Ivan Illich Quotes
All over the globe the U.S. is fighting to protect and develop at least a minority who consume what the U.S. majority can afford.
Ivan Illich, 1926-2002, Austrian Roman Catholic Theologian and Writer, “To Hell with Good Intentions,” Conference on InterAmerican Student Projects, Cuernavaca, Mexico, April 20, 1968
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Rich people the world over have often sought a safe way to save their money. Unfortunately, in most counties of the world, there is not the rule of law and the limited government that is in the United States and a few other industrial democracies. So the rich of those countries will often avoid investing their money in their own country and instead invest it in the United States or another “safe” country. This lack of patriotism makes development of poorer countries that much more difficult. However, the rulers of those countries rarely do the things necessary to create a reasonably safe environment for investment. Even in America, some wealthy people will invest in other nations or “bet against the dollar” in favor of the Yen, the Swiss Franc or the Euro. During the American Revolution and the War of 1812, there was every reason for wealthy Americans to send their money to England for investment or banking there, However, most American wealthy families were patriotic enough not to maximize their personal income.
One dramatic example of this principle is that India at the end of the 20th century had more billionaires than the United States did.
At the time of this quotation, the nation had gone through more than 3 decades of enormous increase in prosperity for the wealthy, and modest gains for the highly skilled, technically trained workers. However, correcting for inflation, average salaries did not increase at all. The middle class was particularly hard hit. Only 20 percent of the population benefitted from the growth at all; however, the 1 percent had rarely prospered more. Kenworthy’s principle did not apply for this period of American history.
Ivan Dominic Illich was a Roman Catholic priest, theologian, philosopher, and social critic. His 1971 book Deschooling Society criticises modern society's institutional approach to education, an approach that constrains learning to narrow situations in a fairly short period of the human lifespan. His 1975 book Medical Nemesis, importing to the sociology of medicine the concept of medical harm, argues that industrialised society widely impairs quality of life by overmedicalising life, pathologizing normal conditions, creating false dependency, and limiting other more healthful solutions. Illich called himself "an errant pilgrim."
