# To what extent should we limit what we make based on what people NEED? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 2, 2010, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-should-we-limit-what-we-make-based-on-what-people-need/538075 "2010-05-02T22:51:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-should-we-limit-what-we-make-based-on-what-people-need/538075/21 "2010-05-03T22:10:07Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > And how exactly do you slow down the rate of _ **invention???** _ And why would we want to? We need more and faster innovation to solve our problems, not less innovation. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-should-we-limit-what-we-make-based-on-what-people-need/538075/22 "2010-05-03T23:14:57Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > And why would we want to? We need more and faster innovation to solve our problems, not less innovation. Well, not if you’re of the opinion we should only have what we _need_. After all, all we _need_ is plain rice, water, and a cardboard box. (Avoiding scurvy is a luxury that should be scorned by right-thinking folks.) So, given that, what sort of technological advancements could we possibly want? (Edit - er, possibly _need_, I mean. ;)) Regarding the OP, it’s indeed a worthwhile pursuit for people to reassess their own priorities and adjust their expenditures towards more gainful ends - but not because ‘wants’ are bad. After all, their newer more gainful ends are certain to be ‘wants’ as well, merely _different_ wants. The goal is to be able to get _more_ of what you want; more happiness, more financial security, more future stability. Thinking of it as paring down and discarding wants in favor of needs along is a wholly wrongheaded way of approaching the situation. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-should-we-limit-what-we-make-based-on-what-people-need/538075/23 "2010-05-03T23:49:53Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > And how exactly do you slow down the rate of _ **invention???** _ I think the OP’s suggestion would do a good job of that. A would-be inventor would have the burden of showing he needed the various stuff he wanted to experiment with. Then, having invented something new, he couldn’t sell it until it’s found to be necessary. So no way do we get something like mobile phones, which (like lots of new tech) had to go through a “rich person’s toy” phase before their true worth became apparent and prices came within reach of the masses. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2010, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-should-we-limit-what-we-make-based-on-what-people-need/538075/24 "2010-05-04T00:36:32Z")
It isn’t certain that we need money to motivate people and need everything to keep growing. And, it seems unreasonable that we can continue to burden our planet in an ever escalating pattern of part time abuse. The SDMB is a great example of a place where people give out free and useful information and help. Why would anybody waste their time answering a General Question if he’s not going to be paid for it? Because it is human nature to do so. It has been part of human instinct and part of the fabric of our interaction to help one another for much more evolutionary time than money has been around. Or in the home, why would one family member help another without getting paid? Why would a stranger give directions? Why would anybody agree to donate their organs? The examples are countless. It’s possible that there is a very deeply ingrained human drive to contribute, to be constructive, to want to fit in and be appreciated. It’s also possible that there is a competitive kind of aggression that, today, accumulates money and the power it represents, as it once accumulated violent power in warlords. There are content generators, people that produce things, people that serve others, and certainly there are people who work primarily with money itself, and accumulating it. How did our financial industry become, what, 37% of our economy, without making anything? It would be like the trucking industry becoming several times larger, when we are still moving the same quantity of goods around. Maybe there is a kind of power over, a manipulation, trying to harness the normal behavior of the majority to create a bizarre concentration of wealth for a strange minority. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2010, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-should-we-limit-what-we-make-based-on-what-people-need/538075/25 "2010-05-04T00:51:14Z")
[QUOTE=Napier] How did our financial industry become, what, 37% of our economy, without making anything? [/QUOTE] _with a sad little Yoda smile_ And that, my young padawan, is why you fail… -XT ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2010, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-should-we-limit-what-we-make-based-on-what-people-need/538075/26 "2010-05-04T01:05:56Z")
Xtisme, Could you give details about why he fails? The number 37% seems quite off but even presuming it’s true, could this just reflect the way money is counted rather than what economic activity is conducted? For example, if profits are made in a private construction company, those profits will be counted as being in the construction industry. What if that company is public? Will those profits/share price increases be counted as part of the construction industry or the finance industry? If the latter, the decrease of the construction industry and the correspondent increase of the finance industry only reflects that it went from a private company to a public one. Is this what’s going on? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2010, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-should-we-limit-what-we-make-based-on-what-people-need/538075/27 "2010-05-04T01:22:26Z")
[QUOTE=MichaelEmouse] Could you give details about why he fails? [/QUOTE] Sam Stone or one of the other 'doper economics guru’s would be a better choice, but the short answer is that the ‘financial industry’ doesn’t make ‘nothing’…they make money. Why? Because they act as vehicles that capitalize other industries, including your example of the construction industry. In they do a lot more, of course, but that’s the crux I think (well, plus acting as vehicles by which people can invest in and profit by public companies, which also increases capital that can be used for investment). Without capitalization, there would be little or no growth. That said, I was mostly going for laughs there. > [@](#): > > The number 37% seems quite off but even presuming it’s true, could this just reflect the way money is counted rather than what economic activity is conducted I don’t really know if the 37% figure is accurate or simply a WAG on Napier’s part, to be honest, though I wouldn’t be surprised either way. I don’t really think it’s important what the percentage actually is, as I think that Napier is missing the more crucial part that the financial industry doesn’t make ‘nothing’. -XT ---
**Author:** ![sleestak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2010, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-should-we-limit-what-we-make-based-on-what-people-need/538075/28 "2010-05-04T01:41:38Z")
> [@Napier](#): > > I agree with the quote, unless there are justifying details about the example that I don’t know about. > > What we “should” do depends on a lot of things, like what system of values you use to rate our options. That there should even be property rights and private possessions, for instance, isn’t obvious. We’ve evolved the present customs, seen flaws in them, seen other customs fall by the wayside, and hope there will be better future customs that fix some of these flaws. > > But I think it’s pretty obnoxious the way we push automobiles as extensions of personality, or as means to show one person’s prowess and power over others. They are appliances that move the planet around under us to bring a different part of it to us, nothing more; they all move the same planet. To you automobiles are nothing more than a method to move around the planet. To others they are a work of art, or a hobby, or just something that they enjoy. Here is a big hint, your values are not everyones values. What, exactly, is wrong with someone using their car to express their personality? Please tell me why that is wrong. (I don’t buy the prowess and power bit, so I’ll ignore it) And why are \*your \*values better than the values of a person who drives a SUV? Slee ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2010, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-should-we-limit-what-we-make-based-on-what-people-need/538075/29 "2010-05-04T01:42:25Z")
There are so many reasons why I think the OPs idea is a bad one I’m not sure where to begin. I mean what is the vision here? Create something like an Eastern European former Soviet republic with everyone living in spartan dormroom style government designed appartments all painted in the most cost effective shade of institutional green? What is the maximum standard of living you think people “need”? Since we will be producing less, should we expect a much higher rate of unemployment? And how are “we” going to collectively decide to limit what we make? I don’t see too many politicians getting elected on a platform of reducing standard of living, increasing unemployment and raising taxes to create a massive welfare state. Collectively, people tend to “need” more than they produce. > [@Napier](#): > > The SDMB is a great example of a place where people give out free and useful information and help. Can you provide me with a great example of a place where people pick up garbage, clean toilets, slaughter livestock, drive trucks across country, toil in coal mines, answer call center phones or perform other dangerous, dirty, or monotonous tasks for free? ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2010, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-should-we-limit-what-we-make-based-on-what-people-need/538075/30 "2010-05-04T02:08:41Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > And why would we want to? We need more and faster innovation to solve our problems, not less innovation. Wow. This is interesting to read from you. You support policies that directly lead to less innovation (i.e., large social programs supported by big taxes, which reduce the incentive to innovate). How do you square that? ---
**Author:** ![TimeWinder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2010, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-should-we-limit-what-we-make-based-on-what-people-need/538075/31 "2010-05-04T02:19:52Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > Wow. This is interesting to read from you. You support policies that directly lead to less innovation (i.e., large social programs supported by big taxes, which reduce the incentive to innovate). How do you square that? At a guess, he probably doesn’t agree with the assertion you’re making here. Japan has more social programs and much higher taxes than we do, and they don’t seem to have a problem innovating. Neither does Canada. Ditto virtually every industrialized country. Some would claim that support nets _encourage_ innovation, since they remove the need to worry about things like bankruptcy the first time you get seriously sick. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2010, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-should-we-limit-what-we-make-based-on-what-people-need/538075/32 "2010-05-04T04:51:24Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > Wow. This is interesting to read from you. You support policies that directly lead to less innovation (i.e., large social programs supported by big taxes, which reduce the incentive to innovate). How do you square that? There are two entirely separate issues here: How much should people of varying means be taxed, and what should people be allowed to spend their money on. I think that high-income people (of whom I am one) should be taxed at a fairly high level, in order to provide enough money to the government for the services I believe they should provide, and whatever is left over should be spent however the person pleases. To me there is no contradiction here whatsoever. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2010, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-should-we-limit-what-we-make-based-on-what-people-need/538075/33 "2010-05-04T04:54:21Z")
> [@Napier](#): > > It isn’t certain that we need money to motivate people and need everything to keep growing. And, it seems unreasonable that we can continue to burden our planet in an ever escalating pattern of part time abuse. > > The SDMB is a great example of a place where people give out free and useful information and help. Why would anybody waste their time answering a General Question if he’s not going to be paid for it? Because it is human nature to do so. It has been part of human instinct and part of the fabric of our interaction to help one another for much more evolutionary time than money has been around. Or in the home, why would one family member help another without getting paid? Why would a stranger give directions? Why would anybody agree to donate their organs? The examples are countless. > > It’s possible that there is a very deeply ingrained human drive to contribute, to be constructive, to want to fit in and be appreciated. It’s also possible that there is a competitive kind of aggression that, today, accumulates money and the power it represents, as it once accumulated violent power in warlords. There are content generators, people that produce things, people that serve others, and certainly there are people who work primarily with money itself, and accumulating it. How did our financial industry become, what, 37% of our economy, without making anything? It would be like the trucking industry becoming several times larger, when we are still moving the same quantity of goods around. Maybe there is a kind of power over, a manipulation, trying to harness the normal behavior of the majority to create a bizarre concentration of wealth for a strange minority. I’ll contribute here because it’s fun. That’s not the same as my job, where I’m expected to produce a significant amount of useful, bug-free computer code every single day. I wouldn’t subject myself to that pressure without getting paid for it. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2010, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-should-we-limit-what-we-make-based-on-what-people-need/538075/34 "2010-05-04T07:39:57Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Can you provide me with a great example of a place where people pick up garbage, clean toilets, slaughter livestock, drive trucks across country, toil in coal mines, answer call center phones or perform other dangerous, dirty, or monotonous tasks for free? I’ve done the first three and the last two (well, a clay pit, but it’s the same principle) for free at several collective events and locations, like farm communes, music festivals, SCA events and non-government organisations. It’s called “volunteerism”, and not everyone expects the cushy jobs. Hell, sometimes I’ve paid to attend, and still ended up running the “honey truck”. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2010, 10:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-should-we-limit-what-we-make-based-on-what-people-need/538075/35 "2010-05-04T10:10:14Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > No, I think it’s a load of bullshit that people who don’t understand economics use in order to explain consumerism. People buy what they can want and need, limited by factors such as what they can afford (as well as a host of other factors). Companies don’t manufacture demand…they fulfill demand. Or they go out of business, if their products aren’t in demand. Pretty simple, really. Is there a connotation to “manufactured demand” that I don’t grok? Companies have to manufacture that demand you talk about. They aren’t passive observers. Hoping for a spontaneous upwelling of widespread word of mouth advertising would be suicidal. Especially if your product is crappy. ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2010, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-should-we-limit-what-we-make-based-on-what-people-need/538075/36 "2010-05-04T10:53:11Z")
Let’s take **Rubik Cubes** , for example. What a waste of fucking plastic! I dare anyone to try and convince me that their being manufactured was useful to anyone, bar those who were making them for a profit. There’s a million articles out there that if people were discouraged from making the shit, they might find more gainful employment and actually provide something that people can get use out of. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotGrrrl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9dc877/32.png) [@PatriotGrrrl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotGrrrl)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2010, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-should-we-limit-what-we-make-based-on-what-people-need/538075/37 "2010-05-04T11:29:51Z")
Would that go for all other toys and games, Ivan? Should we discourage the manufacture of, say, chess sets? ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2010, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-should-we-limit-what-we-make-based-on-what-people-need/538075/38 "2010-05-04T12:14:52Z")
> [@PatriotGrrrl](#): > > Would that go for all other toys and games, Ivan? Should we discourage the manufacture of, say, chess sets? Chess would get a pass. You’ll have to run the other toys and games by me, for me to say if they have any merit. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2010, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-should-we-limit-what-we-make-based-on-what-people-need/538075/39 "2010-05-04T12:40:11Z")
Sounds like you would have liked the old Soviet Union! There, the government dictated what the people “needed”. That meant: clothing decades out of style, shoes that didn’t fit, cars that broke down at 4000 miles, massive pollution, and food that was inferior. Italso meant that your station in life was determined by your status in the communist party. Yeah, free market capitalism is messy and makes mistakes-but I’d rather tha than a centrally planned economy, via “scientific” socialism. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotGrrrl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9dc877/32.png) [@PatriotGrrrl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotGrrrl)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2010, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-should-we-limit-what-we-make-based-on-what-people-need/538075/40 "2010-05-04T12:54:28Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > Chess would get a pass. You’ll have to run the other toys and games by me, for me to say if they have any merit. Oh, so the things _you_ like are useful, but the things other people like are not. Gotcha. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-should-we-limit-what-we-make-based-on-what-people-need/538075.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-should-we-limit-what-we-make-based-on-what-people-need/538075.md?page=3)