CHAPTER 2

HUMAN WANTS

SYNOPSIS
1. Types of human wants
2. Feature of Human Wants
3. Factors affecting human wants

I. INTRODUCTION
 Consumption is the act of satisfying human wants and
forms an important aspect of the study of economics.
 Hence consumption refers to the use of goods and services
to satisfy human wants.
 Hence from the day we are born we become consumers
that are we enjoy goods and services (economic goods) for
which we pay a price.
 Consumption enables production to take place.
 Therefore in recent years the importance of consumption is
increasingly recognized.
 “Consumption in the beginning and end of all production”
 Goods and services produced in any economy will depend
upon the wishes of the consumers. If consumers like a
particular commodity i.e. it satisfies their particular want,
then that commodity will be produced.
 Hence a consumer is said to be the king or the “sovereign”
 Therefore it is to satisfy the consumers that production or
economic activity takes place which means that the level
of production, employment and income in any country will
depend upon the volume of consumption.
 The larger the consumption the larger the production and
vice versa.
 Even human beings perform economic activities or work in
order to satisfy their wants.
 So, wants form the basis of all economic activities.
 Wants can also be called the desires or needs of the
people.
II. TYPES/KINDS/CLASSIFICATION OF HUMAN WANTS.

 Everyone works in order to satisfy their wants.

 Wants are basically the basis of all economic activities.
 Hence we can say:
1. Men have wants and needs.
2. They have to satisfy them
3. They require money to satisfy their wants.
4. They have to work to earn money.

 Earlier people were satisfied with simple food, clothing, and

entertainment.
 But today people simply want everything they like and can
afford to have.
 There is a continuous increase of wants.
 As wants increase production and trade too will have to increase.
 There will be increasing employment.

The various types of human wants are:

1. Primary wants- Necessaries
2. Secondary Wants- Comforts and Luxuries.

1. Primary Wants- Necessaries

i. Necessaries for existence

 Man requires the basic wants namely food, water, clothing, and
shelter.
 Without food a person cannot live at all.
 Hunger is so painful that a man will do anything to satisfy it.
 Also, considering that we are living in a civilized society, man
also requires clothes.
 A man may be prepared to starve but will not like to go out
without some clothes.
 Housing comes at a lower level but it is again a necessity.
 These are wants which are essential and necessary for
existence.
ii. Necessaries for efficiency
  Besides those necessaries which are essential for human
existence there are other which are necessary for efficiently.
 E.g.: Table and chairs may be regarded as necessary for
students. For a construction worker working one building site or a
coolie on railway platform, plenty of food is necessary for
efficiency.

iii. Conventional Necessaries

 There is a third type of necessity known s conventional
necessaries.
 Convention means tradition or custom.
 People would like to possess those goods which everybody
keeps.
 E.g.: A woman would like to have a TV if her neighbor has one.
If one family a refrigerator the other families will want one too.

 Necessaries for existence, necessaries for efficiency and

conventional necessaries are together known as primary
wants.

2. Secondary Wants- Comforts and Luxuries.

i. Comforts
 People like many types of goods because they are a source of
comfort and happiness to them.
 An additional chair in a room, a record player in the house, different
varieties of food etc make ones life comfortable and pleasurable.
 In a broad sense necessaries for efficiency and comfort appear to be
similar.
 But goods which are necessaries for efficiency tend to promote
efficiency while those goods which are comforts have the tendency
to make life comfortable.
 E.g.: a student may desire a table and chair though he can do
without it but the table and chair would increase his efficiency.
 There is no hard and fast rule in all these.
 What one man considers as a necessity another may consider as a
comfort.

ii. Luxuries.
 Luxuries refer to those wants which re very expensive and which
are meant mainly to show wealth and power of a person.
 As they are expensive items only the rich can afford them.
  Costly food, clothes and house, expensive jewelry, refrigerators,
expensive cars, electric shaves and washing machines etc are
example of luxuries.
 The benefits of such goods are comparatively low to the price.
 However luxuries may be different from individual to individual.
 E.g.: A car may be a luxury to a clerk but for a businessman it is a
necessity to move form one town to another along with the status
symbol.

III FEATURES OF HUMAN WANTS

 The following are the features of human wants.

i. Wants are unlimited
ii. Each want can be fully satisfied.
iii. Wants are complementary.
iv. Wants are competitive
v. Wants are influenced by advertisements.
vi. Many wants become habits.
vii. Many wants are the result of custom or convention.
viii. Wants change according to time, place and person.

i. Wants are unlimited

 Man has so many wants that there is no limit to them.
 The satisfaction of one want leads to another want.
 There is no continuous cycle of wants.
 Take the case of food. A family requires rice, wheat,
pulses, vegetables, meat, fish, oils, vanaspati etc.
 The family has to buy these items again and again, for the
want for these items comes back again and again.
 In the same way, every family requires clothing of all
types.
 Every year probably every moth, old clothes have to
bought.
 Then there are many items required for the house-there
seems to be no end to these wants.
 It is for this reason we say wants are unlimited.

ii. Each want can be fully satisfied.

  Even though there is no end to the number of wants a person, any
particular want can be fully satisfied.
 If at any time a man is hungry and wants food, he can consume
food and be fully satisfied for the time being.
 It is true that he will require food again after a few hours, but at any
given time his want for food can be fully satisfied.
 Individual wants are therefore fully satisfiable.

iii.Wants are complementary.

 When two or more goods are wanted together, we say these goods
are complementary.
 The want for a car also implies the want for petrol.
 A student wants both pen and ink.
 A man does not eat rice only; he wants pulses, meat, vegetables etc
along with rice. Generally two or more wants go together.

iv. Wants are competitive

 When a person has a want and if that want can be satisfied by two
or more goods.
 There will be competition between the goods to satisfy the
consumer.
 Let us take an example.
 Suppose that a person is thirsty and wants to have a drink.
 He can take a glass of sherbet, a Pepsi or a Coke or he can take a
cup of coffee or tea and so on.
 He cannot take a cup of coffee and a cup of tea or a glass of
sherbet, all at the time.
 He will have to choose one commodity at a time.
 Thus wants are competitive.
 Wants become competitive because there are many alternatives
which satisfy a person.

v. Wants are influenced by advertisements.

 This is probably the most important reason why our wants are
multiplying these days.
 We are told all the time what we should buy. The toothpaste we use
early in the morning, the bread and tea we consume at breakfast;
the soap we use for morning bath; etc
 Crores of rupees are spent on advertisements in newspapers, in
poster, in cinema theatres, in TVs etc to create wants.
 In fact, advertisement has become a multi-crore business.

vi. Many wants become habits.

  A person may want tea in the morning. If he goes on satisfying this
want regularly, his want for the morning tea will become a habit.
 Habits are formed when people satisfy certain wants regularly.
 When once habits are formed the wants for these goods become
almost necessaries.
 Wants become habits and habits are responsible for wants.
 A good example is cigarettes.
 A young man starts smoking once in a way, may be in a marriage
party, or when someone offers him a free cigarette.
 Gradually he starts smoking regularly and acquires the smoking
habit. One he gets the habit, he cannot give it up easily. His want
for cigarettes becomes a necessity.

vii. Many wants are the result of custom or convention.

 Man lives in society and hence becomes a slave to customs.
 He is influence by other people by his ancestors, by his religion etc.
 Our wants for good clothes, jewelry etc are the result of customs.
 Everyone is wearing clean clothes to college.
 It has not become a custom to have TVs, VCRs, refrigerators, etc.
 Wants are thus he result of the customs of people

viii. Wants change according to time, place and person.

 Even the same person may want different things at different times.
 For instance, I may like rice and pulses for lunch one day but on the
next day I may not like to have rice at all but may prefer chapatti
and vegetables.
 When you were young you probably had a glass of milk in the
morning. But as you grow older, you may want tea and not milk.
 Many north Indians have acquired a taste for coffee, idli, dosa etc.
 Likewise many south Indians have gradually been acquiring a taste
for wheat products- such as chapattis, parathas, puris etc.
 Different people prefer different things at different times.

IV FACTORS AFFECTING HUMAN WANTS.

i. Biological Factors
ii. Economic Progress
iii.Customs and Habits.
iv. Advertisements
v. Income
vi. Age and Time

i. Biological Factors
 Many wants are connected with our biology or with our
natural interests.
 E.g.: We feel hungry or thirsty and require food and drink.
 We cannot face heat, cold and rain and hence we require
clothes and shelter.
 Thus hunger thirst and need for shelter are determined by
biological factors without the satisfaction of these wants we would
probably not be able to survive or exist.
 Thus basic wants or necessaries are biologically
determined.

ii. Economic Progress

 With economic growth and development and the advent of
…………… man has progressed significantly and a modern man wants
more and more different types of food, drinks, clothing with well
furnished homes.
 Thus with the increase in income, there will be more and more
demand for different varieties of goods and services.
 Thus with economic progress, man’s events have multiplied and
become complex.

iii. Customs and Habits.

 Man is a social animal and would like to o what others do in
matters of food, clothing, housing, entertainment etc
 Man follows social customs. Wants re influenced by other peoples
pinions and ideas.
 E.g: Our demand for ed tea is a result of a habit acquired over
time or our demand for cigarettes is also the result of a habit
acquired over time.

iv. Advertisements
 Certain goods are invented and produced and those who produce
these goods induce people to buy them.
 Demand for fridges, cars, TVs etc are hence created.
 Advertisements attract people to want certain goods and create
customs or habits of them.
  Advertisements tell people what they should wear, eat, what
goods they should buy, which brands to wear, which cigarettes to
smoke etc.
 Thus human wants are influenced by advertisements and people
demanding goods which are advertised.

v. Income
 Lower the income, fewer the human wants.
 Higher the income, more the human wants.
 A rich person wants better and more varieties of food clothing
shelter while a poor man with lesser income will have fewer and
simple needs.

vi. Age and Time

 From the day man is born, human wants arise but his wants will
change over the years, ages or over time.
 If he is an infant or an adolescent or an adult or nag old man, his
wants will differ from age to age and time to time