Energy & Equity (Open Forum S.) [Hardcover]

Ivan Illich (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 31, 1974 | Series: Open Forum S.

A junkie without access to his stash is in a state of crisis. The 'energy crisis' that exists intermittently when the flow of fuel from unstable countries is cut off or threatened, is a crisis in the same sense. In this essay, Illich examines the question of whether or not humans need any more energy than is their natural birthright. Along the way he gives a startling analysis of the marginal disutility of tools. After a certain point, that is, more energy gives negative returns. For example, moving around causes loss of time proportional to the amount of energy which is poured into the transport system, so that the speed of the fastest traveller correlates inversely to the equality as well as freedom of the median traveller.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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About the Author

Ivan Illich is the author of Celebration of Awareness, Tools for Conviviality, The Right to Useful Unemployment, Energy and Equity, Limits to Medicine, Shadow Work, Gender, H2O and the Waters of Forgetfulness, ABC: The Alphabetization of the Popular Mind, Disabling Professions, Deschooling Society and In the Mirror of the Past: Lectures and Addresses 1978-1990. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 96 pages
• Publisher: Marion Boyars Publishers (January 31, 1974)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0714510572
• ISBN-13: 978-0714510576
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,028,584 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars radical thinking on energy, January 12, 2008

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P. Warren (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Energy and Equity (Ideas in Progress) (Paperback)

Ivan Illich studied theology and philosophy in Rome, and earned a PhD in history in Salzburg. His career was one of political activism as a philosopher, writer, and a Catholic. He spent most of his life in the United States and Mexico, where he founded a center in Cuernavaca.

Like much of Illich's writing, Energy and Equity is startlingly radical, so much so that it can be difficult to absorb.

The book's central theme is that the real "energy crisis" consists of having too much, not too little, energy. He claims that both the United States and Mexico are "blinded to the fact that the threat of social breakdown is due neither to a shortage of fuel, nor to the wasteful, polluting and irrational use of available wattage, but to the attempt of industries to gorge society with energy quanta that inevitably degrade, deprive and frustrate most people."

The voluntary simplicity movement represents a similar point of view, but the stark intellectual language employed by Illich fills a different role--one of intense mental aggression. In that way, his writing is refreshing, and may please the reader who likes to be challenged.