Tools for Conviviality

Illich's argument is that tools — broadly defined, including institutions, technologies and systems — should extend human autonomy rather than reduce it, and that most industrial tools have crossed the threshold where they produce the opposite of their stated purpose. A convivial tool is one that can be used by anyone, for any purpose they choose, without requiring expert mediation. For product direction this is the most radical design brief on the shelf: build tools that make users more capable, not more dependent. Read alongside Postman for the cultural critique, Sennett's The Craftsman for the craft tradition, and Morris's Useful Work versus Useless Toil for the labour argument. Short, prophetic, and one of the foundational texts of appropriate technology.