Mass production

[The2ndWheel]

More beneficial, or more detrimental?

[unpossibles]

1. both in many ways

it can make products more affordable, but also tends to make them cheaper quality and more disposable.

[Igel]

2. Here's a specific example.

Guitars used to be much more restricted in use than they are today, as were mandolins.

They were 'folk' instruments, not 'elegant' ones. But they were still fairly expensive. A few things changed. (1) steel strings, instead of gut; the strings lasted longer, under more conditions. (2) mass production of strings and instruments, with some trivial redesigns (such as tuners). Distribution through Sears. (3) Redesign of the mandolin family from bowl-back to flat-back, to use surplus guitar-production space.

With those changes in the late 1800s, they became cheap, and therefore very common. Lots of people could buy them. Cowboys could afford them. Poor blacks and hill-country folk could buy them.

You get a whole plucked-string orchestra culture flourishing in the US within 10 years after mass production kicked into high gear as lots of people learn the instruments that never could before. You really get blues, blue-grass, and country music going as more people can play, develop, and spread the styles. Most movers and shakers in those genres wouldn't have been able to get going without mass produced instruments. Having country and blues popular yielded rock and 'folk' music. When Segovia did his thing (with Barrios in tow) you get a wave of intense interest in classical guitar, especially when they innovated nylon strings to replace gut strings.

I still have my $180 classical guitar I first learned on, don't have my first factory-made violin anymore. Couldn't have spent much more on either than I did. Have a $50 1/8 classical for the kid, for when he's big enough; we'll get him a factory-made $200 violin in a year or two. He's not going to learn on my oh-so-expensive hand-made concert classicals, viola, or violin, though. Nuh-uh.

I hate paperback books, but mass production of books did the same thing. It both made those good at scholarship and at writing able to pursue their talents, increased literacy ... but it also cheapened the product.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

3. beneficial in the short-run

detrimental in the long-run

[bryant69]

4. That's simplistic

And of course umprovable, because the long run isn't here yet.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Viva_La_Revolution]

5. no more simplistic than the question

and I do believe we are beginning to see the long term results.

[Odin2005]

6. Benificial.

without it things would be too expensive to have much of a middle class. Mass production brought prices down on many things.