Sulla regolazione pubblica del benessere. Le politiche sociali e il peso delle diseguaglianze

The proposed essay discusses the multidisciplinary dimension of the no tion of well-being, examined as an enabling condition for the social mani festation of individual potentialities. The critique of an economistic view of well-being will be carried out by emphasizing both the cultural and psycho-physical determinants of well-being, often disconnected from the achievement of sufficient income-related outcomes, as well as highlighting how the opportunities for well-being activated by social policies should turn themselves into concrete life paths. These paths should be calibrated according to the diversity of individual profiles as well as to the multi plicity of institutional constraints. The essay will attempt to enhance the relationship between welfare models and social policies in order to pay attention to the processes that mediate individual responses to inequali ties. The analytical context will be provided by those theories that help frame well-being as consequences of public regulatory policies attentive to inclusion and equality. If some empirical research directed towards the investigation of health inequalities finds an echo in the formulation of the ories focused on the realization of equal diversity, then it is inevitable that the discussion of social policies give values to the diversity of contexts that guide the behaviors of social actors