A history of exploitation

We mainly owe the “developed” society we are living in today, to the Industrial Revolution. Indeed, mass series production of goods gave larger access to comfortable lifestyles, to medical care, to democracy… But we tend to forget what powers mass production: alienating human labor. The comfort of some was built by the exploitation of others and is still doing so. This is a major social paradox of industrialization. The industry is now facing another paradox, of an environmental nature. When capitalism tries to be ecological, by finding solutions to the environmental problems it causes itself, it can easily create a “problem-solution” vicious circle and only harms the environment even more. As capitalism’s favorite weapon is material/stuff, greenwashing is this process that allows creating more things under the pretext that it is “less bad”.

But we can’t expect to build a more ecological world by continuing to destroy the environment, as much as we can’t expect to make a more comfortable society by enhancing social inequalities. In other words, we need to stop basing development on exploitation.

Linearity is outdated

Like McDonough and Braungart writes it in Cradle to Cradle, “Modern industries still operate according to paradigms that developed when humans had a very different sense of the world” (McDonough, 2002 :26). While the understanding of our environment and ourselves has considerably evolved since the 19th century, the current linear industrial model is largely outdated. It is now vital to recognize that human activity is all but independent of humans’ environment, and primordial to shape the industry into a fair circular exchange between what humans take and what they give back to their environment.

An industry of standardization?

In an attempt to reduce social inequalities, designers, and architects from the International style (1920-1980) tried to use standardization as a new way of producing. Le Corbusier, for example, designed a series of social housing buildings, basing all their dimensions on his measuring system, the Modulor, using the golden ratio to define a standardized human size. Slightly taller than the average man and 20cm taller than the average woman, this standardization tool was actually far from female-inclusive… In the end, regardless to local identities and practices, these buildings illustrate what the Brute Force of industrialization does: « impose universal design solution on an infinite number of local conditions and customs » (McDonough, 2002 :30). The universal design promotes a « norm », which will only keep marginalizing minorities.

Here is what Industrial Revolution gave to, and took from people and the environment. Now, Design, as a major player in the industry, needs to give it back to them.

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Paradoxes of Industrialization / Emilie Schaefer Schaefer / Environmental Design: Materials, Ecologies, Futures (2020-2021)[SEM1] by blogadmin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0