Marketing means and ends for a sustainable society: A welfare agenda for transformative change

Abstract

This article examines the principles and practices of the marketing system within corporate social responsibility and sustainable development frameworks to argue that responsible marketing and sustainable marketing are not synonymous ideas. The article identifies misleading assumptions about progress through economic growth and preference satisfaction and highlights the issues to be confronted by marketers to fully address the social and ecological crisis of destructive overconsumption. The basic rationale for the developmental welfare marketing course of action is outlined, and this systemic policy is distinguished from the conventional appropriative form of managerial marketing. A radical new logic for marketing as a social process requiring thinking beyond the discipline is called for. The result of this review is an agenda for a sustainable society purpose and form for marketing, part of a catalytic movement, outlined in an emergent set of transdisciplinary propositions that reflect disillusionment with current values and beliefs.