Want Vs Need

Most of us have grown up using the words interchangeably. Sometimes some supercilious adult would correct us by asking "do you really need this, or do you just want it?" I want to make a clear break between those two concepts---linguistically, and practically. Ultimately, we are a culture of want that has been coaxed into a culture of need. I want to posit that feelings of need bring out the worst in human beings, whereas want built this great country. I don't want anyone flippantly responding to this with the thought that I hate needy people, so let's explore the two concepts thoroughly to see why we need to return to more wanting, and less needing.

Need invokes the most animalistic instincts in us, and when survival is at stake no one cares about principle. In Freudian terms: if your Id senses a terrible lacking, your ego will tend to override your superego significantly. For this reason, a prerequisite to communism is always poverty. The masses, when distraught, cling to dictators that promise complete salvation, no matter how unrealistic. This progression from panic to dictatorial communism is so predictable, that every wannabe tyrant over the last 200 years has induced the panic with the promise of "people's communism." Stalin starved an entire country (Ukraine) by literally stealing its wheat over the course of several years, Che Guevera in Cuba and Mao in China both massacred millions of people to achieve a "People's Republic."

A satisfied mouse won't go for the cheese in the trap; it can wait a little until the situation doesn't look as dire. Communism feeds on need though, and always comes into power after dire situations. It uses the excuse of saving people in need to rob those people of their liberties only to ensure its own continuity at the expense of those impoverished people. Honestly, does a regime that can only survive if the people are miserable have any interest in making the people happy?

The fair world runs on want, or what Liberals and Communists call greed. When you want something, and no one (including the Government) promises to give it to you, you find a way to get it. In this way, wealth is literally generated out of thin air. The mouse that wants the cheese will learn to dance for it, and who wouldn't feed a dancing mouse? Both parties gain something from the transaction, so I beg you to tell me which was the greedy one.

Now, want is limited, as only God can limit something like this fairly, by the biblical concept of "thou shall not covet thy neighbor." Most Jewish theologians (I speak only on their behalf because of my educational background) argue that jealousy which spurs you to better yourself and work for what someone else has is a good jealousy. The only wrong to speak of in this context is a jealousy that makes you take forcibly that which belongs to your neighbor. In layman's terms, this fine line defined by human instinct and morality, is capitalism.

Society flourishes when everyone is jealous of the guy with money, and comes up with innovative products to trade for bits of it. If you're really good and come up with a successful corporation, he may invest all of it in you. Wanting is only bad when it makes you forcibly take what is not yours, namely, when it becomes need. And yet, the capitalistic system of "want" is far and away the "most productive supplier of human needs." (Sharon Statement)

See, you can have your cake and eat it too, but only if you've earned it. And because you wanted it, you've paid for and fulfilled the needs of the baker, the flour grinder, the oven manufacturer, the floor sweeper in the back of the pastry shop...you get the idea.