Low technology

Thus, a philosophy of advocating a widespread use of soft technologies was developed in the United States, and many studies were carried out in those years, in particular by researchers like Langdon Winner.

[8] More recently, the perspective of resource scarcity [9] – especially minerals – lead to an increasingly severe criticism on high-techs and technology.

It would then oppose the planned obsolescence of objects (often "high-tech") and question the consumer society, as well as the materialist principles underneath.

[12] Finally, considering that the definition of low-tech is relative, some prefer to use lower tech,[10] to emphasize a higher sobriety compared to high-tech, without claiming to be perfectly "low".

Note: home canning is a counter example of a low technology since some of the supplies needed to pursue this skill rely on a global trade network and an existing manufacturing infrastructure.

In the second volume of his book The Myth of the Machine (1970), Lewis Mumford develops the notion of "biotechnology", to designate "bioviable" techniques that would be considered as ecologically responsible, i.e. which establish a homeostatic relationship between resources and needs.

In his famous Small is beautiful (1973), Schumacher uses the concept of "intermediate technology",[4] which corresponds fairly precisely to what "low tech" means.

By federal law in the United States, only those articles produced with little or no use of machinery or tools with complex mechanisms may be stamped with the designation "hand-wrought" or "hand-made".