As goods and services improved, people were persuaded to send their money on

As goods and services improved, people were persuaded to send their money on changing from old to new, and found the change worth the expense. When an airline(36)equipped itself with jets, for example, its costs would go up, but the new planes meant such an improvement that the higher cost was(37)justified. A new car or wireless, washing-machine, electric kettle made life so much more(38)comfortable than the old one that the high cost of replacement was(39)amply repaid. Manufacturers still cry their wares as persuasively as ever, but are the improvements really worth paying for? In many fields, things have now reached such a high(40)standard of performance that further progress is very limited and very, very expensive. Airlines, for example, go to(41)enormous expense in buying the latest prestige jets, in which vast research costs have been(42)lavished on relatively small improvements. If we scrap these vast costs we might lose the chance(43)paring minutes off flying times, but(44)wouldn’t it be better to see air fares drop dramatically, as capital costs become relatively insignificant? Again in the context of a 70 m. p. h. limit, with platoons of cars traveling as densely as to control each other’s speeds, improvements in performance are virtually irrelevant; improvements in handling are unnecessary, as most production saloons grip the road perfectly, and comfort has now reached a very high level indeed. Small improvements here are unlikely to(45)be worth the thousands that anybody replacing an ordinary family car every two years may ultimately have spent on them. Let us instead have cars — or wirelesses, electric kettles, washing-machines, light bulbs — which are made to last, and not made to be replaced.(46)Significant progress is obviously a good thing, but the insignificant progression from model-change to model-change is not.