October 17th, 2010 by Rachel | Tags: Anthropology, Corporation, Factory Workers, Material Culture, Video | 3 Comments »
A professor from my school shared a video from Spain about rapid manufacturing and sustainability. What’s really sad is that many people have lost the value of good quality craftsmanship and products that are made by individual craftsmen who took the time to make durable products by their own hands and paid attention to every details.
Also, in some cultures, in particular in the US, many people actually DO like having their products break easily because it gives them the excuse to purchase new products since they get bored of owning the same products. I remember from a reading, in Japan, in their culture, they value in producing durable and good quality products because the land size of their country is so small that they don’t have a lot of landfill spaces. Hence, that explains why Japanese cars are made better! Then there is the US which has a lot of land space to create landfills!
3 Comments
liisa
October 17, 2010 at 7:24 pm
I thought in Japan, there are very strict rules about keeping cars well-maintained, and after a car is 3 years old, there are huge maintenance taxes or mandatory inspections to pay on the vehicle, such that it becomes not even worth it to own an older car. People actually replace quite decent, working cars more frequently than in the US. I don’t think the quality of Japanese cars has anything to do with having them last a long time, at least not in Japan.
Rachel
October 19, 2010 at 6:47 pm
Liisa,
Here are two previous blog entries where I explain in details from a book called, The Culture Code, which explains why Japanese produce more durable items:
http://blog.rachelchaikof.com/?p=694
http://blog.rachelchaikof.com/?p=178
liisa
October 20, 2010 at 8:18 am
Might be nice to back this up with some statistics on average automobile age by country or average auto (or phone) age at trade-in by country. (By the way, there is a term for the phenomenon you are describing of making things to not last long so people will buy again: “planned obsolescence”.)