Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Beyond Economics and Ecology: The Radical Thought of Ivan Illich
    Unavailable
    Beyond Economics and Ecology: The Radical Thought of Ivan Illich
    Unavailable
    Beyond Economics and Ecology: The Radical Thought of Ivan Illich
    Ebook151 pages2 hours

    Beyond Economics and Ecology: The Radical Thought of Ivan Illich

    By Ivan Illich, Jerry Brown and Sajay Samuel

    1.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Each of the four essays reprinted here was written for a specific occasion and together comprise only the smallest selection from a larger corpus questioning commodity and energy-intensive economies. The essays are presented thematically instead of chronologically to offer a better view of the sweep of Illich's argument. In the first two, “War against Subsistence” and “Shadow Work,” Illich reveals both the ruins on which the economy is built and the blindness of economics which cannot but fail to see it. The second two essays, “Energy and Equity” and “The Social Construction of Energy,” unearth the nineteenth century invention and subsequent consequences of 'energy' thought of as the unseen cause of all 'work' whether done by steam engines, humans, or trees. The science of ecology relies on this assumption and, as Illich explained, unwittingly fuels the addiction to energy. The close dance of energy consumption and economic growth is characteristic of not just industrially geared societies. After all, energy consumption steadily increases even in so-called post-industrial societies, fueling the fortunes of Google and Apple no less than Wal-Mart.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMarion Boyars
    Release dateJul 8, 2013
    ISBN9780714523606
    Unavailable
    Beyond Economics and Ecology: The Radical Thought of Ivan Illich

    Read more from Ivan Illich

    Related to Beyond Economics and Ecology

    Related ebooks

    Economics For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Radical Adaptation

      Nov 20, 2019

      We are at a moment in time when more and more people are beginning to panic over what seems to be impending civilisational apocalypse. David Wallace-Wells’s book, The Uninhabitable Earth unpacks the horrific implications of climate change. Greta Thun

      7 min read

    • Article

      Are We Having Too Much Fun?

      Apr 27, 2017

      Are We Having Too Much Fun?
      9 min read

    • Article

      Living In A Media World

      Jul 27, 2020

      Living In A Media World
      4 min read

    • Article

      Man United

      Feb 25, 2022

      The philosopher Nina Power believes men are under attack. Western society has done away with “the positive dimensions of patriarchy”, that is, “the protective father, the responsible man, the paternalistic attitude that exhibits care and compassion”.

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Rising Threat Of Eco-fascism: Far Right Co-opting Environmentalism To Justify Anti-immigration And Anti-Semitic Views

      Mar 23, 2021

      The far right is co-opting environmentalism to fan the flames of hatred, using a professed desire to protect the planet as a veneer for anti-immigration and anti-Semitic views. New research, shared exclusively with The Independent, has found that whi

      4 min read

    • Article

      Central Banks

      Jul 25, 2019

      Central Banks
      16 min read

    • Article

      The People Who Hate People

      May 24, 2022

      The People Who Hate People
      8 min read

    • Article

      To Fix the Climate, Tell Better Stories

      Apr 13, 2017

      Here are two sets of statements from far-distant opposites in the climate change debate. The first is from Naomi Klein, who in her book This Changes Everything paints a bleak picture of a global socioeconomic system gone wrong: “There is a direct and

      9 min read

    • Article

      To Fix the Climate, Tell Better Stories

      Aug 15, 2019

      Here are two sets of statements from far-distant opposites in the climate change debate. The first is from Naomi Klein, who in her book This Changes Everything paints a bleak picture of a global socioeconomic system gone wrong: “There is a direct and

      9 min read

    • Article

      Hope From The Seed Of Trauma

      Feb 13, 2023

      Hope From The Seed Of Trauma
      10 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Nov 26, 2020

      Letters
      4 min read

    • Article

      Dollars Versus Degrees

      Mar 1, 2022

      Dollars Versus Degrees
      4 min read

    • Article

      No Planet, No Pride: Why Climate Justice Is LGBTQ+ Justice

      Feb 18, 2022

      Look out of the window; the climate crisis is already happening. Winters are getting shorter, flowers are blooming months earlier than they should, and insects are being wiped out en-masse. The picture is apocalyptic, which is why it can be tempting

      10 min read

    • Article

      We Can Stop Some Disasters

      Feb 19, 2023

      Sociologist Steve Matthewman (“Trauma centre”, February 11) refers to Christchurch and its environs as “a living laboratory for investigating the resurrection and rebuilding of cities and communities”. Personally, I’d like us to contemplate the many

      8 min read

    • Article

      Life Lessons

      Jun 1, 2020

      BY NOW, IT’S CLEAR that the coronavirus pandemic is one of the most serious collective events most of us alive today have ever faced. The spread of the virus has been a massive wake-up call for humankind, and not just in a scientific, logistical or e

      3 min read

    • Article

      Diet To Die For

      Mar 8, 2020

      Diet To Die For
      8 min read

    • Article

      Legislate For Fair Pay

      Oct 9, 2022

      Legislate For Fair Pay
      8 min read

    • Article

      Send Us Your Feedback

      Jun 18, 2020

      Re: your striking image of a coal-fired power station in your edition on Air pollution (NI 525). Surely you should be aware that cooling towers emit only steam (as they are cooling waste steam to recycle in the process) and not smoke. The steam may a

      3 min read

    • Article

      Apocalypse? No

      Apr 1, 2024

      by Hannah Ritchie (Chatto &Windus, $40) Swedish public health doctor Hans Rosling liked to survey attendees at international conferences on their basic understanding of health, development and poverty: How many children lived in absolute poverty? W

      4 min read

    • Article

      Send Us Your Feedback

      Aug 21, 2019

      I found the article ‘Progress and its discontents’ by Jason Hickel (NI 520) very informative in its discussion of global poverty and inequality. Although Hickel references Hans Rosling and Steven Pinker, neither of them are primarily concerned with i

      3 min read

    • Article

      Toward A Shared Space

      Apr 16, 2021

      Toward A Shared Space
      3 min read

    • Article

      Toward A Shared Space

      Apr 16, 2021

      Toward A Shared Space
      3 min read

    • Article

      Cities Under Siege

      Jan 31, 2021

      Cities Under Siege
      10 min read

    • Article

      By The Num83r5

      Dec 20, 2022

      If the success of a species might be measured by its numbers, humankind seemingly has much to celebrate. Remarkably, two millennia ago, there were just 300 million of us. Within your grandparents’ lifetime, that figure exploded to 2.5 billion. Now we

      12 min read

    Reviews for Beyond Economics and Ecology

    1.5/5

    2 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 2/5
      It's summer in the Swedish archipelago at the very end of the nineteenth century, and a student and a young girl are in love. However, he is unable to commit himself to her, and they lose contact. Many years later, when both are in loveless marriages, they meet again by chance. But have they changed too much to rekindle their early romance? Well, actually, he hasn't changed all that much - he still dislikes the idea of promising himself to anybody, and he still needs her to be the innocent thing of his youthful dreams. But of course, if she were still so innocent, they would not be able to embark on a love affair. And so this time around, it's much more dark and bitter. There's clearly a theme of morality running through the book. The student grows up to be a journalist, and with his friends and colleagues they talk about theories of morality and truth. There are many references to famous lies, frauds and scandals of the period, from La Grande Therese to the Dreyfus affair. And the story itself is seems to me to be deliberately 'immoral' - characters have adulterous affairs, illegitimate children, divorces, and this is all presented as absolutely normal, which I am sure was scandalous at the time the book was written. It wasn't clear to me, though, how this theme fitted with the main story. At one point, Arvid (the student) muses on how he always saw himself as an upstanding, moral person, but now his life is full of lies and hypocrisy. I suppose this might be more effective if there had been any other evidence that his life was upstanding and moral rather than a constant search for the easiest way out of things. Actually I found him a rather tiresomely juvenile figure, and if I was Lydia (the girl) I would have got pretty fed up with being constantly questioned about my spiritual purity...