Resumen

CAROSIO, Alba. Consumption on Ethical Crossroads. Utopìa y Praxis Latinoamericana [online]. 2008, vol.13, n.41, pp.13-45. ISSN 1315-5216.

This study tends to a ethical reflection on contemporaneous consumption, verifying from beginning the risks and consequencies of the present civilizatory way. Clearly the minority of inhabitants of the developed countries is depleting the natural resources at such levels that are endangering the conditions that make life possible. Yet it is not possible to spread these levels of material abundance to the whole world population. The model of capitalism is based on constant increasing of goods, proposed by the utopia of infinite abundance. Stimulation of purchase and raising of consumtion wishes, implies a system of values, where to be pleased and to have are displayed as desirable and central to life. The era of abundance and consumption needs a wide and multiform desire, centered on material and instantaneous satisfactions, uniformizing by means of the market the manners of enyoying. The imperiousness of enyoying creates a emotional and festive morality, where the ethical values are legitimated by a playful character of compliance, related to the idea of preferencies, therefore eliminating the distinction between wishes and needs. The culture of consumption disseminates a social rationality that favors the present time, expressed on individual and present ben  nefit, and depreciates the future. The hedonistic narcisistic vision means a continuously changing present time, stage for the personal enjoyment, that equals the personal selfrealization and social well-being.

Palabras clave : Consumption; culture of consumption; consumerism; ethics.