Caitlin L. Chandler at The Baffler:
Illich’s 1971 book, Deschooling Society, was a bestseller that made his name beyond the counterculture, but his 1973 primer Tools for Conviviality was most prominently displayed in ISSA’s library. In it, Illich warned of large-scale future catastrophes stemming from unchecked economic growth and industrialization. Technologies, he believed, had to serve communities and foster autonomy rather than prop up the credentialing power of institutions and the managerial class, which taught people to become desiring consumers and eroded their capacity for free thought and self-reliance. “The bureaucratic management of human survival is unacceptable on both ethical and political grounds,” wrote Illich, referring to technocratic solutions to ecological crisis that set limits on growth “just at the point beyond which further production would mean utter destruction.” As an alternative to this “managerial fascism,” he proposed the concept of “conviviality.” A convivial society would not only reject outright the gospel of industrial growth for its own sake; it would “guarantee for each member the most ample and free access to the tools of the community and limit this freedom only in favor of another member’s equal freedom.”
more here.
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