Made to Break (1-81)

Giles Slade's Made to Break starts out talking about the economic values of manufacturing goods. Slade talks about the "disposable culture" or "the throwaway ethic"  (p. 13) when introducing disposable products for men and the idea of cheap materials being used to make things like paper shirt fronts. The King of all razorblades, Gillette, was one of the examples Slade used for discussing disposable items for men. I drew a conclusion from the title of the book and after reading the first few chapters that it's about consumerism in America and the idea of disposable technology. By disposable technology, I mean the idea that with the rapid technological advancements in society, and within the short range of time that these advancements are created in, society will tend to replace good, still working technology with newer innovations. I believe this is true because of conforming to the evolved consumer culture that the majority of US citizens participate in.

"But as the disposable trend continued, it became culturally permissible to throw away objects that could not simply and conveniently be consumed by flames." (p. 24) This quote supports the argument that if the item isn't disposable like paper plates or cups, than the tendency would be to simply throw whatever it may be away as society adapts to a disposable consumer culture.

The book carries on like some of the other books we read like Computers by Swedin and Ferro in that it's structured in a timeline. This makes sense because in order to analyze the present, we must see how we got to this point through a scope looking back at the past. In Made to Break's case, it's through the economic tendencies of our society starting from the 19th century when disposable products took over.

I enjoyed chapter 2 where Slade discussed Ford and GM and how each company came up by Henry Ford for Ford and Alfred Sloan for GM. He basically based the chapter on the idea of obsolescence out of the competition between the two car companies. Obsolescence is basically Slade repeating the idea of something disposable but reinforced by car manufacturers. The car in the 1920s was a huge technological advancement and is just grazing the technology of computers and the effect they have. But as you read on, you can tell that his argument is cohesive and easily structured for the reader to understand what he's getting at.

The third chapter starts talking about the Great Depression, but I feel the grip of the book's argument will be in between the 2nd and 3rd sections of the book. I have to read more to see if my guesses about where he's leading his argument are correct.

Peace.