At a fire department garage in northern California, there’s a light bulb that has burned continuously for more than 120 years. So you may wonder, “Why have my bulbs at home been burning out while that one has kept shining?” It’s because a handful of powerful men decided a century ago that light bulbs should be made worse — that is, less long-lasting and dependable. And there’s a lesson in that for all of us.
It's the story of the so-called Phoebus cartel, and its collusion in deteriorating the quality of light bulbs. Economists call it a prime example of planned obsolescence — you know, the business strategy of boosting sales by forcing consumers to buy replacement products. A good contemporary example is Apple, which a few years back paid $113 million to settle a lawsuit accusing it of sending a software update that deliberately slowed older iPhones – which, of course, pushed people to buy newer models.
But beyond its value as a lesson in caveat emptor – buyer beware – the history of the Phoebus light bulb conspiracy is a pretty good metaphor for a political movement underway in America these days. In this case, the marketing is aimed at selling candidates. In pursuit of power and in the name of ideology, the practitioners of this cynical political strategy are deliberately degrading American institutions and attitudes – especially around education. They are making America’s extraordinary culture and capacity obsolescent.
So about those bulbs: After Thomas Edison got his patent for light bulbs, there was a rush to develop the glass, filament and gases that would make better products. That process was so successful that by the 1920s, bulbs like the one hanging in the fire station in Livermore, California, were being made that would burn for 2,000 hours, or even much more — so long, that is, that even though electricity was spreading rapidly, the sale of bulbs was dropping. The leading bulb manufacturers were worried, so they met in Geneva in December of 1924, and agreed to standardize their manufacturing to create bulbs that would burn for only about half as long. The group of business titans gave their gathering a name, settling on Phoebus, the Greek god of light.
That’s why relatively short-lived and inefficient incandescent bulbs, a 19th-century technology, became the standard for homes worldwide – until just last year, in fact, when a federal law requiring more durable LED lights took effect.
What makes the story of the Phoebus cartel stand out is that it goes against the grain of our understanding of American history. Our nation is both the home and the beneficiary of great and sustained progress, which led to unparalleled human comfort, technological superiority and global economic dominance. Americans invented the telephone, the steamboat, moving pictures and the airplane. Only Americans have stood on the moon, and it was in America that the digital revolution took hold. It’s hard to reconcile that history of progress with an acceptance of turning back technological capacity in something as fundamental as the light bulb.
Yet we’re witnessing a political movement today that is similarly retrogressive: devaluing honest debate, encouraging distortion of the truth and disabling key elements of our educational system. It’s nothing less than an embrace of preferred ignorance.
We see it in Donald Trump’s hostility to the reality of climate change, in his nomination of the anti-science crusader Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be U.S. health secretary, in the attack on the teaching of uncomfortable facts about American history in states including Florida, Texas and Oklahoma.
And we see it in the years-long attack on education by Republican politicians. Educational attainment remains the clearest predictor of a person’s lifetime wealth and social mobility: a college graduate is likely to earn 84 percent more than someone with just a high school diploma. Yet a recent poll found that half as many Republicans as Democrats agree that a college degree is the best way to get ahead in America.
Harsh as the judgment sounds, the evidence suggests that Republican politicians and their right-wing media enablers believe that their hold on power can be sustained only by encouraging ignorance, and by doubling down on Americans’ polarization by education. That gap is growing: At the beginning of this century, Republicans had an 11-point edge on party affiliation among college-educated voters; by the end of Trump’s first term, the margin of college education was 13 points in Democrats’ favor.
That 24-point swing in the political leanings of educated Americans over just two decades is a warning of future polarization by class. As the Republican Party reshapes itself as a radical right-wing force, it is losing favor with voters who, thanks to education, grasp the value of truth and nuance.
The hard-right leaders who are consciously corroding the pursuit and dissemination of truth – whether it’s about healthcare or climate change or U.S. history – they would have fit in quite well with the bandits of the Phoebus cartel a century back. They seem to be the sort that prefers darkness.
Rex Smith, the co-host of The Media Project on WAMC, is the former editor of the Times Union of Albany and The Record in Troy. His weekly digital report, The Upstate American, is published by Substack.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.