How much do we need?

[Serial_Apologist]

No, that wasn't the point was it (unless I missed something) I thought the point was waste, pure and simple because of the pressure, via their advertising, to view your current furniture as old fashioned/wrong colour/shape/uncool that you should ditch it all and start again with a new look as soon as that previous 'look' changes. (I quite like IKEA, they do good cheap and cheerful kitchen items, I don't have any of their furniture but I have a couple of their cotton rugs and a pair of lamps, none of which are very new)

Of course you mentioned you had inherited antique furniture - so you don't have to worry about not being cool - your home is furnished with Timeless Classics!! :-)

Yes Anna - although my thinking is in postcapitalist mode, a lot of my furniture is pre-capitalist!!!

I do miss Habitat, I have to say...

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

i will catch up with this programme on an iPlayer .... did it mention clothes? or the bourgeoisie and nouveaux riche and assorted arrivistes imitating the toffs ... or the role of conspicuous consumption in the power arrangements of pre-industrial societies

it is the sea shells at the Cro-Magnon sites that get me - hundreds of miles form their origin and thought to be traded as body decorations ...

could it be that we just like stuff that identifies and differentiates us?

[ahinton]

Consideration of issues raised by this topic really needs to embrace such matters as the economic viability of repair as against replacement, the length of time parts remain available for repairs to be carried out and the anticipated and actual lifespan of products as well as changes in genuine need that can arise from the development of new products rather than merely addressing the "must-have" consumerist angle and the manner in which manufacturers and the market tries to coerce people into believing that they need something that they don't necessarily need; if, for example, most people decided that they were satisfied with products as they are and would expect to remain so for the foreseeable future, much product development would pretty soon grind to a halt.

[ahinton]

although my thinking is in postcapitalist mode, a lot of my furniture is pre-capitalist!!!

So you are surrounded by valuable antiques, then! Lucky you!

[Serial_Apologist]

So you are surrounded by valuable antiques, then! Lucky you!

My grandfather was a noted antiquarian in the 1930s and 1940s and sold quite a few items to my father when he got married in 1943. That stuff was our household furniture, and I inherited it on his death in 2001. Odds and sods, really, as opposed to anything that would have once been considered of any financial worth - for that one needs matching pairs, full collections etc etc., such as the Lowestoft that needed my broken teapot to complete it, and hence brought me quite a bit of money 10 years ago. But many items that would once have been lightly valued in monetary terms, such as Georgian/early Victorian writing desks, are going for surprisingly little at auctions these days. Why? because you can't fit a computer onto one such. What fetches big prices is as subject to fashion as........... Haydn. My grandfather would have choked had anyone considered Victorian merchandise antique. Copper and pewter on the other hand doesn't bring in as much as it once did. Call my fondness for antiques sentimental if you like - stuff made with varying degrees of lovingness and often great attention to detail, such as a ca. 1830 clock with its original key and works that still keeps accurate time, by often poor craftsmen for themselves and their communities, higher quality stuff for the church and aristocracy, but all made to last.

[Serial_Apologist]

Consideration of issues raised by this topic really needs to embrace such matters as the economic viability of repair as against replacement, the length of time parts remain available for repairs to be carried out and the anticipated and actual lifespan of products as well as changes in genuine need that can arise from the development of new products rather than merely addressing the "must-have" consumerist angle and the manner in which manufacturers and the market tries to coerce people into believing that they need something that they don't necessarily need; if, for example, most people decided that they were satisfied with products as they are and would expet to remain so for the foreseeable future, much product development would pretty soon grind to a halt.

People are always thinking of practicable improvements to products of others' devisings; capitalist ideology in large part consists in making people believe in whatever a rich entrepreneur declares himself prepared to promote and make money from, when in the final reality he or she is just an intermediary and often in the way.

[ahinton]

People are always thinking of practicable improvements to products of others' devisings; capitalist ideology in large part consists in making people believe in whatever a rich entrepreneur declares himself prepared to promote and make money from, when in the final reality he or she is just an intermediary and often in the way.

As indeed I had sought to imply, SOME of that is true - or rather it can be true on certain occasions - but without atg least some aspects of that kind of entrepreneurship there would be little or no incentgive to develop any product and we'd still be in the darkest of dark ages. Given that we all want there to be such genuine improvements and developments (though not the other sort!), some part of the "capitalist ideology" of which you write will inevitably have to click into gear in order to ensure that they occur, because someone somewhere has to invest in them.

[Serial_Apologist]

As indeed I had sought to imply, SOME of that is true - or rather it can be true on certain occasions - but without atg least some aspects of that kind of entrepreneurship there would be little or no incentgive to develop any product and we'd still be in the darkest of dark ages. Given that we all want there to be such genuine improvements and developments (though not the other sort!), some part of the "capitalist ideology" of which you write will inevitably have to click into gear in order to ensure that they occur, because someone somewhere has to invest in them.

As you can probably imagine, I disagree. An entrepreneur doesn't have to be needed when someone has a good idea, or to motivate someone to have a good idea either. This is arsy-vary thinking, as they would say in 17th century Essex!

[ahinton]

As you can probably imagine, I disagree. An entrepreneur doesn't have to be needed when someone has a good idea, or to motivate someone to have a good idea either. This is arsy-vary thinking, as they would say in 17th century Essex!

No, fair enough where the idea itself is concerned, of course; it's the practical realisation of that idea on a sufficiently large scale that requires investment of capital and, with that, the various risks involved in such enterprises.

[amateur51]

No, fair enough where the idea itself is concerned, of cours; it's the practical realisation of that idea on a sufficiently large scale that requires investment of capital and, with that, the various risks involved in such enterprises.

These days you can split the risk through crowd-funding, innit

[ahinton]

These days you can split the risk through crowd-funding, innit

Yes and no; true in principle as is what you write, whoever takes the risk still takes the risk, crowd funded or otherwise...

[Richard Barrett]

An entrepreneur doesn't have to be needed when someone has a good idea

As any composer should know.

[ahinton]

As any composer should know.

Sure - but then most composers don't produce products that might or might not be vulnerable to planned obsolescence, do they? Nor do most of them create works under a competitive "must-have-the-latest" motivation, still less for the massive profits that they can extract from those persuaded to have them...

[amateur51]

Yes and no; true in principle as is what you write, whoever takes the risk still takes the risk, crowd funded or otherwise...

But generally the risk is mitigated by the number in the crowd. Same applies to peer-to-peer lending.

[ahinton]

But generally the risk is mitigated by the number in the crowd. Same applies to peer-to-peer lending.

That's right, of course - the risk remains and is the same but it's shared by a relatively large number of people; rather like shares, one might say...