Quotessence
Home / Authors / Ivan Illich
Ivan Illich

Ivan Illich Quotes

Philosopher

Filter quotes by topic

AllSchoolPeopleDependsEducationLearningConsumerismConsumptionEconomicsMenNeedsWorldAlternativesIfsInstitutionsSocietyTeachingValuesBelieveEnergyHealth

Famous Ivan Illich Quotes

“An ever growing part of our major institutions’ functions is the cultivation and maintenance of three sets of illusions which turn the citizen into a client to be saved by experts...The first enslaving illusion is the idea that people are born to be consumers and that they can attain any of their goals by purchasing goods and services. This illusion is due to an educated blindness to the worth of use-values in the total economy. In none of the economic models serving as national guidelines is there a variable to account for non-marketable use-values any more than there is a variable for nature's perennial contribution.”

EducationEconomicsInstitutionsValueConsumerismAutonomyUsefulnessIllusions
Book:The Right to Useful Unemployment: And Its Professional Enemies
Create image

“The first enslaving illusion is the idea that people are born to be consumers and that they can attain any of their goals by purchasing goods and services....What people do or make but will not or cannot put up for sale is as immeasurable and as invaluable for the economy as the oxygen they breathe.”

EconomicsValueConsumerism
Book:The Right to Useful Unemployment: And Its Professional Enemies
Create image

“I believe that a desirable future depends on our deliberately choosing a life of action over a life of consumption, on our engendering a lifestyle which will enable us to be spontaneous, independent, yet related to each other, rather than maintaining a lifestyle which only allows to make and unmake, produce and consume - a style of life which is merely a way station on the road to the depletion and pollution of the environment. The future depends more upon our choice of institutions which support a life of action than on our developing new ideologies and technologies.”

WayBelieveActionChoicesI BelieveTechnologySupportEnvironmentStyleProduceDependsIndependentInstitutionsLifestyleIdeologyDevelopingRelatedStationsPollutionConsumptionConsumerismSpontaneousDesirableMaintainingOverconsumptionOur ChoicesBe Spontaneous
Author:Ivan Illich
Create image

“The goals of development are always and everywhere stated in terms of consumer value packages standardized around the North Atlantic-and therefore always and everywhere imply more privileges for a few... Underdevelopment is the result of a state of mind common to both socialist and capitalist countries. Present development goals are neither desirable nor reasonable. Unfortunately antiimperialism is no antidote.”

MindCountryStatesValuesGoalTermResultsCommonDevelopmentPrivilegeConsumersReasonableState Of MindCapitalistSocialistConsumerismDesirablePackagesAntidoteOverconsumptionUnderdevelopment
Author:Ivan Illich
Create image