The conceptions of welfare and the consumption. A literature review based on the civil economy and social sciences

Abstract

The welfare model proposed from modernity is based on a positivist rationality of material accumulation and adaptation of the world according to standards of efficiency and anthropocentric hedonism. For that reason, in order to propose other forms of more sustainable consumption it is necessary to establish new parameters of wellness on the basis of what has been called lifestyles, a situation that from the capitalist logic of total good does not seem possible and, therefore, requires a thoughtful, much more active position of the consumer-citizens. In this sense, this paper discusses, from an interdisciplinary literature review based on the paradigm of civil economy, the impact of the conceptions of welfare as a determining factor in the consumption process, on the basis of the economic principle of reciprocity.

Keywords: welfare, consumption, happiness, civilization, freedom, reciprocity.