technological advancement is suppressed.
We believe that there is competition in manufacturing, because we see the choice, but never look deeper to see that actual competition is squelched. You cannot get shelf space at a grocery store unless you pay for it. Meaning, unless you outbid coke & pepsi.
We believe there is competition between stores. We see different stores, and think that if you cannot get something at one store, you can get it at another. Well, if you go to 3rd world countries, you could find this. If you go to small towns, you may find this in mom & pop stores. But you do not find any real difference in the corporate mega-stores. They really do choose what things you can see.
We believe we can change the corporation by boycotting. Recently people stopped buying Bud, but none realized that they instead bought another beer from the same corporation, the same distributor. For almost everything, there is no real alternative.
We believe we can buy American. If someone in American wanted to manufacture a product in America, only with American made part, they will fail. Most bolts come from China. Most motors come from China. Electronic chips are almost impossible to source from America. If we were really serious about Made In America, we would have to recreate the entire manufacturing stack. (now there is a movement to build things in The US, because they are fleeing China, and they are going to almost full robotics, so they no longer need the cheap labor. The US is more secure for this)
We believe that advertisements pay for all kinds of things, like Goolag and MSNABCBS. Advertisement is to program the public. And there is ALL the money in the world to pay for this. (you can't compete, unless you can print money) Advertising revenue is a lie. It is a money laundering scheme / a way to pay for people who play ball, and read from the script.
Communism is mostly different from capitalism in that who they say is in charge. Corporations are govern-cement. We are still run by a group of people who want more control and power.
I wonder if capitalism can actually work. There is so little time when it was actually in effect. However, it probably won't, because capitalism means those with the capital have a large advantage. And those who are unscrupulous can buy up all the means of production.
However, that the corporations have gone evil and adopted planned obsolescence, and this will be their downfall. Especially as people in garages start producing things that a corporation cannot keep up with. Imagine GM trying to compete with thousands of people building flying cars in their garages. By the time GM brings out a flying car, people will be making improved flying cars.
And this is the way we really starve the corporations. We make and sell stuff outside of their system. And, the corporations with giant assembly lines just fail, because they can't really function at slower speeds.
There's also an increasing trend of renting things instead of outright owning them. In some ways, this is good, since most of the recent manufactured goods are designed with a short shelf life. But I wonder how this will play in the long term, because the cost of renting does add up over time, often more expensive that owning things outright. Maybe also, this could be a prelude to owning nothing yet being happy as touted by the WEF!
These companies want to give less and less, while getting more and more.
It used to be that printer companies had to support their products that they sold for a minimum time. Now they get you to pay for that support. It is really bad.
So obvious now man, they make products that break so we buy more. It’s better to make things that last longer. Maybe people should try fixing things instead of always buying new ones, but the companies are evil level smart lol
It is Centralization. Where there is a factory and tools owned by an investor(s) whom hire collective labor, this is a centralized manufacturing enterprise.
Thanks!
Centralization + Evil ? Centralization is usually just slow, and unresponsive. Is it inherently evil?
I think so, because it requires assuming governmental control of sovereign people, who neither need it nor benefit from it today. Each of us has alone the power and authority over our limbs and persons, and no other person(s) rightfully have any authority over us. It is how God, or gods, or the vagaries of evolution, have made us, and centralization depends on imposing such authority contrary to nature on free people.
Because we have independent means that have but recently advented, the reality is that centralization has become technologically obsolete, and I am happy that such paradigms become mere history in time. As the incipient decentralized means of production develop and disperse, and as humanity spreads across the solar system to sites of resource concentration to develop them into wealth, the recollection of centralization that was once unavoidable on Earth will rapidly fade, to re-emerge from time to time because it's noxious consequences will have been forgotten, and the lessons of liberty will be re-learned wherever centralization rears it's ugly visage.
Centralization is not at all slow. It is simply focused on the vision of the peak of the hierarchy. If you've ever worked for a boss, you will find they expect responsiveness to their plots. Timeliness is godliness in their eyes. They are not slow, they are simply not decentralized and are therefore less responsive in multiple ways simultaneously. You either dance quickly to the tune your Pope or CEO sings, or dance belatedly, perhaps at the end of a rope, in consequence. For millennia centralization has not only been the most efficient means of advancing productivity, it has been absolutely necessary to it. Now it's obsolete. We pass through a clinal boundary as a result that will restore merit as the selection criteria, instead of pandering and conformity, as has been necessary to please and placate overlords.
In space no one can tell you what to do.