Markets and the Satisfaction of Human Wants
An economic system is normally judged according to its efficiency in producing and distributing goods and services, and the justification for this evaluation is usually "the satisfaction of human wants." Some economists argue that the origin, transmission, and particular contents of these wants, or values, are to be taken as given.' Some consider them the province of another discipline, sociology, and believe professional economists should limit themselves to studying and evaluating "the ways in which people strive to obtain whatever it is they want."2 Others regard them as a matter of indifference, since "modern economics makes no distinction among ends because it considers them all equally legitimate."3 In theory, it would be possible within the bounds of economics to judge a market system, for example, by its capacity to maximize such human wants as justice, freedom, virtue, self-actualization, culture (civilization), or happiness itself, or combinations of any or all of these. The only conditions would be that the "goods" satisfying these wants be scarce, divisible, and