Consumption

CONSUMPTION. - I. GENERAL NOTION. - C. (actus consummandi) is the concluding act of the entire economic process, the end and object of all production, which consists in the definitive utilization of wealth.

In ordinary language, to consume means to wear out through use, to destroy little by little, to reduce to nothing, although in reality the destruction is nothing other than a change of form and a destruction of value, because as a result of the change undergone the thing has ceased to be useful. In economic language, by contrast, the purpose of c. does not consist in destroying the value of wealth, but in taking advantage of its utility, that is, in applying it to the use for which it was produced. C. might better be called utilization. Destruction, although it is often a necessary condition of c., is not essential and is rather unpleasant.

In correspondence with this possible condition, wealth comes to be classified differently. For some goods exposed 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 undergo the same fate (e.g., wine). In others, c. is independent of deterioration (e.g., fabrics, works of art). Although here too there is a slow wearing out, this has no necessary connection with c.

II. VARIOUS KINDS OF CONSUMPTION

Referring to the juridical distinction between consumable and non-consumable things, some writers speak improperly of productive and unproductive c.: the former is a c. in name only, inasmuch as it has the character of a means to the ends of a new production (e.g., the c. of grapes for wine); the latter, of which we intend to speak here, has the character of an end, inasmuch as it tends to the immediate (v. also SPESE) or deferred satisfaction of our needs (v. RISPARMIO) with the complete annihilation of the utility of the good consumed. But even here there is only in appearance an unproductive c., because through it life is given to that which is the soul of every production: man.

C. is also distinguished with respect to its cause, into voluntary and involuntary, and with respect to the wealth of the consumer, into inferior, equal and superior to the income of the consumer himself and therefore producing different effects, in relation to the increase, the preservation and the diminution of his corresponding patrimony.

C. is distinguished finally into private and public according to whether it is done directly by private individuals or through public bodies (State, region, province, commune).

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 serves to determine in general the limits of public economy (in which the subject is the State) and private economy (in which the subject is the individual).

The extension 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 protecting public order, one passes to a social conception, for which the State should also occupy itself with functions relating to the material and moral development of its members.

We deal here with c. not in relation to public or financial economy (v. FINANZA, TRIBUTI), but in relation to social economy and ethics.

III. DISTRIBUTION OF INCOME AMONG THE VARIOUS CONSUMPTION

Classical economics maintains that the conduct of economic agents is determined exclusively by the utilitarian principle. The distribution of income among the various consumers is therefore also the result of choices made either by the individual, or by the head of the family, or by the head of the firm — choices which, together with the other economic forces, act as self-regulating forces of the entire cycle. Since, therefore, the distribution of income among the various consumers is the result of entirely subjective choices, one can determine approximately the manner in which this distribution normally takes place.

In the last century certain writers, such as Le Play, in their monographs considered the expenditures devoted to food, clothing, housing, "comfort," and amusements, examining in what proportions they appeared in the budgets of the different classes of the population. Others, such as F. Engel, in their statistical works, sought to draw from sociological observation conclusions of a general character that may be summarized as follows:

1) The greater the income of a family, the smaller the percentage spent on food; 2) as regards clothing, there is no complete agreement: Engel maintains that the expenditure is proportional to income; others claim that it grows more than in proportion to income; 3) the percentage expenditure on housing, including rent, heating and lighting, is almost constant across different incomes; 4) the percentage spent on "comfort" and pleasure increases notably as income rises.

These are relative conclusions, which have value, if anything, in indicating to us which goods must be multiplied for a better well-being of humanity (housing and food); just as relative is the utilitarian principle, applied as an absolute criterion, and the alleged almost mechanical adjustment of production to consumption. The almost periodic crises of overproduction would then be inexplicable.

Moreover, if the motive of personal gain appears generally in mass phenomena as the prevailing phenomenon, it cannot be accepted as the sole and exclusive norm of the conduct of individual persons.

Beyond economic laws and above them stand moral laws.

IV. CONSUMPTION, ECONOMY AND ETHICS

The use of material goods is in itself indifferent: it takes its value from the end that the one who uses them proposes to himself and from the sentiment by which he is animated, and virtue consists in the golden mean.

The field of c. is subject to changes and to progress. Nor should one seek a uniform and invariable measure of human needs, which change in different epochs and in different environments.

Among human needs are not only the concerns of material life: to live, to clothe oneself, to have a house. The thought of religious and moral life is a duty; the development of intellectual and artistic life, social relations, and decorum can be reasonable and even imperative.

This premised, c. must tend toward the rational and judicious utilization of goods, keeping clear of sinful use, as of vain and sterile destruction.

C. must therefore possess these conditions: 1) to satisfy truly human desires in the better sense of the word and not in the worse. Excesses in spending (which is the habitual form of unproductive c. in our monetary economy) can range from squandering to prodigality, from ineptitude to luxury (v.).

2) The c. of wealth must be rationally proportioned to need. This norm is violated by the use of goods too subject to irrational mutations (v. MODA) or even of scant yield.

3) One must further avoid c. that cannot be effected without resorting to credit, precisely in order to preserve the necessary proportion between c. and income. Indeed one must consume less than one produces and spend less than one's individual or collective purchasing power, with regard for future needs (v. PREVIDENZA; RISPARMIO).

From time to time one must take into account, besides the quantity of wealth available, the different personal, family, professional, environmental conditions, etc.

In fixing his own conduct the economic subject must likewise shun two opposite extremes: avarice and prodigality.

4) A good economic criterion is that of effecting expenditures in common as much as possible by means of corporative associations, etc.

Collective and large-scale c. offers advantages similar to those of large enterprise and is a means of defending it against the exorbitant claims of producers and sellers. To this end it will also be fair to give the representatives of consumers some place in the commissions or councils charged with regulating production and prices.

V. CONSUMPTION AND WELL-BEING

The extent and the variations of consumption constitute an index, perhaps the most reliable and most direct, of the economic conditions and social well-being of a nation and a people; and also of its virtues and its vices; particularly indicative of the latter are the expenditures relating to "comfort" and amusements.

General wealth has greatly increased over the past century and a half. Statistics concerning the consumption of the principal foodstuffs per inhabitant confirm these conclusions.

Nevertheless there is no doubt that, on the whole, many people still do not have at their disposal a sufficient quantity of goods.

This observation, which was already being made before the war, is confirmed and in many parts of the world aggravated today, after the Second World War. Apart from Europe, where the phenomenon is more than evident, a recent inquiry into food consumption and the manner of eating in the American lands, conducted in order to ascertain the quantity and quality of foods generally consumed by the working class in the most important American states, such as the Northern United States, Canada, Brazil, Chile and Colombia, revealed that consumption is satisfactory for the first two states, and much less so for the other three, where insufficiencies are noted above all in the quality of foods and in their nutritive value (cf. R. M. Woodbury, La consommation alimentaire et le mode d'alimentation dans les pays d'Amérique, in Revue internationale du travail, 46 [1942]). Above all housing and food must therefore be improved (v. CASE POPOLARI; SCIENZA DELL'ALIMENTAZIONE) almost everywhere. As for backward or savage populations, they must be gradually raised to a more worthy and more moral standard of living.

These improvements cannot be achieved except through an improvement in exchanges and in the international field, and in every nation through a better distribution of wealth, through the increase of production, of the practices of preservation, of economy and of saving.

VI. CONSUMPTION AND POPULATION

The relationship between production, consumption and population has been the object of special study since the time of Malthus (v.), creating a kind of phobia of overpopulation.

Two great wars, enormously bloody, have taken it upon themselves to demonstrate that the fears of Malthus and his followers were at the very least premature. But unfortunately it gave the neo-Malthusians an occasion for an immoral propaganda on birth control (v. BIRTHS, CONTROL of), while measures that could at least for now resolve the crises of distribution of consumers across the globe, such as emigration (v.) and colonization, are rather opposed out of pure national egoism.

Pietro Palazzini