Tools for Conviviality

Tools for Conviviality is a 1973 book by Ivan Illich exploring the history of technology and tools. Illich proposes the idea of a 'convivial tool', one which allows its user to exercise their human autonomy and creativity. He draws a contrast between these convivial tools, which extend human capability, and the tools of industrial society, which have gone beyond that original goal and have become destructive to human autonomy and ingenuity.^[1] The book introduced Illich's concept of a 'convivial tool' or 'convivial society' and of a 'radical monopoly', ideas which have become influential to the discourse around degrowth^[2] and appropriate technology.^[3]

Tools for Conviviality

First edition
Author	Ivan Illich
Published	1973 (Harper & Row)
Pages	110
ISBN	9780714509730

Illich uses the concept of "radical monopoly" to describe how an industrial technology can become so dominant that it eliminates older, more convivial alternatives, such as when the automobile displaces the ability to walk safely. He argues that a just society must consciously limit the scale and power of its tools to ensure they remain subordinate to human values. The book advocates for a political process that would allow communities to democratically determine the thresholds beyond which their tools become destructive, thereby preserving the possibility of a convivial life.

Watershed analysis

Illich identifies the first watershed of modern medicine as occurring around 1913, the point at which a patient visiting a doctor had, for the first time, a better than 50% chance of receiving an effective treatment.^[4]

The second watershed, however, represents a critical turning point. It is the threshold beyond which an institution's growth becomes detrimental to its original purpose. Past this point, the tool or system begins to generate more problems than it solves, creating new forms of scarcity and dependence.

For medicine, Illich argued this second watershed was crossed in the mid-1950s, when the focus shifted from preventing disease to managing chronic illness, often induced by medical treatments themselves (iatrogenesis).^[1]: 9

See also

Related social theories

• technological determinism
• postdevelopment theory

Related economic and technological concepts

• appropriate technology
• human-centered design
• planned obsolescence
• right to repair

Other influences, contemporaries and disciples

• Jacques Ellul, author of The Technological Society (1954)
• Lee Felsenstein, active in the early PC movement
• André Gorz, in direct collaboration
• Lewis Mumford, author of The Myth of the Machine (1967)
• E. F. Schumacher, author of Small Is Beautiful (1973)