THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS FOR THE FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE ECONOMIC THEORY OF WELFARE

At each stage of its development, society faces the problem of inconsistency in the distribution of a limited number of resources and the existing system of their production. At the end of the twentieth century, the problem of the limited nature of natural resources became acute as never before. The development of an individual as a person has determined the presence of such his needs as, for example, environmental safety. There is a rethinking of the foundations of economic growth and, as a result, the goals of the development of society. In modern conditions, a special role is played by the fact that the main feature of the development of society is its social orientation, the improvement of the quality of life and, in this regard, the importance of the development of economic theory of welfare of the individual and society increases. The economic theory of welfare distinguishes three directions, characterized by a diversity of views on understanding the essence of welfare, the sources and conditions for its growth, and the role of the state in these processes: socialist, liberal, and the "welfare state" theory. The paradigm of welfare is one of the most multilevel and not concretized categories in the economic theory. In the domestic literature, the terms ("standard of living", "cost of living", "quality of life"), used to characterize the living conditions and the satisfaction degree of a person himself, the person's opportunities for development and active life, were widely used. The term "welfare level" in the most general sense reflects the living standard of the population of the country, while the concepts of "standard of living" and "quality of life" reflect its quantitative and qualitative characteristics.