The Innate Nature of Economics - Economics and Ecology: United for a Sustainable World - page 46

From Necessities to Wants and Subsistence to Wealth
An organism driven by aforementioned characteristics can scarcely be
content with a subsistence life. An acquisitive, self-interested, competitive,
materialist is hard-wired to seek more. To an astute observer, this suite of
characteristics is pretty much the demise of economics as a tool kit for mere
survival. The initial notion of an economy as a functional means whereby
to “meet necessities” quickly transitions to a goal of “satisfying wants.” In
a sense, there is nothing wrong with this. (Of course, the modern theory
of demand steadfastly contends that you cannot tell the difference between
wants and necessities—nor should you want to.) The creation of leisure due
to the fact that economic needs are met more easily than was possible in
the past is a badge of success for economic activity. It has supposedly done
its job. As an aside, all priceless treasures of the past were created because
people and their societies carved out leisure time over and above the efforts
needed just to insure their survival. The Parthenon and the Sistine Chapel
are products of surplus and leisure.
But this set of assumptions, which supposedly define the economic behav-
ior of a human being, includes no logical stopping point. The possibility of
ultimate consumer satisfaction is not acknowledged, and limits on acqui-
sition of goods and wealth do not exist. Therefore, we have seen the con-
tinuous evolution of a discipline that was initially intended to show people
and societies how to subsist into one that purports to show them how to
become wealthy. The blueprint for acquiring enough to survive has been
transformed into a model for acquiring any and all goods available in the
modern world. Necessities are transformed into wants . Comfort is replaced
by material luxury. And all the while, the internal workings of the disci-
pline offer no assistance in making the essentially philosophical decisions
in determining when one has enough. The credo is left at “More Is Better.”
Consequently, any movement from this morally bleak, unsatisfying goal is
left to the strictly noneconomic sphere. In essence, as the lust for material
objects grows, the notion of enough progressively evaporates.
The lack of acquisitive instincts on the part of the particular actors in the
economic drama (businesses and people) would cause the predictive mod-
els to malfunction. It is as though the Rational Economic Man paradigm has
conditioned people to behave like trained animals in a circus. Provide certain
stimuli, and a standard, completely predictable response occurs. The show will
go on, and people enjoy not only watching but also participating in the process.
However, if a different or unpredictable response follows a standard stimulus,
the circus may have to be shut down. It can even be dangerous for the trainer.
At the microeconomic level, therefore, perpetual acquisition of material
wealth remains the sanctioned behavior. People are assumed to be almost
wholly materialistic and perpetually willing (and eager) to compete in bet-
tering their economic lot. At the macroeconomic level, the system is pushed