GMAT Essays (AWA)

"People often complain that products are not made to last. They feel that making products that wear out fairly quickly wastes both natural and human resources. What they fail to see, however, is that such manufacturing practices keep costs down for the consumer and stimulate demand"

Cost is often used to justify the production of low quality products. However, it is often overlooked that such products often wear out quickly and end up being waste. The inevitable conflict occurs when the consequence of having low quality products that are more affordable is weighed with quality products that are reserved for those able to pay for it. I believe that the level of quality is based on the balance of supply and demand, and that manufacturers are willing to create whatever it is that people are willing to buy.

If one looks at the automobile industry, for instance, one can see a spectrum of quality. Some cars have leather seats, sleek interiors, and luxurious designs - while other cars are built to simply take passengers from point A to point B. These cars can be used as different ends on quality spectrum: the luxurious car is made with more care and higher quality, but will cost more money, making it less affordable to the masses; the standard car, however, does not contain as many amenities and will not last as long, but will be more affordable. It is more likely that these standard cars will end up in impound lots while the luxury car will be driven for many years to come.

Although some products have their quality directly linked to their cost, it is also possible that high cost is simply a marketing technique. If you look at the luxury pen market, it is difficult to ascertain whether or not a pen that costs magnitudes of times greater than a normal pen is of enough quality to warrant the price gap. Quality and luxury, in this case, are often for naught. Adding precious metals to pens does not make the pen any better from a utility standpoint.

In conclusion, it is difficult to define whether or not something is waste. Over a long enough timeline, everything becomes waste. It is certainly very difficult to justify waste in the sense that it gets thrown away - waste could just as easily be keeping precious metals stuck in a pen when it could be used as wiring in electronic devices in much lower volumes. Therefore, one could make a position for either case.