Is the consumer society an inevitable destiny? Once
ends the current crisis, does the call to a sober and austere life, with
a sustainable lifestyle, will end up being filed away as a bad
memory of a particularly unfavorable economic phase? Y
if, on the contrary, we face a new era of society
consumption and a true cultural advance?
This work investigates the relationship between happiness and consumption,
giving an account of the broad contemporary debate on the subject,
revealing the paradoxes, ambiguities and limits that have
characterized this relationship until today. Following the reflections
alternatives that are emerging on the topic of "growth",
the author proposes a way out of the impasse that is experienced today: the
responsible happiness.
It is about a feeling of happiness that, based on the concept of
shared social responsibility, is capable of developing a
different definition of well-being that allows understanding the
scope of economic forms that maintain values ​​such as
trust, reciprocity, solidarity and equity. Authenticity,
sustainability, justice, social inclusion bring considerations into play
moral and political.