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Isn't the article saying the opposite? The cartel fell apart pretty much on its own without government intervention. A combination of being undercut by low-co

Isn't the article saying the opposite? The cartel fell apart pretty much on its own without government intervention. A combination of being undercut by low-cost Japanese producers and the outbreak of war between the countries hosting the cartel members. As described, the cartel sounds more like a "conspiracy" to help customers by providing a better standard of lightbulb (in terms of brightness and efficiency) rather than to hurt them. The reduction in the lifespan seems like a side effect of this rather than the goal, even though I feel like the tone of the article is tending towards pushing that as the goal. They were undercut on cost and quality, though, not on lifetime, which seems like if it were achievable, would be a wonderful way to build a business.

anigbrowl 12y ago
As described, the cartel sounds more like a "conspiracy" to help customers by providing a better standard of lightbulb (in terms of brightness and efficiency) rather than to hurt them. Despite the existence of fines for factories producing longer-life bulbs, quotas, and remarks such as 'This, you will agree with me, is a very dangerous practice and is having a most detrimental influence on the total turnover of the Phoebus Parties…. After the very strenuous efforts we made to emerge from a period of long life lamps, it is of the greatest importance that we do not sink back into the same mire by paying no attention to voltages and supplying lamps that will have a very prolonged life' from people like Anton Philips?
cygx 12y ago
The cartel fell apart pretty much on its own without government intervention. But the cartel didn't fall apart 'on its own' due to magic self-regulating properties of the free market. It took WW2 to do it. For some anecdotal post-war evidence, note that light bulbs in eastern Germany came with twice the lifetime of western models. In Germany, there also circulates a story about representatives from Osram and Narva (an eastern manufacturer) meeting at Hannover fair, the latter presenting a light bulb with a lifetime of 5000h. The stories goes that the Osram representatives accused the Narva representatives of being imbeciles for cutting into their own profits...
- mxfh 12y ago
  An then there is Dieter Binninger[1] who not only build the weirdest clock of Berlin[2] (still working) but also developed a Langlebensdauerglühlampe with a guaranteed life time of 150.000 hours. [1] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieter_Binninger http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieter_Binninger [german] [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mengenlehreuhr http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mengenlehreuhr

anigbrowl 12y ago

As described, the cartel sounds more like a "conspiracy" to help customers by providing a better standard of lightbulb (in terms of brightness and efficiency) rather than to hurt them. Despite the existence of fines for factories producing longer-life bulbs, quotas, and remarks such as 'This, you will agree with me, is a very dangerous practice and is having a most detrimental influence on the total turnover of the Phoebus Parties…. After the very strenuous efforts we made to emerge from a period of long life lamps, it is of the greatest importance that we do not sink back into the same mire by paying no attention to voltages and supplying lamps that will have a very prolonged life' from people like Anton Philips?

cygx 12y ago

The cartel fell apart pretty much on its own without government intervention. But the cartel didn't fall apart 'on its own' due to magic self-regulating properties of the free market. It took WW2 to do it. For some anecdotal post-war evidence, note that light bulbs in eastern Germany came with twice the lifetime of western models. In Germany, there also circulates a story about representatives from Osram and Narva (an eastern manufacturer) meeting at Hannover fair, the latter presenting a light bulb with a lifetime of 5000h. The stories goes that the Osram representatives accused the Narva representatives of being imbeciles for cutting into their own profits...

mxfh 12y ago
An then there is Dieter Binninger[1] who not only build the weirdest clock of Berlin[2] (still working) but also developed a Langlebensdauerglühlampe with a guaranteed life time of 150.000 hours. [1] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieter_Binninger http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieter_Binninger [german] [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mengenlehreuhr http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mengenlehreuhr