Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America v. Planned Obsolescence

Since I often have to hunt this down, here is copied the best Defense against accusations of "Planned Obsolescence". Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy In America, Volume 2, Chapter 8.

Note that it has nothing at all to do with piracy, counterfeit, gray market.

When a company correctly estimates that too much 'value', too much repairability, is being given to the market, and 'downsizes quality', that may actually be good for the environment.

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America. English Edition. Vol. 2.  

"You cannot believe how many facts flow naturally from this philosophical theory that man is indefinitely perfectible,d and the prodigious influence [762] that it exercises on even those who, occupied only with acting and not with thinking, seem to conform their actions to it without knowing it. 

I meet an American sailor, and I ask him why the vessels of his country are constituted so as not to last for long, and he answers me without hesitation that the art of navigation makes such rapid progress each day, that the most beautiful ship would soon become nearly useless if it lasted beyond a few years.e 

In these chance words said by a coarse man and in regard to a particular fact, I see the general and systematic idea by which a great people conducts all things.Aristocratic nations are naturally led to compress the limits of human perfectibility too much, and democratic nations to extend them sometimes beyond measure.

The decision to sell something of lower quality is - sometimes - a market driven decision which reflects the actual use of product. As humans became fatter, clothing that lasts 20 years became less valuable, because even if the threads were well made, they no longer fit the customer after a few years.

But similarly, when African consumers demanded CRT tube Televisions when China was offering those consumers "affordable" fragile flat screens, de Toqueville's nod to the "coarse man" seems well given.

We can return now to Right to Repair, and Fair Trade Recycling, and Africa's Tech Sector.

"In these chance words said by a coarse man and in regard to a particular fact, I see the general and systematic idea by which a great people conducts all things."

Jaleel, Chendiba Enterprises, Tamale, Ghana 2015