Ivan Illich Quotes

All over the globe the U.S. is fighting to protect and develop at least a minority who consume what the U.S. majority can afford.

China is a country, still, of great contrast. While hundreds of millions of people are part of the middle class and yearn for things made in America - American brands, movies, music - there are other hundreds of millions of people throughout China who are living on the equivalent of one U.S. dollar a day.

The differences in income between the poor world and the rich world are so great that people have to be interested.

We see a small number of countries getting rich at the cost of impoverishment of a large number of other countries.

One half of the world outprices the other half.

Capitalism is not simply mass production, but mass production to satisfy the needs of the masses.

People in the U.K. don't imagine what it is to live in extreme poverty here in Colombia or anywhere in the so-called Third World.

The domination of western values, beliefs and way of life has angered many from the east and in developing countries.

It's well proved economics that if a country which is rich and a country that is poor come together in global trade, sooner or later the standard of living of the poor country will go up towards that of the rich country.

While a handful of countries and a small number of people are leading ample life, dozens of countries and billions of people in Africa, Asia and Latin America are being left in absolute poverty.

Global interdependence today means that economic disasters in developing countries could create a backlash on developed countries.

The West has become the world model; developing countries are dreaming of living like us, which is impossible. They should reject our model, because it is not sustainable. Developing countries should even give us the example, but unfortunately that's not what happens.

I don't consider the first-world concerns any less important than the third-world ones.

I don't think that people in America are really given enough information about the Third World.

I think growing up in South Africa, and then moving to Canada, I'm just genuinely interested in the difference between the First World and the Third World, immigration, and how the new, globalized world is beginning to operate. All of those things run through my mind a lot.

When the developed grow fast, the developing grow fast, and when the developed slow down, the developing slow down.

One of the biggest challenges facing the globe is the gap that exists in the wealth and standards of living enjoyed by the world's nations.

I like globalization; I want to say it works, but it is hard to say that when six hundred million people are slipping backwards.

In the field of economy, for instance, we … members of the developing world follow the currents of globalization, with conditions set by the rich countries, and at a speed dictated without our slightest input.

Never forget that there are rich people in poor countries and poor people in rich countries.

The problems of the Third World—its poverty, its ignorance, its debt—never really seemed to affect Europeans and Americans. No longer. It's a little warmer than it used to be. The water is rising.

The lack of equity and of a sense of solidarity in international transactions works to the advantage of the industrialized nations so that the gulf between the rich and the poor is ever widening. Hence derives the feeling of frustration among third world countries, and the accusations of exploitation and economic colonialism brought against the industrialized nations.

The rich world has lots of well-paying jobs and an aging population that cannot fill them. The poor world has desperate workers. But while goods and capital can easily cross borders, modern labor cannot.

The things and ways the West took to the rest have become the ways of the world.

it must be right to suggest that all countries should use their resources so as to advance the right to development for their people in an equitable manner and that all countries should cooperate for the mutual achievement of the right to development. The alternative to such a policy framework is a Darwinian world of market-oriented capitalism with no social or human rights safety nets. How can developing countries survive in such a world?