Like so many vehicles built in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union during the days of communism, they were a throwback to earlier days of the post-war European automobile.

The Wartburgs and Trabants were especially items of curiosity. They had three-cylinder, two-stroke engines that produced large amounts of both exhaust smoke and noise, and East Germans that wanted one waited an average of 12-15 years for delivery. As one might expect, the cars were boxy, slow, not very comfortable, and prone to breaking down, but in East Germany in 1989, at least they were not obsolete. It was a different story in the West, as these kinds of cars long ago had been "replaced" by vehicles that performed far better than their communist-produced counterparts.

Socialists and critics of the market claim that one of the evils of capitalism is that it promotes "planned obsolescence," which, according to the AFP news site, "is a widely criticized commercial practice in which manufacturers build in the expiry of their products so that consumers will be forced to replace them." The idea behind it is simple, logical – and mostly wrong.

People who believe in planned obsolescence as a tool to "force" consumers to replace current models by purchasing new ones seem to embrace the belief that the only reason a firm introduces new features to their products over time would be to make current models unusable within a short time. For example, many of us have purchased laptop computers knowing that in less than a year, the next models will have new features or will perform better than the one we have just purchased. In less than a year, we will have a choice either to hang on to what we already have — at least for a while — or to buy a new machine.

There are many reasons for companies to be in constant development mode — and they are not nefarious, despite what leftist critics might claim. Unfortunately, sometimes wrong-headed accusations can lead to serious consequences.