Social definitions of entitlement

Food needs 1885-1920

Bibliographic Data

ID11268519
AuthorsNaomi Aronson (0000-0001-6386-0946, corresponding author)
Year1982
Volume4
Issue1
Pages51-61
Publication date1982-01-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueMedia Culture & Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0163-4437 • E-ISSN: 1460-3675
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/016344378200400105
OpenAlexW2071390434
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited3

The processes by which people conceptualize human needs are of fundamental social and theoretical importance. This is nowhere more evident than in contem-porary debates over the nature and morality of ’consumer society’. Recently in this journal, Schudson (1981) identified three major positions in the debate. Critics of both the capitalist economy and of advertising charge that modern marketing techniques create distorted and insatiable notions of human needs in order to increase consumption and, therefore, profits. Defenders of the status quo argue that the economic system discovers-rather than creates-needs and that modern marketing techniques perform a neutral function of informing the buyer of the availability of goods and services and facilitating their distribution. The third, relativist position holds that while needs cannot endlessly be created, neither are they merely discovered. Concepts of need arise from the individual’s station in life. There are ’standard packages ’ (Rainwater, 1974) of goods associated with various income levels; people aspire to possess those things to which they feel that they are socially entitled. The relativist position is a particularly persuasive one, but, unlike

Business · Economics · Entitlement (fair division · Mathematical economics · Sociology · Consumer Market Behavior and Pricing

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