Research report 2011 - Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies

What makes our goods valuable?

Authors
Beckert, Jens
Departments
Max-Planck-Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung, Köln
Summary
A desire for increasing economic output causes society to have contradicting expectations of political actors. Either they should create incentives for investment, or they should do the opposite by increasing wages and government spending and thus raising the demand for goods and services. According to Chancellor Merkel, “growth is the key to everything.” This implies, however, that consumers actually keep wanting to buy more and more goods and services. But do they really? And if they do, what exactly do they want to buy?

For the full text, see the German version.

Go to Editor View