Chile: From Citizen Communities to Consumer Communities

Abstract

The present article shares thoughts and observations of recent years in Chile. When social science professionals think about the debate of the concept of “community”, there is an immediate relationship to what we see, understand and desire from our community and which, due to our new lifestyles, has brutally changed to a “consumer community”. Everyday interactions with other citizens allow showing and understanding how we “negotiate” rights as if they were consumer goods, it is a normal practice in our daily coexistence, making us lose our human condition, in a process that does not seem to have a point of return or a better way to establish the social contract that we signed as citizens of one country (Chile), and one Latin America.