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52 | Tue Purtosopny or Eco-Pourtics
some vehicle broke the speed barrier of 15 mph, time scarcity related to
traffic began to grow. After industry has reached this per capita output,
transport made of man a new kind of waif: a being constantly absent
from a destination he cannot reach on his own but must attain within
the day." But the forced growth of production actually does satisfy a
need: the need of an economic system in which gains are only gains
while they can be realised in new profitable investments. ‘This is the
simple and well-known explanation of the necessity of growth. The
competition favours whoever can keep his specific production costs lower
through more effective technology, production in greater quantity and
convincing advertising and marketing activity. As a result of all this,
the main problem of the global economy is no longer shortage but
surplus, not the increase of production but of consumption, of so-called
solvent demand — or demand capable of further indebtedness.
Thomas Princen points out that production thus understood is, if
anything, primarily consumption: it literally consumes human abilities
and the natural environment as pure resources. And consumption is
production: the production of needs. According to him, of true needs
here on Earth there are but two kinds: what nature needs for the
maintenance of the circle of life and the needs of the people who need
help. This should be the true demand. But neither is solvent. Consumer
society works counter to true needs; it increases deprivation. At most it
modernises poverty, for the poor are no longer excluded from the market
economy. Quite the contrary: they become poor through losing their
independence, together with the knowledge and creativity that
previously provided them with a sufficient living. This, claims Ivan
Illich, makes them the scum of the market economy. They lose faith in
their own abilities and become dependent on the paid services of
professionals in all areas of life. All the new needs planted in us by the
pressure coming from the side of demand — be it smartphones, overseas
travel or even organic food — create new dimensions of inequality among
those who can afford them and those who can only desire them. ‘These
people, warns Illich, no longer demand participation for themselves in
politics, but rather better provision.”
It is typical of the narrow economy-centred worldview of our times
that the spread of environmentally conscious thought is often connected
to the oil crisis of the seventies. According to the mainstream view, the
4 Yvan Illich: Towards a History of Needs, p.127, Heyday Books, New York, 1978.
25 Thomas Princen: Treading Softly, p.71. The MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 2010.
26 Tvan Illich did.