Economic needs, their essence and classification

Economists, scientists and thinkers paid a lot of attention to studying the nature of human needs, rightly believing that social relations are based on these needs.

Economic needs – это внутренние стимулы, побуждающие social production of necessary goods, works and services. Needs motivate the use of the available useful resources as efficiently as possible. Economic needs also show the attitude of people to the conditions of their activities. They also show the relationships that arise between people in the process of distributing and producing the necessary economic benefits.

Classification of economic needs:

By subjects:

• Personal (individual), collective, public (food, housing, clothing, social needsreasonable leader, positive psychological climate, good working conditions, recognition in the team. The economic needs of society are economic growth, a favorable economic climate in the country, the absence of inflation, shortages, unemployment;
• The needs of enterprises, households, states that are economic actors (the need for high-quality goods, works andservices at low prices, increasing the competitiveness of products, reducing costs, maximizing profits, increasing state budget revenues, etc.)

By objects:

• Physiological - due to the fact that man is a biological being, which needs to support its livelihoods;
• Social - needs for information, communication, education, recognition of merit by society;
• Material - This is the need for services and benefits that have a material form;
• Spiritual - needs for creativity, self-improvement, talent development;
• Priority - those that can be satisfied with necessities;
• Secondary - those that are satisfied with the help of luxury goods;

Most clearly economic needssociety and their hierarchy in the life of each person is depicted in Maslow's pyramid. Economic needs here are as follows (from top to bottom from less important to basic):

• Self-realization
• Respect, recognition of society
• Social (love, friendship, etc.)
• Safety and sense of security
• Physiological

This classification todayis the most universal, as it comes largely from the biological needs of the species, and is not so influenced by culture and other traits that distinguish people.

Economic needs: classification according to the degree of their realization:

Absolute - arise and are detected at the current levelthe development of technology and science (for example, the demand for mobile phones was impossible several decades ago due to the lack of technical capability);

Valid - can be implemented at the current level of science and production;

Solvent - those that a person is able to satisfy with his income. It is these needs that most interest manufacturers.

But that's not all.A lot of social needs also take shape historically, they very much depend on cultural and religious features, as well as on climate, geographical conditions, gender, age and other features. Thus, the needs of people inhabiting different countries, say, residents of Sweden and Australia or professing different religions, can radically differ from each other.

An important feature of needs - they can neverbe fully satisfied, while the possibilities for their satisfaction are limited by available resources. After all, a person is so constituted that his desires usually exceed the possibilities for the production of goods that satisfy them. On this basis, the law of the need for elevation was even formed, which says that they increase faster than the production of goods. Back in the nineteenth century, Engel’s regularity was noted, which states that with an increase in wealth, the share of costs associated with essential products decreases. In other words, only the smallest part of the income goes to food, while the main expenditures are on luxury items.