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by sgath92
1056 days ago
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> The idea that people in the past had personalities that valued the pursuit of perfection more-highly than now is often assumed, but seldom is good evidence given to support it. I think its not hard to show that people have come to prioritize the low cost of goods/services at the cost of quality as a way of artificially propping up lifestyle habits as available disposable income goes down. An appliance like a refrigerator or clothes washer had to be good in 1960 not just because of its cost (which in today's money accounting for inflation is huge) but because consumers had the ability to financially demand it. But if household disposable incomes go down (for a myriad of reasons), to where even two adult fulltime earners can barely tread water, a "good" appliance is unthinkably cost prohibitive in the short term. A cheap one that will barely outlast the warranty is their solution. And when it fails (and it will) you go buy another and it goes to a landfill. Its like the typical exmaple of the poor person who buys shitty work boots that only last a few months because they can't drop a couple hundred up front for ones that will last decade(s). In the US (can't speak for elsewhere), your 1950s stereotypical middleclass sitcom style family lifestyle died around 1970. Its been kept going ever since by the combos of decreasing quality wherever possible while using debt to wallpaper over the lack of micro-economic sustainability (hence the huge % of the population who has no real savings, little or no retirement investments, and will loose their home if they get a bad medical diagnosis). |
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Also, most people from highly developed countries with sound social safety net (G7 and close friends) do not have such a doom-and-gloom outlook. I assume your view comes from the US.
This is certainly not true in the vast majority of G7 and close friends -- only US.