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People queue up for soup and bread at relief tents in the aftermath of the Great Seattle Fire of June 6, 1889. In economics, scarcity "refers to the basic fact of life that there exists only a finite amount of human and nonhuman resources which the best technical knowledge is capable of using to produce only limited maximum amounts of each economic good."
Economics focuses on the study of economic goods, i.e. goods that are scarce; in other words, producing the good requires expending effort or resources. Economic goods contrast with free goods such as air, for which there is an unlimited supply.
The "basic needs" approach was introduced by the International Labour Organization's World Employment Conference in 1976. [1] [2] "Perhaps the high point of the WEP was the World Employment Conference of 1976, which proposed the satisfaction of basic human needs as the overriding objective of national and international development policy. The ...
In economics, a want is something that is desired. It is said that every person has unlimited wants, but limited resources (economics is based on the assumption that only limited resources are available to us). Thus, people cannot have everything they want and must look for the most affordable alternatives. Wants are often distinguished from needs.
In addition to basic needs, humans also have needs of a social or societal nature such as the human need for purpose, to socialize, to belong to a family or community or other group. Needs can be objective and physical, such as the need for food, or psychical and subjective, such as the need for self-esteem .
The earlier term for the discipline was "political economy", but since the late 19th century, it has commonly been called "economics". [22] The term is ultimately derived from Ancient Greek οἰκονομία (oikonomia) which is a term for the "way (nomos) to run a household (oikos)", or in other words the know-how of an οἰκονομικός (oikonomikos), or "household or homestead manager".
E. F. Schumacher challenges the prevailing economic assumption that fulfilling demand is the purpose of economic activity, offering a framework of what he calls "Buddhist economics" in which wise demands, fulfilling genuine human needs, are distinguished from unwise demands, arising from the five intellectual impairments recognized by Buddhism ...
Consumption is the act of using resources to satisfy current needs and wants. [1] It is seen in contrast to investing , which is spending for acquisition of future income. [ 2 ] Consumption is a major concept in economics and is also studied in many other social sciences .