ABSTRACT
This chapter presents four models of society. The four models are the consumer society, the call society, the service society, and the covenant society. Consumerism is at the heart of modern life. Yet it is worth remembering that, even as long ago as the eighteenth century, material possessions had begun to be valued less and less for consumer durability and more and more for their fashionableness. The experience of consuming can be analysed from a number of different perspectives. At one level it is about transactions between vendors and customers. Yet the requirement to keep on consuming, with its complex programme of self-generating activities, itself becomes a dominant, controlling influence. The implications of rising expectations for ‘health’ and ‘healthcare’, and the pressures generated by new under-standings of what it might mean to be healthy, are worrying. Altruism has long been held to be a necessary attribute of the healthcare professional.
