Imitation in Design, Production and Consumption
sustainabilityLooking around at the vast array of products available, often ridiculous and unnecessary, it's easy to think that our current model of consumerism is a fairly recent invention— that regular, middle and working class people have only recently taken an interest in buying cheap yet novel things that they most certainly don't need. Yet a look at the history of the industrial revolution, and the years preceding it, suggests that many of the trends we see today are echoes of phenomena 250 years ago and beyond. Even prior to the steam engine and the kinds of automation that typify that industrial revolution, there was, in England at least, a growing consumer market in which manufacturers were developing new and improved products, with different materials and features (often with reference to existing products for the purpose of familiarity), and often for the same reasons that products are developed, refined and replaced today: for novelty, for fashion, for status, to establish 'brands'.
In the very early days of intellectual and intangible property, and perhaps early precursors to modern technologies like DRM, pharmaceuticals and the like were trying to prevent forgeries of their products through detailed packaging and certificates of authenticity— solutions which were also used as marketing, but, like many subsequent attempts, ultimately doomed to fail in their mission to prevent forgery. The systems of globalisation were also in place long ago, with outsourcing of manufacturing to countries such as India, China and parts of South America, as well as imports to the cities (such as London) from country areas. One of the primary differences, perhaps, was that London was then (in the 17th and 18th centuries) taking on more and more manufacturing, as it became a centre of innovation and new products, while at the same time demanding changes and improvements in the (often cheap) imports from the Americas and the subcontinent.
And it seems that the same consumer forces were also at play: both a love of novelty, and a disdain for cheap alternatives to quality goods (such as the early incarnations of ready-made clothing); a distrust for sales people; the cosy relationship between the media and pharmaceutical companies; cheap, mass-produced products flooding markets and pushing out artisanal tradespeople (and ultimately forcing them into the factories that replaced them); and a constant demand from consumers for new, better, more durable products. (Perhaps this last example, in terms of durability, is something that we are today seeing in decline, given the transition to a throw-away society, and the norm of designed obsolescence).
I guess if, as a society, we are to tackle the many problems that stem from an economic model of consumerism, it will require dealing with many of these systemic issues that drive the machine— the need to protect profits, the insistence on profit, efficiency and lower prices, the balance between intellectual property and the common good, and the constant development of new materials, with amazing properties— some of which will ultimately cost us dearly; even the ancient Romans (and their British subjects) made themselves sick with their fancy lead piping.
The more things change, as the saying goes, the more they stay the same. So, what things actually need to change?
This post is a response to John Styles' 'Product Innovation in Early Modern London'
John Styles, 'Product Innovation in Early Modern London', Past & Present, No. 168 (Aug., 2000), pp. 124-169, Oxford University Press on behalf of The Past and Present Society