New classes of underconsumers and of underemployed are one of the inevitable by-products of industrial progress. Organization makes them aware of the… - Ivan Illich

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New classes of underconsumers and of underemployed are one of the inevitable by-products of industrial progress.
Organization makes them aware of their common plight. At present articulate minorities-often claiming the leadership of majorities — seek equal treatment. If one day they were to seek equal work rather than equal pay-equal inputs rather than equal outputs-they could be the pivot of social reconstruction. Industrial society could not possibly resist a strong women's movement, for example, which would lead to the demand that all people, without distinction, do equal work. Women are integrated into all classes and races. Most of their daily activities are performed in nonindustrial ways. Industrial societies remain viable precisely because women are there to perform those daily tasks which resist industrialization. It is easier to imagine that the North American continent would cease to exploit the under-industrialization of South America than that it would cease to use its women for industry-resistant chores. In a society ruled by the standards of industrial efficiency, housework is rendered inhuman and devalued. It would be rendered even less tolerable if it were given pro-forma industrial
status. The further expansion of industry would be brought to a halt if women forced upon us the recognition that society is no longer viable if a single mode of production prevails. The effective recognition that not two but several equally valuable, dignified, and important modes of production must coexist within any viable society would bring industrial expansion under
control. Growth would stop if women obtained equally creative work for all, instead of demanding equal rights over the gigantic and expanding tools now appropriated by men.