In this article the authors anticipate some results of a study carried out in France and in Italy, in the framework of a wider research project aiming at analysing in some depth and at comparing the recent trends and patterns of total household consumption in some capitalist and socialist countries.1The accounting scheme used to arrive at a comprehensive definition of household consumption, inclusive of the “non‐market” divisible services produced by public administrations, and to identify the share of this new aggregate which is financed by collective resources, isoutlined in the first section. In the second section, the article shows the growing relative importance of publicly‐supported consumption, but it also shows that during the sixties, the overall cost of divisible public services and of social benefits provided in kind or in cash was, in both countries, almost entirely auto‐financed by the household sector, via social security contributions and taxes levied on that sector's income and consumption. In the third section, comparative analysis of the recent structural evolution of the “market” and the “non‐market” shares of total household consumption points out the similarities and dissimilarities between the patterns and forms of private and public spending in the two countries.The results of this analysis seem to support the thesis that unless a better integration of social policies with economic growth policies is achieved, it will not be possible to implement rational choices between the “market” and the “non‐market” ways of satisfying specific population needs. The authors' conclusion is that under present circumstances, public civil expenditures will continue to rise, both in France and in Italy, more rapidly than total national resources and it will become difficult to balance total receipts and total