|
on Post Keynesian Economics |
| By: | Dillon, Sean |
| Abstract: | This study examines the declining usage lifespan of household consumer durables in the United States between 1970 and 2018, situating the phenomenon within a heterodox political economy framework. While mainstream economic narratives attribute the rising rate of consumer durable waste over this time to “overconsumption” driven by consumer materialism, this study challenges that perspective through an empirical analysis of waste generation, consumer spending, depreciation rates, and corporate profitability within the consumer durables sector. *** The findings reveal a significant divergence between rising levels of durable goods waste and relatively stable per capita ‘real’ consumer spending, suggesting that falling product longevity is largely not demand-driven. Instead, the data indicates that manufacturers have profitably reduced product durability, as evidenced by increasing rates of geometric depreciation and a rise in total sectoral earnings without proportional increases in earnings margins. *** These findings align with the theory of “planned obsolescence, ” whereby firms deliberately shorten product lifespans to drive replacement purchases and sustain profit growth. Given that this strategy cannot be adequately explained within conventional neoclassical economic models, the article draws the Veblenian theory of “strategic sabotage” to conceptualize the deliberate underutilization of technological capacity in pursuit of pecuniary gains. The study provides both empirical and theoretical evidence that the decline in consumer durables product longevity observed between 1970 and 2018 is structurally embedded in capitalist production of consumer durables goods. |
| Keywords: | capital accumulation, obsolescence, overconsumption, sabotage, waste, United States |
| JEL: | P1 Q53 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:capwps:312938 |
| By: | Klüh, Ulrich |
| Abstract: | We collect observations on how power constitutes itself in decentralized digital platform constellations that position themselves as alternatives to platforms operated by big tech (which we coin "hyperledgers"). We then compare these forms of power to the incumbent structures, the so called "hyperscalers". Such a comparison yields new insights into the way power "works" in surveillance-based platform capitalism. The crucial insight of our analysis is that it is highly unlikely that platform alternatives can be scaled up decisively within the current capitalist accumulation regime. Instead of focusing on finding business models within this regime, platform alternatives should therefore strive for regime change. This, however, would require new alliances, in particular between the victims of surveillance (workers and consumers) and the platform alternatives. The latter, in turn, would not only require massive public funding, but also support from civil society actors representing workers (i.e. unions) to be able to compete with incumbent hyperscalers. |
| Keywords: | Power relations, platform and surveillance capitalism, entrepreneurial activism, organizing studies, labor relations, democratization |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:znwudp:313639 |
| By: | Kirill Borissov (Non-government Educational Institution "European University at St. Petersburg", Russia); Mikhail Pakhnin (University of the Balearic Islands, Spain); Ronald Wendner (University of Graz, Austria) |
| Abstract: | We study the effects of envy (relative consumption concerns), drawing on evidence that preferences typically exhibit present bias. We employ a Ramsey-type model with agents who differ in initial capital endowments and account for present-biased envy: agents are naive and care about how their consumption levels compare to those of others only in the current period. Present-biased envy, unlike permanent envy, significantly affects both the level of inequality and the aggregate income level in an economy. First, it generates the Matthew effect (the relatively rich get richer while the relatively poor get poorer), and after a finite time, only the initially wealthiest agents own the entire capital stock and the debts of others who are in the maximum borrowing state. Second, in contrast to both an economy without envy or with permanent envy, present-biased envy makes agents effectively more impatient, reducing the long-run capital stock and aggregate income level. |
| Keywords: | Relative consumption, Envy, Time inconsistency, Sliding equilibrium, Perfect foresight, Wealth distribution, Ramsey conjecture. |
| JEL: | D15 D31 D50 D91 O40 |
| Date: | 2025–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:grz:wpaper:2025-02 |