Supply and demand. When you purchase something you create a demand for it and supply is increased to meet that demand. Buying something causes someone else to do something with their life on earth, to create more of the thing you bought. You created a job. Is it a good job? Is it a good thing? Is your need or want fulfilled? If it is then the system is working, but I have my doubts that all 'demand' is a well considered purchase.
First things first. Im reliably informed that two important drivers of the economy are supply and demand. It's the second part I want to talk about. Demand. What is it? Where does it come from? So, I gather, when I buy something, that is me indicating that I want it - creating demand in the system. Im not sure how else I indicate my 'demand'. (I understand that we do surveys of businesses that ask them to predict their future demand and this might be a measure, but its really like me saying I might want to buy a hamburger next month, I know Ill need food and that it might make up a part of my diet and if it is usually a part of it then that might be a good measure, but I understand the purchase to be the demand). There are of course a number of things I would buy but cant afford so I assume that lots of other people want them too, so their demand (as well as mine) is pushing up the cost as the supply cant meet the demand. Thats my feeble understanding. So, I imagine we are all in a line. On a teachers wages in my country Im probably about half way down that list, not bad. I can afford all the things I need (demand) and some of the things I want (demand) but I imagine there are other people in front of me with more money that are prepared to pay more than I am to have the thing we both want, and perhaps Im doing the same to someone else. Like the demand for a nicer house. So demand comes from wants and needs.
Here comes my question. Can't we all agree that there are just some things not worth having. I realised this while seeing the 'fake spew' in the Showbag section of my local easter show. Its fake spew! A plastic, gelatinous spew like sculpture that you can buy. I guess you put it somewhere in the hope that you can fake them out. Im assuming someone is buying it, they create a demand, and so it is supplied. Someone, somewhere, is in a factory and is using their human potential to create it and that makes me angry. That person, it would seem to me, could make any number of products I really need, cheaper and more accessible for me and the rest of the system! This demand shouldn't exist. Then it occurred to me. Maybe nobody actually wants it. It comes with other things in the Showbag. Many of which are infinitely more desirable like lollies. It made me realise that not all demand is the same. I went to a conference earlier in the year and received, upon signing in, a stupid bag with a pen and a few other things in it. Only one of the things I wanted - the program, much more useful digitally provided to me later anyway. Nobody I knew wanted these 'free goodies'. There was little to no demand from the end user. It felt rude and needlessly complicated to reject the bag upon signing in. To make things worse I brought them home, on a flight, that demand created further demand for fuel. Then I threw it all in the bin, creating demand for waste services.
This is economic success as I understand it. Increased consumption. Yet it doesn't meet our needs or wants. The demand doesn't exist at all. Someone, somewhere is employed doing something NOBODY WANTS. I think carefully when I purchase things in this regard. the economic assumption that people will be careful with their money and only use it to buy things they want or need seems to be a flawed assumption and one way our system fails.
Have you been part of creating a demand without wanting or needing the item in question?
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