ABSTRACT
Most contemporary measures of social welfare are based on estimations of the presumed welfare of individuals. Those values are aggregated to advance a measure of social welfare for a society. Fleurbaey and other advocates of primary goods also evaluate social welfare by reference to individuals' living standards as defined recently by Fleurbaey with a combination of income, capabilities and satisfaction. Methods of aggregating the presumed welfare of individuals cannot represent social welfare. Gross Domestic Product per capita is said to tell us what an "average individual" enjoys as income, but in any case, it tells us nothing about anyone's social relation to others. The reason why contemporary Western theoreticians draw up models of social welfare that revolve around the individual is because they are reflecting the values of societies that present the individual with a market basket of commodities that s/he must acquire to be socially accepted.
