Needs and wants

pp. 83-96

in: Peter Archibald, Marx and the missing link, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1989

Abstract

Presumably, any account of needs should first carefully distinguish between what human individuals "need", in the strict sense of require in terms of some (potentially) objective criterion such as their "normal" biological and psychological functioning and development, and what they "want", which may arise merely from a superficial desire or passing fancy. However, Marx can easily be interpreted to have first and foremost intended "need" in the broadest sense of anything which individuals want and therefore motivates them to think and act with regard to it.