Needs & Wants

What are the basic motivators that drives a person. Anyone who has worked in a transnational corporation has come across Maslow's Hierarchy. If we think in these terms, then what are the basic motivators for a person. I believe that the very basic motivating factors driving a person are just two: food & security. These are primal needs. Without them no one can survive for very long. Food is a need. Without it there is no survival. What kind of food to eat is a want. Similarly security is a need. What kind of security is a want. If we go up the hierarchy of needs/wants a little, there is the need for sex. This group of three: food, security & sex are basic needs. I have not put sex as a primal need. The reason for that is that sex is not necessary for the survival of the individual unlike food & security. However it is a strong motivating factor - so strong that it has to be categorized as a basic need. This troika is also expressed colloquially as wine, women & song: the three standing respectively for food, sex & security. While the first two are logical juxtapositions, the third one may seem odd. What has song and security got to do with each other? The answer is simple. An insecure person - insecure in the sense of not having enough to eat and having no shelter would never dream of indulging in song or rather the larger category of entertainment. A recreational activity like this requires a minimum level of security in order to carry out.

We have identified two level of needs. Primary needs: food & shelter and basic needs: food, sex & shelter. These needs are expressed in many different ways. The ways in which they are expressed are called wants. The ways in which these basic needs are expressed have resulted in some of the oldest economic activities. Let us go up the needs/wants hierarchy a little more. Once the primary needs (& hopefully the basic needs) are met, a person starts thinking about meeting the higher level of needs. What are these higher level needs?

Humans are material, social and spiritual creatures. The basic needs are essential material needs. But there are other needs that need to be met if a person is not to be a one-dimensional being. Being social creatures, humans have an inherent need to develop emotional attachments. These bonds are primarily towards family; then acquaintances (including friends), then clan and/or religious community members and finally all others. It has been shown that these emotional attachments are literally necessary for a long & healthy life. No man is an island unto himself - atleast not for long. The need for emotional attachment is expressed in different ways. Along with the need for emotional attachment is the need to communicate. These two needs - the need for emotional attachment and the need to communicate are fundamental needs.

So now the needs hierarchy is becoming clearer. First there are the primary needs: food and security. Without them, survival is not possible. Then there is the basic need: sex. Food, security and sex are extremely powerful driving factors.Then there are the fundamental needs: emotional attachment and the need to communicate. Fundamental needs have to be met at some level and different people have different levels at which they satisfy these needs. Going up the needs/wants hierarchy further, we enter the realm of higher needs. These are spiritual in nature. They nourish the nebulous entity known as the human spirit. At the root of these needs lies the need to learn/explore. Learning and exploration are in may respects two sides of the same coin. Learning anything inherently has strong aspects of exploration while exploration inherently strongly involves aspect of learning. Learning/exploration can be either internal or external or both. If it is internal, then it can lead to the highest level of Maslow's hierarchy - self actualization. So there we have it. A complete hierarchy of needs (or atleast as complete as I can think of). To recap: Primary

• Food
• Security

Basic

• Sex

Fundamental

• Emotional attachment
• Communicate

Spiritual

• Learning
• Exploration

Wants are essentially an expression of these needs. All economic activities are ultimately designed to meet one or more of these needs.