Bernard London

Bernard London was a Russian-born American real estate broker, born in 1872 or 1873. Sources describe him as having started out as a builder in Russia before immigrating to the United States, where he worked in real estate.

He is chiefly known for his 1932 self-published essay Ending the Depression Through Planned Obsolescence. In it, he argued that goods should be given fixed lifespans so they would be replaced regularly, a proposal he saw as a way to revive production and employment during the Depression.

London later followed that essay with two more works on the same theme, published in 1934 and 1935. Although his solution was highly controversial, scholars often credit him with coining or early popularizing the term “planned obsolescence,” which has kept his name in discussions of economics, consumer culture, and industrial design.