Demand and Need

Abstract

Almost 200 years elapsed between the publication of the first of the above quotations and the second; during that period economics has greatly increased our understanding of the theory of choice and the relationship which exists between concepts of need, necessities and demands. The works of economists have not, however, been fully absorbed into the literature on social policy and administration, and the quotation from The Fifth Social Service owes more to early pre-scientific works on economics than to the work of great nineteenth-century authors such as Jevons,¹ Wicksell,² Marshall³ or Wicksteed.⁴ Twentieth-century economists working in the field of demand theory have been almost completely ignored in the emphasis given by social administrators to ‘law’, ‘regulation’, ‘policy’ and ‘custom’.

By necessities I understand not only the commodities which are indispensably necessary for the support of life, but whatever the custom of the country renders it indecent for creditable people, even of the lowest order, to be without. A linen shirt, for example is, strictly speaking not a necessary of life — [but] — in the present time, through the greater part of Europe, a creditable day labourer would be ashamed to appear in public without a linen shirt. (Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations bk 5, ch. 2, pt II, Discussion on Taxes upon Consumable Commodities, 1776.)

In examining social or normative definitions of need the social scientist can help to bring them into the open, reveal contradictions and loose ends and show the different functions played by law, regulation, policy and custom. (Peter Townsend, The Fifth Social Service (London: Fabian Society, 1970) ch. 1, p. 9.)