A Final Thought for the Day

My reading tonight is Ivan Illich's 1974 classic, The Limits to Medicine. While the subject of this book is what he terms "medical nemisis" a core theme in this and most of his other work is the idea of "radical monopoly" and particularly the radical monopoly of the professions.

For Illich, a radical monopoly appropriates those features of society, as he puts it

. . . which have allowed people to cope on their own. Intensive education turns autodidacts into unemployables, intensive agriculture destroys the subsistence farmer, and the deployment of police undermines the community's self-control.

The disabling help of the teacher, doctor, specialist and bureaucrat of whatever stripe has left us largely powerless to act on our own behalf, individually or collectively. These helpers have become our priesthood. And any progressive politics, if it is to achieve lasting success, must find a way to disestablish this secular church of professionals and experts and their radical monopoly and teach people to once again act effectively on their own behalf -- to cope.