| json_metadata | "{"app":"Musing","appTags":["Question"],"appCategory":"Question","appTitle":"What is the major difference between needs and wants?","appBody":"<p>This reminds me of economics in school. According to my economics teacher WANTS are the things that we merely desire but are neither important nor pertinent and we can very much do without.</p><p>By definition in this context, wants are mostly unrealistic and more long-term in scope. They are basically just things that we desire and dream. They are unlimited and insatiable, meaning you can choose to want as many times as you like every day of your life and keep wanting one thing or another without ever having a realistic hope of getting them. You can live in your mother's basement, unable to afford a house, and still want an airplane, a condo and a bugatti just to booth.</p><p>NEEDS, on the other hand, are the pressing substances that we require for our day to day existence. By definition they are more urgent and a lot more important than wants are. Our fact and quality of survival mostly dependes on these things. For instance we NEED air to survive; we need shelter and food and basic clothings. Those are our needs. </p><p>It should be said, though, that the line between what we NEED and what we WANT may not always be very well defined. Sometimes there's only a very fine line between then, and the difference between them gets really hard to identify </p><p>This is, in fact, one of the basic importance of Economics. Because obviously Economics deals with the way to utilise our scarce resources to achieve the most profitable end, and one of the ways to do this is to be able to identify and separate our WANTS from our NEEDS. And because we are humans and we're greedy, we tend to convince ourselves sometimes that we NEED something when in reality we only WANT that thing.</p><p>And this is where the concept of SCALE OF PREFERENCE and OPPORTUNITY COST comes in. </p><p>SCALE OF PREFERENCE is basically a way of arranging our desires into wants and needs according to how pressing an urgent they are. So on a scale of preference the things that we really need and require to survive will be on the TOP of the list while the things that we don't need but merely want us will be at the bottom and then you can prioritize what to buy according to the resources that we have at hand, so that the things we end up getting will be the things that we really require.</p><p>The things at the bottom of the list; i.e the WANTS that are not very important and will not be gotten are what is known as THE OPPORTUNITY COST or the ALTERNATIVE FORGONE, that is the cost paid or the things foregone for us to get the things we really NEED.</p><p>Getting a $5000 Gucci may be what we WANT but a $50 sweater is all we NEED to perform the function of covering our bodies and keeping us from the cold. The Gucci then is our alternative foregone/ opportunity cost. </p><p>So basically we see that the difference between wants and needs--and recognising the difference between them--might be what will determine how much we are able to manage our resources. And of course management of resources is an utmost important aspect of our daily lives.</p><p> </p><p>Cheers.</p>","appDepth":2,"appParentPermlink":"pkzcghmh5","appParentAuthor":"dadurojare","musingAppId":"aU2p3C3a8N","musingAppVersion":"1.1","musingPostType":"answer"}" |
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