Re: Maslow/Rosenberg

[Paul Henry Rosenberg <rad@xxxxxxx>]

Gregoire de Nowell (ci-devant) wrote:

> Paul never ceases to amaze me.  Maslow's typology is apropos but
> it can get hairy in the fine details.  Thus if I need 2k calories
> a day I can make do on raw potatoes but I can also eat chocolate
> croissants, and if society has equal capaity to make both I don't
> know if it's a d need or a b-need.
>
> (the croissant, that is)

Well, the croissant isn't a need, but a way of satisfying it.  But I
know what you mean.

I don't regard this as problematic, because I'm not a reductionist.  I'm
not trying to reduce economics to psychology, but I am trying to
constrain economics with the proper psychology -- not an imaginary one
that's made up for the convenience of economists.

As your example makes clear, Maslow's psychology is not the kind of
rigid system which produces rigid constraints.

> The d-b issue also comes up with someting like transporation.  You
> don't "need" an automobile the way you "need" bread, but as welfare
> "reformers" are finding out, one of the major obstacles to getting
> people to work is physically GETTING them to work.  Once the physical
> infrastructure of society is predicated on a car, the "need hierarchy"
> may change.
>
> All of which is to say that "needs" to some extent reflect power
> relations, both as a matter of class and distribution, and also
> as power relations affect the physical construction of society.

All true.  The value of invoking Maslow is first of all negative -- to
knock down simplistic assumptions implicit (or even explicit) in
economic models that justify syustems that demonstrably *DON'T* maximize
human well-being when they claim that they have.

The second value of invoking Maslow -- as part of a project of
developing a better economics -- is undoubtedly far more tricky, as your
observations indicate.  But certainly worth considering.

Just one more observation: The freedom from compulsion and alienation of
which Marx wrote is certainly an example of high-level b-needs that are
routinely ignored by systems of economics.  Only some form of POLICAL
economy can possibly address them adequately.

--
Paul Rosenberg
Reason and Democracy
rad@xxxxxxx

"Let's put the information BACK into the information age!"