Moral'nyi iznos

[Earl Sampson]

   This is a bit stale, but I hope might be of some interest. Several
weeks ago, there was some discussion on the list of the meaning of the
phrase "moral'nyi iznos." Yesterday, by pure chance, I ran across an
example of the use of a related phrase. In the Mar 5 1980 issue of
"Literaturnaia gazeta," in an article that gives a brief survey of the
debate over Lake Baikal over the preceding two decades, we read: "6
fevralia [1965 g.] pisatel' O. Volkov publikuet stat'iu . . . gde
privodit eshche riad dovodov protiv stroitel'stva BTsZ:  nado
uchityvat'. . .to, chto na zavode namechaetsia vypusk moral'no
ustarevshego produkta   viskoznogo korda, kotoryi uzhe s uspekhom
zameniaetsia kordom sinteticheskim."  I don't have the technical
references at hand to translate "viskoznyi kord" with full confidence,
but "rayon cord" would seem a safe guess (rayon is made from cellulose,
and the factory in question was the Baikal'skii Tselliuloznyi Zavod). So
if "moral'nyi iznos" is, as pointed out in Alex Ushakov's May 18
posting, "obsolescence," the reference would be to "the production of an
obsolescent product   rayon cord..."  The ironic part is that not only
was one of the planned products of the factory "moral'no ustarevshii,"
but so also, in a different sense, was the outlook of the
khoziaistvenniki who planned it.

Earl Sampson
Boulder, CO