In specifying a product or service offering, designers operationalize flows of material resources (extraction, refinement, commodification), labor resources (production methods, tools, labor activities), and desires (markets for new goods and services or in new locations). Yet design in action is a method. Under the sway of an unrecognized ideology, it can be a blunt instrument. Design’s instrumental role in the production of material culture is intimately tied to this historical system that has developed a networked collection of institutions, laws, rules, customs, and logics that foreground private property, private enterprise, and competition in both production and consumption. That most design practices are under the direction of the ideology of capitalism, is a historical fact. However, it’s also just that: historical.
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