Goods are any means to meet human needs

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:41

Economists say that a good is anything that can satisfy a person's needs. But from the point of view of philosophy, it contains a specific positive meaning or meaning, a phenomenon or an object that satisfies certain needs of people and meets the goals and needs of society.

Natural and economic benefits

Some essential human goods come from the environment (nature), such as sunlight, water, air, edible fruits and herbs, meat and milk, fish. All of them are given by nature, that is, they are free, since they are not created by people. However, this free of charge for many of them is very relative, because people make certain efforts to obtain or receive them. For example, they purify water so that it becomes drinkable, they collect fruits from trees, they milk a cow for milk. As a result of these actions, natural benefits are moving from free to paid, that is, economic.

With each new stage in the development of mankind, peoplebegan to need funds that could not be found in nature in its pure form. Therefore, they began to mine and learned to create the objects necessary for their life activity with their own hands, later mechanisms were invented that helped a person in creating more complex economic benefits. And with each new period of time, they became more complicated and improved. In a word, economic benefits are objects (goods) obtained and created by the efforts of people. They include almost everything that surrounds us today. By the way, the whole process of creating this or that material good takes place consciously, and not instinctively, like the activity of, for example, bees.

Today the world produces millions of economic benefits. All of them, along with free ones, are aimed at meeting human needs. And if in a primitive society only basic necessities were created, today many benefits serve to satisfy not only the physical, but also the spiritual needs of people.

Long-term and short-term benefits

Economic benefits are both long-term and short-term. The former include those items that can be used for many years, such as houses, furniture, cars, household appliances. Short-term goods are those items that we use for a short time, such as food, that is, food products. Economic benefits also include services, they can also be long-term and short-lived.

Tangible and intangible goods

Allthose means that are aimed at satisfying our needs can be both intangible and material, that is, tangible. Intangible goods are those values that are created by non-productive means. They can contribute to the development of human abilities and serve to satisfy the spiritual needs of people. These include art, reputation. These benefits are divided into internal, that is, those that are given to man by nature (perfect hearing, singing voice, poetic beginning, the ability to draw and sculpt). Otherwise, we call them talents. But external intangible benefits are what we receive from the outside also to satisfy our needs (connections, reputation, relationships with friends and colleagues). By the way, if you notice, the concept of good has a direct connection with another philosophical concept - values. Just what is valuable to one may mean nothing to another.