Beyond Economics and Ecology: The Radical Thought of Ivan Illich

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 f...