In his 1930 essay “Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren “, John Keynes, acconmist, ewrote that human needs fall into two classes: absolute needs ,which are indupe what other have , and relative needs ,which make us feel superior to our fellows He thought alough relative needs may indeed be insatible (无止境的) this isnottrue ofabsolute
Keynes wans surely correct that only a small part of total spending id decided by the super iority He was gretly mistaken ,however ,in seeting this desive as the only source of demands
Decisions to spend are also driven by ideas of quality which can influnce the den almost all goods, including even basic goods like food. When a couple goes out for an anm dinner,for example,the thought of feeling superior to others probably never comes to them. The goal is to share a special meal that stands out from other meals.
There are no obvious limits to the escalation of demand for quality.For example ,porsche famous car producer,has a model which was considered perhaps the best sport car on the mark Priced at over $120,000,it handles perfectly well and has great speen acceleration.But in 200 the producer introduced some changes which made the model slightly better in handling acceleration.People who really care about cars find these small improvemenmts exciting.To them,however,they must pay almost four times the price.
By placing the desire to be superior to other at the heart of his description of nisation demands,Keynes actually reduced such demands.However,the desire for higher quality has natural limits.