… is from pages 41-42 of Frank Knight‘s 1951 primer, The Economic Organization (which was initially privately published in 1933):
At the end of the economic process is the satisfaction of human wants, and wants afford the motive power which actuates the entire process.
DBx: Indeed so.
This satisfaction of human wants is what we economists mean – no less and no more – when we use the word “consumption.” Contrary to the apparent impression of protectionists such as Oren Cass and Robert Lighthizer, the meaning of “consumption” is not confined to the satisfaction of only material desires (and much less to the satisfaction of only myopic, frivolous, or sensual urges). Serious economists, from the time of Adam Smith forward, have always recognized that humans’ desires are varied and include many objects and experiences that are not available through simple commercial exchanges at the mall or at Amazon – a fact that doesn’t mean that the market cannot be relied upon nevertheless to increase the likelihood of those ‘deeper’ wants being satisfied.
And so when people such as Cass insist that economics must be reworked or modified to account for humans’ desires for these ‘deeper’ wants, such people only reveal their poor understanding of economics.
