Satisfying Human Needs and Combating Suffering in a Market Economy

 

Dialoogi https://dialoogid2.blogspot.com/2025/08/inimeste-vajaduste-rahuldamine-ning.html tõlge.

 

Satisfying Human Needs and Combating Suffering in a Market Economy 

Karmo Talts 

 

In this work, I examine how the market orientation of the economy affects the satisfaction of human needs and the fight against suffering. To do this, I examine how demand is related to the satisfaction of human needs and the alleviation of suffering. I also examine where the initiative to address these problems comes from in a market economy where the market cannot ensure their solution. 

We will examine how demand and needs are related. If someone has money to satisfy their needs, then they can use their money to satisfy these needs. At the same time, the needs of people who do not have money to satisfy their needs are not reflected in demand. Thus, the relationship between needs and demands is coincidental - sometimes people's needs are reflected in demand, but this is not inevitable.

Let's now look at a similar relationship between demands and suffering. Again, some people have money to alleviate their suffering. The suffering of those who do not have the money to do so is not reflected in demand. So it is not also inevitable that suffering will be reflected in demand. 

Let us now examine what this implies about satisfying human needs and combating suffering in an economy in which market relations are central. Satisfying needs and combating suffering is not a priority for the market, so the initiative to satisfy the needs of poor people or alleviate their suffering must come from somewhere else. 

Let us now look at who this initiative comes from. On the one hand, it comes from the state, which intervenes in economic relations to help the poor, collecting tax money to deal with social problems. On the other hand, private individuals engage in helping the poor as a charity. 

Let us now examine in more detail what opportunities these two parties have for this in a society in which the economic system is market-oriented. The state cannot go so far in alleviating poverty as to create a large number of state-owned enterprises to provide jobs for the unemployed and to produce basic necessities and create housing for the poor, because this would be a massive intervention in the functioning of the market. Same time, private individuals must organize their own charitable activities and decide for whom and in what form they should do it on their own. This means that charity cannot be more systematic and professional than private individuals can organize based on their free time, their own resources, and their own level of understanding of social problems. 

In this work, I examined how the market orientation of the economy affects the satisfaction of people's needs and the fight against suffering. I found that the relationship between demand and the solution of these problems is coincidental - the market solves these problems to the extent that people with unmet needs and those suffering have the money to solve their problems. Regarding solving the problems of poor people, I found that it falls on the shoulders of the state, which cannot take measures beyond the use of tax money, so as not to interfere extensively in the functioning of the market, and of private benefactors who lack the free time, resources, and expertise to deal with social problems in the best possible way.