Purpose: The belief in an individualist consumer that behaves with a truly competitive, acquisitive, and selfish attitude on an inflexible market is one of the main ontological creeds of marketing. However, current empirical phenomena, such as collaborative consumption, may encourage the emergence of new theoretical efforts toward a higher market comprehension. To further these efforts, this theoretical essay aims to analyse the anti-utilitarian aspects of collaborative consumption that transcend the ontological foundations of economic utilitarianism.
Design/methodology/approach: This essay evaluates the main differences between utilitarian and anti-utilitarian theories, regarding exchange relations, consumers’ actions, and market concept itself. For such purpose, the analysis is based on an intersubjective, theoretical perspective.
Findings: Far from being configured as a revolution of benevolence or altruism, collaborative consumption can reorganize the system of production and circulation of goods and services because it is based on concepts absent in utilitarian theories, such as alterity, reciprocity, and the achievement of relational benefits. Confronting important utilitarian premises, such as the perspective of a natural market or the immanence of the figure of Homo Economicus, collaborative consumption deviates from the essentially individualistic theorizations about human behaviour. Drawing on an anti-utilitarian perspective, these findings broaden some conceptual boundaries within the field of consumer behaviour.
Originality/value: Based on an anti-utilitarian proposition, we present concepts that subvert traditional perspectives of consumer actions, exchange relations, and the market itself, debating the boundaries of the consumer behaviour field.
; Ana Augusta Ferreira de Freitas