CHAPTER ⅩⅣ: QUALITY OF LIFE, CITIZENSHIP, AND NEW FORMS OF POWER IN THE GLOBAL ERA

摘要

For some time now there have been numerous studies1, both theoretical and empirical, devoted to the problems implicated by the notion of quality of human life, and to the criteria by which to evaluate and assess the factors affecting it : food, education, health, work, free time, etc. Quite understandably, most of these studies and criteria focus on Western countries, that is societies where, due to high wages and an enormous abundance of goods and services, the centre of interest has shifted progressively from the question of quantity to the question of quality. Moreover, goods and services are given added value by the symbolic dimension of quality as a mark of status, in the producer as well as the consumer. It goes without saying that this holds true of all kinds of 'products', that is, not only of material goods produced by private companies, but also 'cultural' goods and public services available for the citizen-consumer to improve their own quality of life. The accumulation of goods on the market is paralleled by the increase of services enhancing the development of the individual's faculties and abilities. Such a mixture of aspects - economic and symbolic, public and private, material and immaterial - is not always given due emphasis in the literature on the quality of life. This chapter aims to stress the socio-political and ideological assumptions underlying most discussion on the quality of life today. The latter is not a neutral notion - indeed, it often involves a normative as well as descriptive discourse -but it is related to a general cultural transformation which has been affecting the whole of the Western world : the triumph of a renewed form of competitive laissez-faire. A pervasive hedonistic individualism goes hand in hand with structural changes in economic processes where earning is what matters most, at the expense not only of work but of production itself. As a result, the new culture cre- ates a new relationship between the State and the market . However, it is important to reflect on the enormous potential for the improvement of human faculties that has been opened up by the techno-sciences, whose direct influence on questions related to quality of life can hardly be denied. Such problems cannot be dealt with in detail here, as their scope is extremely varied. My aim is to propose a philosophical-political framework within which to discuss the subject of quality of life unencumbered by facile 'neo-liberal', or 'neo-bourgeois', ideologies. I believe that the notion of quality of life is one further development or aspect of the prevailing idea of individual rights, but in a way that is functional to the maintenance of the social system. For the phrase 'quality of life' often includes new individual and social needs that are induced by the prevailing systems of production and power. For this reason, I will concentrate on the conditions under which it is possible to claim for and realise a better quality of life. Likewise, I will not delve into the details of the philosophical, sociological and medical debates on whether and how it is possible to evaluate quality of life 'objectively', and those on the various normative ideals and preference principles.