Obsoleszenz — ein Synonym für die Konsumgüterproduktion in entfalteten Marktwirtschaften

Zusammenfassung Wie im Titel angedeutet, gehen die Verfasser davon aus, daß sich hinter dem Obsoleszenz-Phänomen keine besondere Absatzstrategie der Unternehmen und daher kein eigenständiges Erkenntnisobjekt verbirgt. Die von bürgerlichen und marxistischen Kritikern vielfach geäßerte Ansicht, mit zunehmender Vermachtung/Monopolisierung der Märkte seien die Waren schlechter geworden, wird nicht geteilt. Nach wie vor werden bei uns sehr viele «gute» sowie «schlechte» Konsumgüter hergestellt, je nach dem wie die Produktivkräfte sowie die Konkurrenz um die zahlungskräftige Nachfrage es erlauben. Was die bekannten gesamtgesellschaftlichen Probleme (Umweltbelastung, Rohstoffknappheit etc.) verursacht und die Wissenschaften auf dem Plan gerufen hat, ist nicht die abnehmende Qualität der Waren, sondern die erweiterte Reproduktion kapitalistischen Wirtschaftens schlechthin. Die «ungeheure Warenansammlung» kann wissenschaftlich nicht zerlegt werden in eine unanfechtbare Normalität (=technischer Fortschritt) und moralisch abzulehnende Auswüchse (=Obsoleszenz); ebensowenig signalisieren Obsoleszenzstrategien die allgemeine Dekadenz des Monopolkapitals. Der Reichtum an Konsumgütern ist vielmehr zu begreifen als dialektisches Resultat einer Erwerbsgesellschaft, die-beispielhaft konkretisiert-überdimensionierte Fernsehgeräte zum Kauf anbietet, nachdem sie zuvor technisch ausgereifte Geräte entwickelt hat.

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As indicated by the title the authors are convinced that obsolescence is no special marketing strategy. Therefore the phenomenon should not be regarded as a subject worthy of study by itself. The authors reject the hypothesis that product quality is eroded by increasing monopolization, a position taken by bourgeois as well as marxian critics. In market economies there will always be production of good and bad consumer goods depending on productive capacity and sellers' competition for effective demand. The well-known social problems (pollution, shortage of raw materials, etc.) are not caused by decreasing product quality but are due to the need for reproduction of capital on a larger scale.The enormous production of goods cannot be separated by scientific methods into (a) an economic normality (technical progress) and (b) a perverse exaggeration not acceptable on moral grounds (obsolescence). Neither do the strategies of obsolescence indicate the decadence of monopolistic capitalism. Instead the abundance of consumer goods should be interpreted as a dialectic result of a society's profit maximization. To give an example: After well-equipped television sets with a high technical standard had been developed, the system starts supplying units of a hypertrophic size and capacity.

     

User,Use & Utility Research

Business and Information Systems Engineering (BISE) is at a turning point. Planning, designing, developing and operating IT used to be a management task of a few elites in public ad-ministrations and corporations. But the continuous digitization of nearly all areas of life changes the IT landscape fundamentally. Success in this new era requires putting the human perspective – the digital user – at the very heart of the new digitized service-led economy. BISE faces not just a temporary trend but a complex socio-technical phenomenon with far-reaching implications. The challenges are manifold and have major consequences for all stakeholders, both in information systems and management research as well as in practice. Corporate processes have to be re-designed from the ground up, starting with the user’s perspective, thus putting usage experience and utility of the individual center stage. The digital service economy leads to highly personalized application systems while organizational functions are being fragmented. Entirely new ways of interacting with information systems, in particular beyond desktop IT, are being invented and established. These fundamental challenges require novel approaches with regards to innovation and development methods as well as adequate concepts for enterprise or service system architectures. Gigantic amounts of data are being generated at an accelerating rate by an increasing number of devices – data that need to be managed. In order to tackle these extraordinary challenges we introduce ‘user, use & utility’ as a new field of BISE that focuses primarily on the digital user, his or her usage behavior and the utility associated with system usage in the digitized service-led economy. The research objectives encompass the development of theories, methods and tools for systematic requirement elicitation, systems design, and business development for successful Business and Information Systems Engineering in a digitized economy – information systems that digital users enjoy using. This challenge calls for leveraging insights from various scientific disciplines such as Design, Engineering, Computer Science, Psychology and Sociology. BISE can provide an integrated perspective, thereby assuming a pivotal role within the digitized service led economy.     

Minimum Wages and Collective Bargaining: What Types of Pay Bargaining Can Foster Positive Pay Equity Outcomes?

Using data from interviews and collective agreements in five European countries, this article analyses the relationship between collective bargaining and the minimum wage. In a context of changing minimum wage policy and competing government objectives, the findings illuminate how pay bargaining strategies of trade unions and employers shape the pay equity effects of minimum wage policy. Two general forms are identified: direct responses to a changing national minimum wage, and responses to the absence or weakness of a national minimum wage. The article explains how particular intersections of minimum wage policy and collective bargaining, together with country and sector contingencies, shape the form of pay bargaining and pay equity outcomes.     

Dynamic specification of consumer expenditure on non-durables and services in Austria

Zusammenfassung Jüngste Fortschritte in der ökonometrischen Theorie führten zu erneutem Interesse an einem der am häufigsten analysierten Themenkreise der quantitativen Ökonomie: dem Zusammenhang zwischen Konsumausgaben und verfügbaren Einkommen. Entsprechende Tests ergaben, daß die Konsumausgaben für nichtdauerhafte Güter und Dienstleistungen und das verfügbare Einkommen kointegriert sind. Ausgehend von dieser Tatsache wurde in mehreren Schritten eine Konsumfunktion abgeleitet, die neben zufriedenstellenden statistischen Eigenschaften eine plausible ökonomische Interpretation zuläßt und eine interessante, mit den beobachteten Daten konsistente dynamische Struktur aufweist.

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Helpful suggestions for improvement by M. Deistler, D. F. Hendry, and J. Wolters are gratefully acknowledged.     

Marion G. Müller,International University Bremen

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Kommentar zu Beiers Beitrag

Ohne ZusammenfassungGerhard Scherhorn ist Professor für Konsumtheorie und Verbraucherpolitik an der Universität Hohenheim, Postfach 106, D-7000 Stuttgart 70.     

Gernot Wersig 60 Jahre

Ohne Zusammenfassung