A Quote by Ivan Illich

In both rich and poor nations consumption is polarized while expectation is equalized. — © Ivan Illich
In both rich and poor nations consumption is polarized while expectation is equalized.
If the level and amount of consumption and waste of the western rich countries ever reaches the poor countries, it will mean the end of humanity. The big world corporations are busy doing it...The production, selling, consumption, accumulation, wastes' and advertisement explosions in the western rich countries and the continued population explosion in the poor countries will turn into major catastrophes.
No one can say how long the process of human extinction might take, but as it proceeds, the same global order will prevail that always prevails: rich nations will find ways to protect themselves and make themselves comfortable, while the poor nations and the poor people of the planet will suffer.
Both rich and poor nations have a common stake in policies that put the globe on a sustainable development path. The conflict is less between poor and rich countries than between the broad interests of people and the narrow interests of extractive industries. We need to find our way towards some kind of global regime that reduces emissions of the greenhouse gases, but well-off nations need to transfer the technology to make this possible, rather than viewing this shift as one more opportunity for private industry to profit.
The miserable consumption of the poor is partly the result of the ostentatious demands of the rich. There isn't enough for both, and the latter get far more than they need...But could anything seriously be done about it?
Growing richer every day, for as rich and poor are relative terms, when the rich are growing poor, it is pretty much the same as if the poor were growing rich. Nobody is poor when the distinction between rich and poor is destroyed.
It's not easy, especially in our politically polarized world, to recognize both the structural and the cultural barriers that so many poor kids face. But I think that if you don't recognize both, you risk being heartless or condescending, and often both.
About the only difference between the poor and the rich, is this, the poor suffer misery, while the rich have to enjoy it.
Poor nations are hungry, and rich nations are proud; and pride and hunger will ever be at variance.
The world is polarized. The middle class becomes smaller. The polarization makes the difference between rich and the poor big. This is true.
There is a working class - strong and happy - among both rich and poor: there is an idle class - weak, wicked, and miserable - among both rich and poor.
the distinction between rich nations and poor nations is one of the great dominant political and international themes of our century.
Car prices play a large role in calculating PPPs even while they play no role whatsoever in the consumption or consumption needs of the poor. And the prices of rice, bread and beans play a small role in calculating PPPs even though they play a huge role in meeting the consumption needs of the poor. So the World Bank's method of comparing and converting everything at general purchasing power parities into US dollars is highly distorting within an exercise whose purpose it is to determine whether households are or are not capable of meeting their basic consumption needs.
That was always my experience-a poor boy in a rich town; a poor boy in a rich boy's school; a poor boy in a rich man's club at Princeton .... However, I have never been able to forgive the rich for being rich, and it has colored my entire life and works.
Socially, I never belonged to any class, rich or poor. To the rich I was poor, and to the poor I was poor pretending to be like the rich.
The interesting thing about me is that I was born poor, and I've lived rich and I've lived poor, and I know how to do both. People think rich is better. I don't know.
Poor and free rather than rich and enslaved. Of course, men want to be both rich and free, and this is what leads them at times to be poor and enslaved.
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