The Social Conditions for Human Flourishing

In this chapter we review recent conceptualizations and research regarding the impact of political and economic systems on people’s thriving through their effects on basic needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Self-determination theory (SDT) particularly stresses how thriving requires both access to resources (e.g., education, healthcare) and freedoms (e.g., rights for identity choice, freedom from discrimination). Illustrating this are studies using economic and philosophical models of capabilities and social primary goods, the positive effects of which are largely mediated by SDT’s basic needs. The chapter also includes discussion of how governments create compliance by either controlling or autonomy-supportive means, with differing effects. SDT supplies a critical and comparative perspective on both economic and political policies and practices using its criteria of meeting human needs.