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1 results

  • 3 - The History of Repair

  • Aaron Perzanowski, Case Western Reserve University, Ohio
  • Book:
    The Right to Repair
    Published online:
    30 December 2021
    Print publication:
    08 February 2022, pp 49-71

  • Summary

    This chapter traces the history of repair. Beginning with the earliest human tools, like hand axes and spears, repair techniques evolved to keep pace with technology. In industrial era, the introduction of interchangeable parts promised to make repair easier and more reliable than ever before. But over the course of the twentieth century, manufacturers realized that product durability often wasn’t in their economic self interest. So they found ways to induce consumption and discourage repair. As early as the 1920s, firms were exploring the strategies that would eventually become known as “planned obsolescence.” By the 1950s, those techniques were cornerstones of the consumer economy.