Moral wear-out now replaces physical wear in driving object replacement

Evidence

Due to the way objects ceaselessly become obsolete and out of date (the computer that promised acceleration yesterday is today already a brake in view of faster programs) and the economic rationality of discarding and replacing things instead of repairing them, identity-constituting processes of adapting to and growing accustomed to things become increasingly improbable. From this point of view, modernity is characterized by the continuous displacement of physical wear by moral wear (Marx) as the main cause for the material replacement of objects and arrangements: in the course of the last few centuries, the latter have become unusable less and less often because their material substance is used up or worn out (i.e., irreparable); rather they become “out of date” or obsolescent relative to technology or fashion. — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 322

Categorization

• DEFINE: Marx’s ‘moral wear’ concept, mobilized precisely: things die from obsolescence before physical decay.
• XREF: Connects to planned obsolescence literature and the ADDENDUM-free standing idea of why we no longer feel attached to our things; also directly relevant to repair-culture movements. — connects to: Screen activity races time at both ends yet erases memory — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 813; The permanence of change itself grants passing objects an illusion of duration — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 742

Broader Connections

• The permanence of change itself grants passing objects an illusion of duration #expands (0.75) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 742