CONSUMPTION. - I. GENERAL CONCEPT
C. (actus consummandi) is the concluding act of the entire economic process, the end and object of all production, consisting in the definitive utilization of wealth.
In ordinary language, to consume means to wear out through use, to destroy gradually, to reduce to nothing, although in reality destruction is nothing more than a change of form and destruction of value, because after the change the thing has ceased to be useful. In economic language, however, the purpose of c. does not consist in destroying the value of wealth, but in deriving benefit from its utility, that is, in putting it to the use for which it was produced. C. might better be called utilization. Destruction, although often a necessary condition of c., is not essential and is rather unpleasant.
Corresponding to this possible condition, wealth is classified differently. For some goods subject to rapid deterioration, their c. requires the annihilation of value (e.g., milk). Others can be preserved for a longer or shorter time, but in c. they are subject to the same fate (e.g., wine). In others, c. is independent of deterioration (e.g., fabrics, works of art). Even here there is slow wear and tear, but this is not necessarily connected with c.
II. VARIOUS KINDS OF C
Referring to the legal distinction between consumable and non-consumable goods, some writers improperly speak of productive and unproductive c.: the former is not c. in name only, inasmuch as it serves as a means to the end of new production (e.g., the c. of grapes for wine); the latter, which is what we are concerned with here, has the character of an end, inasmuch as it aims at the immediate (see also EXPENSES) or deferred satisfaction of our needs (see SAVING) with the complete annihilation of the utility of the good consumed. Even here, however, there is only an apparent unproductive c., because through it life is given to that which is the soul of all production: man.C. is also distinguished with respect to cause into voluntary and involuntary, and with respect to the consumer’s wealth into inferior, equal to, or superior to the consumer’s income, thus producing different effects in relation to the increase, preservation, or decrease of his corresponding patrimony.
Finally, c. is distinguished into private and public according to whether it is carried out directly by private individuals or through public bodies (State, region, province, municipality).
To this classification is linked that of “individual and collective need”: the former satisfied by individual economic activity, the latter by the economic activity of public bodies.
This last distinction helps in general to determine the limits of public (in which the subject is the State) and private (in which the subject is the individual) economy.
The extent of collective needs and therefore of State functions has not always been the same: from an individualistic conception, according to which the State should limit itself to safeguarding public order, one passes to a social conception, according to which the State should also concern itself with functions relating to the material and moral development of its citizens.
Here we are concerned with c. not in relation to public or financial economy (see FINANCE, TAXES), but in relation to social economy and ethics.
III. DISTRIBUTION OF INCOME AMONG VARIOUS C
Classical economics maintains that the conduct of economic subjects is exclusively determined by the utilitarian principle. Even the distribution of income among the various c. is therefore the result of choices that are either made by the individual, or by the head of the household, or by the enterprise; choices which, together with other economic forces, act as self-regulating forces of the economic system. Since, therefore, the distribution of income among the various c. is the result of choices that are entirely subjective, one can approximately determine how this distribution normally takes place.In the last century certain writers, such as Le Play, with his monographs, have considered expenditures destined for food, clothing, housing, “comfort,” and amusements, examining in what proportions they appeared in the budgets of different classes of the population. Others, such as F. Engel, with his statistical works, have sought to draw from sociological observation general conclusions that can be summarized as follows:
1) The higher the income of a family, the smaller the percentage spent on food; 2) as regards clothing, agreement is not complete: Engel maintains that expenditure is proportional to income; others claim that it increases more than proportionally to income; 3) the percentage spent on housing, including rent, heating, and lighting, is almost constant at different income levels; 4) the percentage spent on “comfort” and pleasure shows a considerable increase as income rises.
These are relative conclusions, which at best serve to indicate which goods need to be multiplied for the betterment of humanity (housing and food), just as relative is the utilitarian principle, applied as an absolute criterion, and the alleged almost mechanical adaptation of production to c. One would then be unable to explain the almost periodic crises of overproduction.
Moreover, if the motive of personal gain appears generally in mass phenomena as a prevalent phenomenon, it cannot be accepted as the sole and exclusive norm of the conduct of individual persons.
Above and beyond economic laws stand moral laws.
IV. C., ECONOMY AND ETHICS. - The use of material goods is in itself indifferent: it is good or bad according to the end for which it is employed and the sentiment by which it is animated, and virtue consists in the just mean.
The field of c. is subject to change and progress. Nor should one seek a uniform and unchanging measure of human needs, which vary in different epochs and environments.
Among human needs are not only the concerns of material life: to live, to clothe oneself, to have a home. The thought of religious and moral life is a duty; the development of intellectual and artistic life, social relations, decorum can be reasonable and even imperative.
Given this premise, c. must aim at the rational and judicious utilization of goods, avoiding sinful use as well as vain and sterile destruction.
C. must therefore meet these conditions: 1) to satisfy truly human desires in the best sense and not in the worst sense of the word. Excesses in expenditure (which is the usual form of unproductive c. in our monetary economy) can range from dependence to prodigality, from inability to luxury (see).