About Connections: Love it or hate it, history is a map. Those who hate history think it irrelevant; many who love history think it escapism. In truth, history is the clearest road map to how we got here: America in the 21st century.
My kitchen was 33 years old – not cutting edge. That didn’t bother me. The advantage of being an historian is that the older things get the more interesting they become.
In the last few months, however, every appliance stopped working. That didn’t bother me. They were rated for 25 years and served me well for 33; can’t complain.
I needed a new kitchen. That didn’t bother me. Change can be fun. It was an HGTV moment – before and after — the big reveal.
I went shopping. Now I was bothered.
Appliances today are rated for three years – three. The cost of the thing is calculated against the life span. That is, there are appliances built to last for 10 years and they cost proportionately more than those built to last three. Talk about cynical; talk about built-in obsolescence. It is not that we can’t do better. It is not that American-know-how got up and went. It is that we don’t want to build better. It is more lucrative to build shoddily.
I spent thousands on new appliances and the dishwasher, for example, looked great. It was practically silent – you had to check the light to see if it was running. It appeared to be superior to my old glug-glug-in-stereo black monster. Appeared was the operative word: it did absolutely everything but clean the dishes. Glassware was cloudy; dishes were grubby. There was a solution. That’s right: buy something. After spending a couple thousand on the dishwasher, I had to buy $10 bucks worth of soap and rinse products to make it work.
I am not a conspiracy theorist. As a general rule I can accept the official version, but…
Does corporate America collude? Was there a meeting in a backroom someplace where the dishwasher guys agreed with the soap guys to leave out or adjust a part so the chemical additive was necessary?
The stove is another story all together. Nothing made that work except the very excellent service of my local store. They have now replaced a couple of parts. In a stove less than a month old, a couple of parts didn’t work ergo neither did the stove. I wonder how many parts there are. I wonder how many more will need to be replaced. I wonder how long the replacement parts will work.
Oh well, I was bothered but there were solutions and now my appliances worked. True I don’t know for how long, but, you know, like addiction and other problems, you are forced to take it a day at a time.
The next day my brand new steam room apparatus broke. The manufacturer blamed the water softener. The water softener people put in a part and yet the softener still didn’t work so they suggested they put in a different part not without charging for the wrong part. Their argument: I may not have needed the first part but it was in there now. Their bill: hundreds. The warranty on their parts: one month.
Finally, I was bothered permanently without hope of relief. The problem: I spoke to the next generation and they said, “It is what it is.”
No it is not. It is what the consumer will accept. Stop buying that which is inferior. If they charge exorbitantly for that which is superior, stop buying. Voting with your pocketbook is more immediately persuasive than voting at the polls.
Of course, it is not that easy. It takes organization. It takes one day but on that day thousands have to refrain from any purchase. We have to agree to be treated better, more ethically, in the exchange of money for goods.
I only remember the nation doing it successfully once. It was the grapes, remember? The grape boycott from 1965 – 1970 was a complete success. For decades the pickers tried to unionize and were defeated. The pickers emulated Ghandi’s salt boycott. Hundreds of thousands boycotted grapes and by 1970 the pickers were unionized and their lot improved.
When there is a health scare we act in concert instinctively without organizing and boycott the place or product. So we can do it. We can force the manufacturers to manufacture something that works for 25 years. We could force repairs rather than replacement – creating jobs, reducing waste, and saving us money.
We have started to use the Internet in that way. Trip Advisor, for example, has become very powerful because guests record their positive and negative travel experiences. Shoppers select the places with the highest ratings.
Maybe to convince manufacturers to do the right thing and build better, we need an online “Consumer Advisor.” Which products work? Which manufacturers stand behind their products? Which charge fairly? And then we will learn…whom we should boycott.
This is a call to arms. Consumers unite.
