Human Needs and Human Wants

Extract

The physical needs of man are few—food and fuel, clothes and dwelling place. His wants are as many as his desires.

The weakness of capitalism is that it neglects the needs and continually ministers to the wants; seeking to gratify every whim, wholesome or unwholesome, that the natural man confesses. Why this is so can be seen without difficulty.

The aim of the capitalist—and by the capitalist we mean the managing director of companies and amalgamation of companies—is to secure profits for the payment of interest to the people who have lent him money; that is to the shareholders. Our captains of industry do not ask, “Is this needful?” but “Will it pay?” when some fresh venture is proposed. Nor do our captains of industry, our ennobled and knightly masters of big business, consider whether the toil of tending, year in, year out, machines for the production of trivial luxuries is employment worthy of a Christian man. It is compulsory labour; the machine-minder is free to starve if he declines the job. (Indeed thousands are thankful for this employment, so thankful that positive gratitude is expressed, for permission to endure the monotony of the factory, sure of a regular wage. No wonder, too, when they are married, with wife and children and some measure of domestic happiness dependent on the weekly wage, that thankfulness is expressed.)