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Wellbeing, Consumer Culture and the ‘New Poor’

16 pages

This paper focuses on the relationship between wellbeing and ‘modern culture’. Several economists and psychologists have disputed the existence of a causal relationship between individual happiness and economic growth and other research demonstrates the modern consumer-driven culture causes distress to many people. It argues that “a very sharp turn is needed” in society today in order to protect human wellbeing and this implies giving up the notion that economic growth is an “unqualified good”. This paper is part of a series of papers which have resulted from the Whose Economy? seminar series, held in Scotland in 2010 – 2011, whose purpose was to provide a space for researchers, representative organisations, policy-makers and people with experience of poverty to come together and explore the causes of poverty and inequality in today’s Scotland.

KeywordsCivil society Economic growth Wellbeing Consumerism Poverty in the UK United Kingdom