Where Stuff Comes From: How Toasters, Toilets, Cars, Computers and Many Other Things Come to Be As They Are

by Harvey Molotch
Routledge Press, New York, 2003
336 pp., illus. 35 b/w, 15 col. Trade, $24.95
ISBN 0-415-94400-7.

Reviewed by John Knight
User-Lab, Birmingham Institute of Art and Design

John.knight@uce.ac.uk

This is an accessible and ingenious book that attempts to demystify material culture. It is written by Harvey Molotch, a New York University Professor (Metropolitan Studies and Sociology) with a string of other books to his name. Its publication is explained by the author’s disillusionment with those who "complain about goods as nothing but bads" (p. 3).

In unpicking material culture Molotch takes on the conspiracy theories of the left (e.g Packard), the "bravado" of unbridled capitalists and those who are "upset that people under capitalism are having fun" (p. 14). These unlikely bedfellows have "made it hard to see the artefacts through the smoke, much less touch them, turn them over, look inside and ask questions about how they came to be and how they fit in to lives and economies" (p. 6).

In contrast, the author searches for an alternative path to understanding the "stuff". This journey takes him to "Douglas and Isherwood’s . . . largely unheeded-call for an ‘anthropology of consumption’" (p. 7-8) and back to Walter Benjamin’s "Arcades Project". While much of this positioning is for his sociological audience, it does result in a fresh and non-partisan approach to answering a complex question: "Where does…this vast blanket of things––coffee pots . . . cars, hat pins" (p. 1) come from?

His notion of the "lash up" is the answer to the question "where stuff comes from?" The "lash up" is the net of influence that forms "stuff", and the book describes the forces at play (e.g. place, markets, gender etc) in the evolution of everything from toasters to cars. What lashes up includes obvious factors (designers) and obscure forces (climate). The brilliance of this work, however, is not as a catalogue influences, but the ingenuity of the networks, (cubism and camouflage) and landmarks (Walmart to Duchamp) made on the journey. The treatment of the force of migration is typical of Molotch’s approach:

"That so many intellectuals and artists fleeing European Fascism ended up in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles affected American culture and goods’ substance in each of those cities, most obviously allowing Bauhaus to eventually to take hold as part of their design vocabularies."(p. 170).

One result of the author’s uncovering of "deep mechanisms" is a depersonalising of the creative act. This is evident in a discussion on invention and has parallels with other critiques of material production:

"Teachers instruct schoolchildren that stuff was "invented"––usually by means of a genius like Thomas Edison. The great man through inspiration and perspiration just does it. But even Edison depended on others’ work; he was part of a 14-person team when he "did" the light bulb. More profoundly, he was always dependent on the surrounding web of political and cultural practices that made each of his innovations possible" (p. 3).

Molotch is careful not to overplay a mechanistic approach the subject and is enthusiastic about agency whether at the point of creation or consumption. This is shown by his consideration of the "softer forces . . . [including] "cultural capital"––particularly to knowledge of the fine arts of painting, literature, and dance" (p.163) that are needed to explain competitive advantage.

Given the brevity of the book, it is understandable that the map of cultural capital into "stuff" sometimes feels undeveloped. This leads to assertions such as "The theatre––and then later the movies––is a half way point for images on their way from art to goods"(p. 72). However, despite a few wrong turns (popular music and sub-cultures), Molotch is accessible and engaging, and largely convincing in his findings.

He ends urging design to make "some strategic improvements" (p. 20) to material culture and advocates a "creative commonwealth" (p. 257) based on "Moral Rules" with "Designers’ Good Vibes" producing a better and more rational "lash up". It is not all good news, however. His impartiality and social scientific approach produces some telling results, and he quotes a women designer from his research into the design profession:

"Her comments were pungent . . . ’if women did more designing, products would be simpler . . . I’d like to add up all the money that’s been lost by white male arrogance’" (p. 50).