Can I read Tools for Conviviality on EtoBox?

Tools for Conviviality by Illich, Ivan, 1926-2002 is a book available to read on EtoBox.

What is Tools for Conviviality about?

**Tools for Conviviality** is a 1973 book by Ivan Illich about the proper use of technology. It was published only two years after his previous book *Deschooling Society*. In this new work Illich generalized the themes that he had previously applied to the field of education: the institutionalization of specialized knowledge, the dominant role of technocratic elites in industrial society, and the need to develop new instruments for the reconquest of practical knowledge by the average citizen. He wrote that "[e]lite professional groups ... have come to exert a 'radical monopoly' on such basic human activities as health, agriculture, home-building, and learning, leading to a 'war on subsistence' that robs peasant societies of their vital skills and know-how. The result of much economic development is very often not human flourishing but 'modernized poverty', dependency, and an out-of-control system in which the humans become worn-down mechanical parts." Illich proposed that we should "invert the present deep structure of tools" in order to "give people tools that guarantee their right to work with independent efficiency." The idea of the 'radical monopoly' is also applied to the effe

Author

Illich, Ivan, 1926-2002

Publisher

Heyday Books,c[1973

Published

1973

Language

EN

ISBN

9780930588373

Subjects

Economics, Sociology, Business

Rating

4.1 / 5 (242 ratings)

Updated

2026-03-14