We also used to value quality workmanship. Remember when things were built to last — houses, TVs, vacuum cleaners, stereos, clothes, cars, etc.?
Somehow, we got brainwashed into thinking “cheap” things were to our benefit. You hear it all the time about how globalization is good because now we can buy a shirt for $2.00 instead of $20.00. What they don’t mention is that the $20.00 shirt lasts 10X as long, and that people who spend $20.00 on a shirt are more likely to take care of it than someone who only spent $2.00. Think of the ramifications WRT pollution, too.
How many TV/electronic repair shops are still around? How many shoe repair shops? We’ve been convinced to simply throw our “cheap” things away and replace them with new things because this is what’s been behind our economic “growth” for so many years. It often costs more to repair something than to fix it. And every year executives are expected to “grow” thier companies, so they fake it by focusing on quantity over quality.
Today, we are drowning in cheap, toxic, plastic stuff from China.
I would love to see an end to cheap materialism and a return to good-quality American production and conservative consumption.
