needs

All wants stem from needs

I was exploring the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s resources on financial literacy for children and was surprised at how strongly they try to draw a line between needs and wants, a distinction I find unnatural and confusing. According to the CPFB:

Needs: Basic things people must have to survive (such as food, clothing, and shelter), resources they need to do their jobs (such as reliable transportation and the tools of the trade), and resources to help build and protect their assets so they can meet future needs (such as emergency savings and insurance). Wants: Upgrades and other things that would be nice to have but aren’t necessary for living, earning, or protecting what you have.

Thoughts:

• needs are socially constructed. Just look at the inclusion of “insurance” as a need. Humans got by just fine without insurance for practically all our history, though it is indeed a recent need in some places. The U.S. government will fine you for not having health insurance, for example. Insurance is in some ways a tax on the poor: people need to pay for insurance when they don’t have enough savings to pay for minor emergencies. (Of course, insurance is used by major financial institutions as well as a hedge against risk, so it isn’t only a tax on the poor.)
• “reliable transportation” as well: it’s only a need because of all the pedestrian-hostile infrastructure we’ve built because “what’s good for GM is good for America”. Corporate depredation of individuals has created a growing list of “needs” in modern life only because the powerful have found an increasing array of ways to exploit and threaten the lives of people.
• and of course, all wants are rooted in needs. The CPFB leaves out emotional needs like the need to feel safe, the need for physical and mental health, the need to not feel isolated and alone (solitary confinement is, after all, torture). While no one needs a Porsche, the desire to have one stems, perhaps, from the need for social standing and the respect of one’s peers, the lack of which for most of human history would often mean death for the individual. “Needs” are complicated in the same way: while I need food to live, I don’t need any particular kind of food. So even if food is a need, I can’t say that I need Doritos.
• So the distinction between wants and needs is unhelpful. All wants are attempts, conscious or otherwise, to meet real needs. The more helpful distinction is between better and worse (or, as the Buddhists would say, more or less skillful) ways of meeting our needs.