"Modernized poverty appears when the intensity of market dependence reaches a certain threshold. Subjectively, it is the experience of frustrating affluence which occurs in persons mutilated by their overwhelming reliance on the riches of industrial productivity. Simply, it deprives those affected by it of their freedom and power to act autonomously, to live creatively; it confines them to survival through being plugged into market relations. And precisely because this new impotence is so deeply experienced, it is with difficulty expressed. We are the witnesses of a barely perceptible transformation in ordinary language by which verbs that formerly designated satisfying actions are replaced by nouns that denote packages designed for passive consumption only."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Ivan Illich, Toward a History of Needs (1978)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Market
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Market
43 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Market →
Related Quotes
"Having created the conditions that make markets possible, democracy must do all the things that markets undo or canno…"
"In and of itself, the market is not, and must not become, the place where the strong subdue the weak."
"The market does not exist in the pure state. It is shaped by the cultural configurations which define it and give it …"
"Markets are social organizations, structured and regulated by more or less well-defined social rule systems."
"Vulgar libertarian apologists for capitalism use the term "free market" in an equivocal sense: they seem to have trou…"
"As the most powerful state, the U.S. makes its own laws, using force and conducting economic warfare at will. It also…"
"Big industry has brought all the people of the Earth into contact with each other, has merged all local markets into …"
"By creating the world market, big industry has already brought all the peoples of the Earth, and especially the civil…"
"Markets are interested in profits and profits only; service, quality, and general affluence are different functions a…"
"If an exchange between two parties is voluntary, it will not take place unless both believe they will benefit from it…"