On Manufactured Demand and Scarcity
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs was not something Abraham Maslow created himself. Yet it is widely accepted and used — as it neatly outlines the priority of needs for human beings. At the foundation of the pyramid, we have basic needs. This mainly comprises of physiological and physical security needs; both aspects that are necessary for survival. It is only when these fundamental biological needs are fulfilled that people can worrying about psychological needs. These psychological needs encompass belonging, love, and self-esteem. And once we have these psychological needs fulfilled, do we start thinking about self-actualisation and personal flourishing. These three aspects, are all neatly organised and depicted in an ascending order — giving it its highly understandable and highly intuitive appeal.
This Hierarchy of Needs captures the reasoning behind why the world is focussed on economic growth. You’ve likely heard the statement that modern people live better than kings in the past. There is a ring of truth to this; thanks to economic growth, the world is largely lifted from poverty. For nations that were materially poor benefitted a lot from having more material wealth; wealth that can be used to fulfil basic biological needs. Economic growth also necessitated stable governments and laws — resulting in safer environments for people to live in.
However, when we move to the next level of the pyramid, ‘psychological needs’, the pyramid starts falling short. The simplicity of this pyramid tricks us into treating these psychological needs as being concrete — but they are not strictly ‘real’, in the physical sense. As such, such psychological needs lack the finiteness quality that biological needs have. Maslow himself was aware of that — this pyramid did not fully capture what Maslow intended his theory to be : it fails to capture the distinction between ‘deficiency’ needs and ‘growth’ needs.
Biological needs are innate to us. Hence, the natural starting point for these needs stem from a point of deficiency. So far, humanity by large have used methods that work to overcome such material deficiencies — through encouraging economic growth, we have fulfilled the lack of fulfilment of these physical basic needs. These physical deficiencies have a quota of fulfilment — we have a set point of satiety for these needs. We know when we have drunk enough water, eaten enough food, felt enough warmth, slept enough, feel physically protected. But psychological needs don’t work the same way.
The capitalistic society that we live treats our psychological needs like our biological needs. It focuses on fulfilment of psychological needs with the assumption that needs stem from a point of deficiency — as opposed to one that is focused on fulfilment and growth. Material deficiencies and scarcity was prevalent in the past — and the focus on economic growth has brought us out of that slump.
But the culture of focus on growth has continued to incentivise corporations to create demand. This can be seen from the wide spread prevalence of ultra-processed foods; which makes us feel less full — all so that we eat and consume more food. This can be seen from the use of sugar in most foods — all so that our biological systems are primed to crave more cans of coke. All these are demands created not from scarcity, but rather, from biological manipulation. A form of such strategy is also applied to our psychological needs. With these needs, the need for fulfilment stem from the need of appeasing our inner securities and anxieties. And I would argue that this strategy is even more potent when applied to producing demand that appeals to our psychological needs.
We naturally have insecurities and anxieties when we grow up — mostly due to our upbringing and environment exposure when younger. But these insecurities and anxieties are not easily defined; as most of the time, we ourselves aren’t even aware of them. And it’s hard to satisfy why we cannot perceive clearly. It’s unlike physical hunger — where the natural tendency is to eat food. With our anxieties, it’s not exactly clear what the best solution is to appease them. Corporations understand this and exploits it.
There is a clear limit to manufacturing demand for goods that satisfy basic needs; but there is no clear limit to manufacturing demand for psychological goods. But that’s because there is no clear point of satiation for psychological goods. This is especially true if the demand for psychological goods can be easily manufactured — with the advent of advertising and marketing, which often times capitalises on our insecurities that we are not even aware of. It makes us demand goods that we don’t necessarily need — all so we can calm our insecurities and anxieties for that short while. Only for us to be victims of more desire manufacturing messages and platforms again.
Even the world of finance knows this — there is a large discount applied to stocks that provide utilities or food production. These stocks are known as ‘boring’ stocks — but only because there is a limit to such physical production, and also demand for such physical goods. Companies that aim to satisfy needs that are above the fundamental level of Maslow’s hierarchy needs, however, are valued much more highly. An example of this would be social media companies — that have mastered not only the gamification of our addictive sides, but also, preys on the need to be socially desirable within us. Another example of this would be designer goods — which not only artificially increase prices by restricting supply, but also preys on the need for social approval.
Whilst I am not claiming that all these companies that provide psychological goods are necessarily doing more harm that good; there is a clear need of distinction between companies that focus on satisfying this needs from a growth and flourishing standpoint, and one that feeds off our psychological deficiency. This is particularly important as there is clear evidence that there are companies that manufacture scarcity and demand for our biological basic needs — and hence, this would be more widespread with our psychological needs. This is especially true, with an economical system that focuses on growth — and does not distinguish between growth that brings more flourishing, and one that is out of manufactured scarcity.
Most of us want to be health conscious. And we do this by being more mindful of what we eat — and how certain products can cause addiction, causing us to eat unnecessarily. But, we also need to be aware of the psychological products we are consuming — does it bring us fulfilment and encourages our personal growth? Or is it merely appeasing our insecure sides — only for us to feel better for a while? Our psychological needs are a lot more vague — and because of that, there is a need for us to be more self-aware. It is only when we are self-aware that we can be more conscious with what kind of products we choose to consume; and when psychological scarcity and desire is manufactured within us.
