The Phoebus cartel was a cartel of, among others, Osram, Philips and General Electric from December 23, 1924 until 1939 that existed to control the manufacture and sale of light bulbs.
The cartel is an important step in the history of global economy because of their alleged involvement in the creation of great-scale planned obsolescence. The cartel reduced competition in the light bulb industry for almost twenty years, and has been accused of preventing technological advances that would have produced longer-lasting light bulbs. The Phoebus cartel is also featured in fictionalized form as a minor plot element in Thomas Pynchon's novel Gravity's Rainbow. Phoebus was officially a Swiss corporation named "Phoebus S.A. Compagnie Industrielle pour le Développement de l'Éclairage".
Famous quotes containing the word phoebus:
“With sweet May dews my wings were wet,
And Phoebus fir’d my vocal rage;
He caught me in his silken net,
And shut me in his golden cage.
He loves to sit and hear me sing,
Then, laughing, sports and plays with me;
Then stretches out my golden wing,
And mocks my loss of liberty.”
—William Blake (1757–1827)