<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body>
<address class="mb-4"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.workingnowandthen.com/scholarstudent/reviews/ivan-illich-the-right-to-useful-unemployment/">https://www.workingnowandthen.com/scholarstudent/reviews/ivan-illich-the-right-to-useful-unemployment/</a><br>
</address>
<h1 class="mb-4">Ivan Illich, The Right to Useful Unemployment</h1>
<div class="content-inner">
<article class="" id="post-587">
<h4><b>Illich, Ivan. </b><b><a href="https://amzn.to/2L9kDXe"><em>The
Right to Useful Unemployment</em></a>. </b><b>London:
Marion Boyars, 1978.</b></h4>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Review by Hayyim Rothman</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Philosopher Ivan Illich
presents a theory of non-work very distinct from that of
Mario Tronti. In </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">The
Right to Useful Unemployment</span></i><span
style="font-weight: 400;">, 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.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">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.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">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.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In </span><i><span
style="font-weight: 400;">The Right to Useful Employment</span></i><span
style="font-weight: 400;">, 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 </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">must</span></i><span
style="font-weight: 400;"> 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.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">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. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">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.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">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.</span></p>
<h4>Return to the <a
href="https://www.workingnowandthen.com/scholarstudent/reviews/">reviews</a>
or the <a
href="https://www.workingnowandthen.com/scholarstudent/historiography/">annotated
bibliography</a></h4>
<p><em>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.</em></p>
</article>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 20-08-2020 09:30, R.O. wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:e9b3a9cb-57ad-0687-d3e5-4344272d979d@ziggo.nl">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<address><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://archive.ica.art/sites/default/files/downloads/Ivan%20Illich_%20The%20Right%20to%20Useful%20Unemployment.pdf"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://archive.ica.art/sites/default/files/downloads/Ivan%20Illich_%20The%20Right%20to%20Useful%20Unemployment.pdf</a><br>
<br>
<br>
</address>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 20-08-2020 09:27, R.O. wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:4345ca17-06e9-b47e-3caa-3fa26798e820@ziggo.nl">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;
charset=UTF-8">
<address class="entry-title"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://sustainabilitypopulareducation.wordpress.com/2014/06/28/the-right-to-useful-unemployment/"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://sustainabilitypopulareducation.wordpress.com/2014/06/28/the-right-to-useful-unemployment/</a><br>
</address>
<h2 class="entry-title"><a
href="https://sustainabilitypopulareducation.wordpress.com/2014/06/28/the-right-to-useful-unemployment/"
rel="bookmark" moz-do-not-send="true">The Right To
Useful Unemployment</a></h2>
<div class="entry-meta"> <span class="meta-prep
meta-prep-author">Posted on</span> <a
href="https://sustainabilitypopulareducation.wordpress.com/2014/06/28/the-right-to-useful-unemployment/"
title="7:27 pm" rel="bookmark" moz-do-not-send="true"><span
class="entry-date">June 28, 2014</span></a> <span
class="by-author"><span class="sep">by</span> <span
class="author vcard"><a class="url fn n"
href="https://sustainabilitypopulareducation.wordpress.com/author/mfinck311/"
title="View all posts by mfinck311" rel="author"
moz-do-not-send="true">mfinck311</a></span> </span> </div>
<p><a
href="https://sustainabilitypopulareducation.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/the-right-to-useful-unemployment.jpg"
moz-do-not-send="true"><img data-attachment-id="151"
data-permalink="https://sustainabilitypopulareducation.wordpress.com/2014/06/28/the-right-to-useful-unemployment/the-right-to-useful-unemployment/"
data-orig-file="https://sustainabilitypopulareducation.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/the-right-to-useful-unemployment.jpg"
data-orig-size="320,480" data-comments-opened="1"
data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":""}"
data-image-title="the-right-to-useful-unemployment"
data-image-description=""
data-medium-file="https://sustainabilitypopulareducation.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/the-right-to-useful-unemployment.jpg?w=200"
data-large-file="https://sustainabilitypopulareducation.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/the-right-to-useful-unemployment.jpg?w=320"
class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-151"
src="https://sustainabilitypopulareducation.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/the-right-to-useful-unemployment.jpg?w=200&h=300"
alt="the-right-to-useful-unemployment"
moz-do-not-send="true" width="200" height="300"></a></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>Illich suggests we must shift towards a participative
conception of justice, and resist training for extreme
specialization.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<br>
<fieldset class="mimeAttachmentHeader"></fieldset>
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">_______________________________________________
D66 mailing list
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:D66@tuxtown.net" moz-do-not-send="true">D66@tuxtown.net</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.tuxtown.net/mailman/listinfo/d66" moz-do-not-send="true">http://www.tuxtown.net/mailman/listinfo/d66</a>
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
<fieldset class="mimeAttachmentHeader"></fieldset>
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">_______________________________________________
D66 mailing list
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:D66@tuxtown.net">D66@tuxtown.net</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.tuxtown.net/mailman/listinfo/d66">http://www.tuxtown.net/mailman/listinfo/d66</a>
</pre>
</blockquote>
</body>
</html>