Some designers and design historians have challenged, even rejected, the idea that design supports the goals and objectives of the economic systems they find themselves in. Victor Papanek (1925–1998) was a trail blazer in the definition of sustainable design and addressing social issues through design. His book Design for the Real World in the late 1960s articulated a world for design to use less resources and address local social issues for ecologically sound design to serve the poor, the disabled and the elderly. The disciplines of sustainable design and universal design are echoed here.

Professor of design history at the University of Illinois at Chicago Victor Margolin addressed the inherent role of design communities supporting an economic system, which he called the "expansion model", where "the world consists of markets in which products function first and foremost as tokens of economic exchange. They attract capital which is either recycled back into more production or becomes part of the accumulation of private or corporate wealth." Margolin describes a "sustainable model" as having "ecological checks and balances that consists of finite resources. If the elements of this system are damaged or thrown out of balance or if essential resources are depleted, the system will suffer severe damage and will possibly collapse." ^[7]