Needs and Wants: Two Separate Sources of Demand
and that must inform economic policy
[Formerly titled, “The Two Markets Driven by Individuals’ Demand”]
Human beings have needs. Human being have wants. Those two motivations generate two different kinds of markets. The economic policies of a nation must distinguish between the two.
Wants can be left to the vagaries of supply and demand. Wants are by definition superfluities. They are not necessary. We can live full lives without having our desires for them fulfilled.
Needs are another matter. A need is a requirement for living a full life as a human being. Some of those are so basic as to be fundamental to life itself: air, food, water. Some are at least fundamental to being human, such as shelter and clothing of some kind.
Relating needs to “a full life” does make them contextual. My (maternal) grandmother didn’t ‘need’ indoor plumbing or electricity — until each was available. Once they were available, they became needs. An indigenous person living on the Great Plains of what would become the U.S. didn’t ‘need’ a horse until horses became available to the people living there.
That is to say, people’s needs can be relative to the material realities of the society in which they live. So what constitutes a need can be debatable. That is fair enough.
Howsoever, any nation, to be human, must formulate a list of needs that people living there have. Ensuring that those needs are met for all citizens of the nation must be its highest priority. What argument against that could possibly exist? If major changes in economic policies or programs or even changes to the economic system are required, so be it.
In the context of the U.S., where I live, in the 21st century, here is my list of what constitutes people’s needs: breathable air; potable water (delivered to abodes via pipes); food; clothing; (sound) shelter; waste disposal; energy; health care (physical and mental); education; transportation — public or private — and means of communication. Refining those terms can, again, be a legitimate subject of debate. What is indisputable is that such matters constitute the most important thing there is for us as a nation to discuss.
Since the Great Depression, including the ‘War on Poverty’, we have made some attempts at having needs met, but those efforts have been piecemeal and, I would say, mostly half-hearted. It cannot be said by anyone that meeting the needs of all citizens has ever been our first priority. That no official, definitive list of ‘needs’ exists is prima facie evidence of that.
What is a nation? It is ‘a people’. Nations can be defined by blood relations. They can be defined by a common culture. The U.S. is a nation by virtue of the rule of law. All citizens of this nation are subjects of the same set of laws. Though subjects of the law, under our Constitution we have as citizens the freedom to promulgate whatever laws, policies, programs, or institutional arrangements are necessary to make ours the best nation it can be. For it to be the best nation it can be, the material lives of all of our citizens must keep pace with its material realities as a nation.
As a nation, we have never really recognized that simple truth. For human beings, it is never too late to do better.