A work of seminal importance, this book presents Ivan Illich's penetrating analysis of the industrial mode of production which characterises our contemporary world. The mass production of education (see Deschooling Society) serves as a paradigm for other modern industrial enterprises,'each producing a service commodity, each organised as a public utility and each defining its output as a basic necessity.' Such industrial enterprises include systems of public transport, communication, health services, welfare, national defence, in short, any industrialised service agency which eventually imposes its use upon its consumers. The conviviality sought is one in which man's personal energies are under his control and in which the use of his tools is responsibly limited. The overall objective is to survive with justice, avoiding the bleak prospects of totally planned goals, desires, lives and total loss of individual privacy. This book claims our attention for the urgency of its appeal, the stunning clarity of its logic, the overwhelmingly human note which it sounds.