Abstract
Whilst public criticisms of an increasingly wasteful consumer society emerged already in late nineteenth Century, the specific concept of a “Throwaway Society” was first used in the early 1960s. This short communication sketches the passionate debate around planned obsolescence and oversaturated consumers and offers a short historical glimpse at a persistent, existential problem that still awaits effective solutions.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Notes
Consumption historian Trentmann (2016, pp. 622–675) completed his comprehensive world report on the history of consumption and “the empire of things” with a separate chapter on the throwaway society where he looked into historical and regional circumstances of its genesis.
Lipset (1961, p. 81) commented in his review that the “examples [Packard] used to document [planned obsolescence] are often grossly exaggerated; like most polemicists, he is willing to accept any statement which supports his argument and to ignore those which do not.”
See also the quite pessimistic epilogue in (Trentmann 2016, pp. 676–690).
References
Bell, D. (1976). Cultural contradictions of capitalism. New York: Basic Books.
Bernheim, B. A. (1992). Can we cure our throwaway habits by imposing the true social cost on disposable products? University of Colorado Law Review, 63, 953–956.
Botsman, R., & Rogers, R. (2011). What’s mine is yours. How collaborative consumption is changing the way we live. London: Collins.
Chase, S. (1925). Tragedy of waste. New York: The MacMillan Company.
Cohen, L. (2003). A consumers’ republic. The politics of mass consumption in postwar America. New York: Random House.
Cooper, T. (2005). Slower consumption. Reflections on product life spans and the “throwaway society”. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 9(1–2), 51–67.
Cooper, T. (2010). Longer lasting products. Alternatives to the throwaway society. London: Routledge.
D’Angelo, J. D., & Toma, C. L. (2016). There are plenty of fish in the sea: The effects of choice overload and reversibility on online daters’ satisfaction with selected partners. Media Psychology, 20(1), 1–27.
Dougherty, D., O’Reilly, T., & Conrad, A. (2016). Free to make. How the maker movement is changing our schools, our jobs, and our minds. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books.
Evans, D. (2012). Beyond the throwaway society: Ordinary domestic practice and a sociological approach to household food waste. Sociology, 46(1), 41–56.
Furedi, F. (2009). Wasted. Why education isn’t education. London: Continuum International Publishing Group.
Galbraith, J. K. (1958). The affluent society. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Gregson, N., Metcalfe, A., & Crewe, L. (2007). Identity, mobility, and the throwaway society. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 25, 682–700.
Hamilton, C., & Denniss, R. (2005). Affluenza. When too much is never enough. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin.
Hatch, M. (2013). The maker movement manifesto. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Herrick, R. (1924). Waste. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company.
Illich, I. (1973). Tools for conviviality. London: Marion Boyars.
Johnson, B. (2013). Zero waste home. The ultimate guide to simplifying your life by reducing your waste. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Lipset, S. M. (1961). The conservatism of Vance Packard. Commentary Magazine, 31(1), 81–82.
Mayer, M. (1959). Planned obsolescence. Rx for tired marketers? Dun’s Review and Modern Industry, 73, 40–80.
Newson, J. A. (2004). Disrupting the ‘student as consumer’ model: The new emancipatory project. International Relations, 18(2), 277–239.
O’Brien, M. (2013). Consumers, waste and the ‘throwaway society’ thesis: Some observations on the evidence. International Journal of Applied Sociology, 3(2), 19–27.
Packard, V. (1960). The waste makers. Philadelphia: David McKay.
Pope, K. (2017). Understanding planned obsolescence. Unsustainability through production, consumption and waste generation. London: Kogan Page.
Scott, G. (1974). Packaging and the ‘throw-away’ society. Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, 122, 188–202.
Slade, G. (2006). Made to break. Technology and obsolescence in America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Strasser, S. (2000). Waste and want. A social history of trash. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
Stuart, T. (2009). Waste. Uncovering the global food scandal. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Trentmann, F. (2016). Empire of things. How we became a world of consumers, from the fifteenth century to the twenty-first. London: Allan Lane.
Ward, J. (2017). What are you doing on Tinder? Impression management on a matchmaking mobile app. Information, Communication and Society, 20(11), 1644–1659.
Whiteley, N. (1987). Toward a throw-away culture. Consumerism, ‘style obsolescence’ and cultural theory in the 1950s and 1960s. The Oxford Art Journal, 10(2), 3–27.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hellmann, KU., Luedicke, M.K. The Throwaway Society: a Look in the Back Mirror. J Consum Policy 41, 83–87 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10603-018-9371-6
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10603-018-9371-6