[D66] The Right to Useful Unemployment

[R.O.]

https://www.workingnowandthen.com/scholarstudent/reviews/ivan-illich-the-right-to-useful-unemployment/


  Ivan Illich, The Right to Useful Unemployment


        *Illich, Ivan. **/The Right to Useful Unemployment/
        <https://amzn.to/2L9kDXe>. **London: Marion Boyars, 1978.*

Review by Hayyim Rothman

Philosopher Ivan Illich presents a theory of non-work very distinct from 
that of Mario Tronti. In /The Right to Useful Unemployment/, Illich 
defines poverty as the inability to act autonomously. For example, 
Illich says a man is poor if the use-value of his feet is lost because 
he lives in a sprawling metropolis or works on the thirty-fifth floor of 
a skyscraper. Poverty is thus defined as a condition of modern economic 
growth, because it leaves people useless unless they are employed or 
engaged in consumption.

This is an extremely interesting way of looking at labor on the one hand 
and poverty on the other. Labor is the ability to act effectively. 
Poverty is a circumstance in which labor is no longer meaningful or 
useful. The specifically modern condition of both, according to Illich, 
is when the commodity relation renders basic human functions and skills 
antiquated, depriving them of their force and significance.

This conception of poverty as impotence also cuts across traditional 
classes. Both the rich and the poor are rendered impotent by the 
commodity relation; the difference is only that the rich have a greater 
ability to overcome this impotence by purchasing and consuming 
commodities at a rate and level which the poor cannot.

In /The Right to Useful Employment/, Illich explores the problems of 
market dependence. He begins with a discussion of market intensity, 
arguing that crisis becomes a mechanism for reshaping culture to 
constrict the rights and abilities of average people. Illich contends 
that the process of commodity proliferation destroys cultures and 
creates unprecedented levels of dependence. This makes for conflict: the 
have-nots /must/fight for their share of the goods because having these 
goods is the basic condition of life. The alternative, according to 
Illich, is to refuse the commodity relation and re-skill so as to be 
less dependent upon it.

Illich makes an argument against consumerism by attacking the myths of a 
consumer-based society. These include the idea that people are born to 
be consumers and the illusion that purchasing goods and services helps 
people attain their goals. To Illich, commodities and services disable 
independent functioning, making them counterproductive. Consumerism thus 
harms productivity and detracts from culture because the focus is on 
consuming rather than making.

Part of Illich’s argument rests on a critique of professionalized 
institutions. He argues that professional authorities plays a central 
role in advocating for consumerism. Not only do professionals promote 
the illusion that people are meant to be consumers, they also argue that 
only special operators can be trusted with modern tools and people 
should follow expert opinions about what they need to consume. Here, 
Illich places himself squarely in the debate over the value of experts. 
However, what does it really mean to question expertise? Can the layman 
really administer the lifesaving procedures that modern medicine has 
devised? Can he or she devise new ones without the knowledge and 
expertise required? While Illich prioritizes agency and autonomy, this 
fundamental distrust of expertise can lead in a terribly reactionary 
direction.

In this work, Illich develops a case for the notion of individual 
capacity and communal self-sufficiency. His ideas differ drastically 
from both capitalist and Marxist economic orthodoxy and comes far closer 
to historical anarchist trends of thought. Illich’s work is an original 
and intellectually engaging approach to the concept of poverty, 
unemployment, and consumerism.


        Return to the reviews
        <https://www.workingnowandthen.com/scholarstudent/reviews/> or
        the annotated bibliography
        <https://www.workingnowandthen.com/scholarstudent/historiography/>

/Hayyim Rothman has a PhD in Philosophy from Boston College and recently 
received a Fulbright postdoctoral research fellowship to work at Bar 
Ilan University in Israel./

On 20-08-2020 09:30, R.O. wrote:
> https://archive.ica.art/sites/default/files/downloads/Ivan%20Illich_%20The%20Right%20to%20Useful%20Unemployment.pdf
>
>
> On 20-08-2020 09:27, R.O. wrote:
>> https://sustainabilitypopulareducation.wordpress.com/2014/06/28/the-right-to-useful-unemployment/
>>
>>
>>     The Right To Useful Unemployment
>>     <https://sustainabilitypopulareducation.wordpress.com/2014/06/28/the-right-to-useful-unemployment/>
>>
>> Posted on June 28, 2014 
>> <https://sustainabilitypopulareducation.wordpress.com/2014/06/28/the-right-to-useful-unemployment/> 
>> by mfinck311 
>> <https://sustainabilitypopulareducation.wordpress.com/author/mfinck311/>
>>
>> the-right-to-useful-unemployment 
>> <https://sustainabilitypopulareducation.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/the-right-to-useful-unemployment.jpg>
>>
>> In The Right to Useful Unemployment, Ivan Illich suggests that we 
>> need to break the association of the definition of work with that of 
>> the coupling of labor force and capital. For him, we must replace the 
>> status of the social relationship that commands production with the 
>> beneficial outcomes of effort; the achievement of satisfaction which 
>> flows from action.
>>
>> He suggests 3 principle ideas: that in commodity based societies the 
>> sheer abundance of commodities paralyzes the autonomous determination 
>> of use-value, that professions play a hidden role in society by 
>> shaping its needs, and that we must illuminate the illusions and 
>> break the professional power that perpetuates market dependance. 
>> Essentially, the power of professions to measure what is good, right, 
>> and done warps the desire, willingness, and ability of the “common 
>> person” to live within their means.
>>
>> Unemployment means idleness, rather than the freedom to do things 
>> which are useful for oneself or ones neighbor. An active person who 
>> maintains a household and raises children while taking in those of 
>> others is distinguished from one who “works” no matter how damaging 
>> or useless the product of that work may be. Housework, handicrafts, 
>> subsistence agriculture, radical technology, learning exchanges, and 
>> the like are degraded as fringe activities for the idle, the 
>> unproductive, the very rich, or very poor.
>>
>> The quality of a society and it’s culture depends on the status of 
>> it’s unemployed. We must protect the freedom of people to be useful 
>> outside the activities that result in the production of commodities. 
>> This depends on the rational and cynical competence of the common 
>> person when faced with the professional imputation of needs.
>>
>> Ultimately, Illich says we need to destroy the symbolic power of 
>> expertise, and that professional establishments protect their 
>> legitimacy in 3 principle ways: Professional self policing, 
>> professional alliances, and the professionalization of clients, often 
>> in the form of “self-help.”
>>
>> Illich suggests we must shift towards a participative conception of 
>> justice, and resist training for extreme specialization.
>>
>>
>>
>>
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