Wants

WANTS ARE THINGS that people desire to get. They are usually more than the needs of people. All humans need water, food, shelter, education, transportation, healthcare, companionship, and other basics just to survive. The psychologist Abraham Maslow established a hierarchy of needs (1943). His hierarchy of needs includes physiological satisfaction of needs, security needs, love, belonging/esteem, and actualization. Without the satisfaction of these needs a person will likely become stunted, crippled, immature, or a spiritually unhealthy human being.

The most basic of needs are the physiological needs for food, drink, shelter, and more. These are the needs for sheer physical survival. However, it would be rare to find people who want no more than mere survival. It was the case during the days of communism in the Soviet Union that political prisoners in Siberian salt mines were alive, but this form of existence would be very unsatisfactory to most people. It would in effect frustrate them in their fulfillment of their drive toward self-actualization. Wants are more than needs. A person needs a certain amount of protein in order to build muscles and to be healthy. However, the protein can be acquired by soybeans when the person wants sirloin steak.

The Buddhist religion is based on rejecting the desire for material goods. The desires that people have are endless and often bring more problems than satisfaction. For Buddhists the best thing in life is to eliminate all desires. While this may be the religion of millions of people in the world, most people are much more world affirming and therefore seek material goods. Most religions have stressed control of the desire for material goods. Greed is usually denounced as an evil that is destructive. The virtuous life is to recognize that there is a limit to the wants that can demand attention and satisfaction.

Philosophers have also noted the problem of satisfaction of wants. The Stoic philosopher Epictetus, who was a slave and a teacher, believed that the goal of life is not to be found in supplying endless goods to satisfy material wants. He rejected the hedonistic idea that the goal of life is to maximize personal pleasure by satisfying in abundance the desire for gross bodily pleasures (as taught by the Cyrenaics) through large quantities of food, drink, and sex. Rather he taught that the goal of life is happiness as a form of contented living. This would be gained by living as a wise person who kept desires for material things to a bare minimum. The ancient Roman Stoic Lucius Annaeus Seneca said that the poor want some thing, luxury wants many things, but greed wants all things.

Samuel Johnson, the author of the first English dictionary, notes that people are poor only when there are necessities that are lacking. However, he was of the opinion that society gives the name of poverty to the want of superfluities. The harsh reality for at least a billion people living in absolute poverty is that they are often lacking in necessities and have no way to improve upon their situation.

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