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February 22, 2005
Wealth and Poverty
So, last week I started to think about whether or now my current lifestyle is meeting my basic needs. This entry is my first exploration of that topic. I will be using the categories of basic human needs developed by Chilean economist Manfred Max-Neef. Although there are many different categorizations for basic human needs (Malinowski, Maslow, Aldefer,
Max-Neef and his colleagues have developed a taxonomy of human needs and a process by which communities can identify their "wealths" and "poverties" according to how these needs are satisfied.
The main contribution that Max-Neef makes to the understanding of needs is the distinction made between needs and satisfiers. Human needs are seen as few, finite and classifiable (as distinct from the conventional notion that "wants" are infinite and insatiable). Not only this, they are constant through all human cultures and across historical time periods. What changes over time and between cultures is the way these needs are satisfied. It is important that human needs are understood as a system - i.e. they are interrelated and interactive. There is no hierarchy of needs (apart from the basic need for subsistence or survival) as postulated by Western psychologists such as Maslow, rather, simultaneity, complementarity and trade-offs are features of the process of needs satisfaction.
Max-Neef classifies the fundamental human needs as: subsistence, protection, affection, understanding, participation, recreation (in the sense of leisure, time to reflect, or idleness), creation, identity and freedom. Needs are also defined according to the existential categories of being, having, doing and interacting, and from these dimensions, a 36 cell matrix is developed which can be filled with examples of satisfiers for those needs.
Fundamental | Being | Having | Doing | Interacting |
subsistence | physical and | food, shelter | feed, clothe, | living environment, |
protection | care, | social security, | co-operate, | social environment, |
affection | respect, sense | friendships, | share, take care of, | privacy, |
understanding | critical | literature, | analyse, study,meditate | schools, families |
participation | receptiveness, | responsibilities, | cooperate, | associations, |
leisure | imagination, | games, parties, | day-dream, | landscapes, |
creation | imagination, | abilities, skills, | invent, build, | spaces for |
identity | sense of | language, | get to know | places one |
freedom | autonomy, | equal rights | dissent, choose, | anywhere |
Satisfiers also have different characteristics: they can be violators or destroyers, pseudosatisfiers, inhibiting satisfiers, singular satisfiers, or synergic satisfiers. Max-Neef shows that certain satisfiers, promoted as satisfying a particular need, in fact inhibit or destroy the possibility of satisfying other needs: e.g., the arms race, while ostensibly satisfying the need for protection, in fact then destroys subsistence, participation, affection and freedom; formal democracy, which is supposed to meet the need for participation often disempowers and alienates; commercial television, while used to satisfy the need for recreation, interferes with understanding, creativity and identity - the examples are everywhere.
Synergic satisfiers, on the other hand, not only satisfy one particular need, but also lead to satisfaction in other areas: some examples are breast-feeding; self-managed production; popular education; democratic community organizations; preventative medicine; meditation; educational games.
This model forms the basis of an explanation of many of the problems arising from a dependence on mechanistic economics, and contributes to understandings that are necessary for a paradigm shift that incorporates systemic principles. Max-Neef and his colleagues have found that this methodology "allows for the achievement of in-depth insight into the key problems that impede the actualization of fundamental human needs in the society, community or institution being studied" (Max-Neef et al, 1987:40)
My goal for the next few weeks is to see if I can apply this community evaluation tool at a personal level. I will fill out my own matrix and see where I have wealth and where I have poverty. I'm aiming towards an analysis of my current life (here in
Of course, all of this will be taking place concomitantly with my thesis work, and my trip to
Comments
Damn.
You are higher on Google when searching for Max-Neef Needs than I am. And I'm pretty sure you just copy-pasted this from my site!
Posted by: gizmo guy at November 7, 2005 09:19 PM
Of course, I copy-pasted from some other site. But stil... it aint fair.
Posted by: gizmo guy at November 7, 2005 09:19 PM
