208
PARTISAN REVIEW
generated. Yet these demands derive from the existing distribution of
income. And, what ultimately provides direction for the economy is the
value system of the culture in which the economy is embedded.
Economic policy can be efficacious as a means; but it can only be as
just
as the cultural value system that shapes it.
It
is for that reason that I am a socialist in economics. For me,
socialism is not statism, or the collective ownership of the means of
production.
It
is (as Aneurin Bevan once said), a judgment on the
priorities of economic policy.
It
is for that reason that I believe that
in
this realm,
the community takes precedence over the individual in the
values that legitimate economic policy. The first lien on the resources
of a society therefore should be
to
establish that "social minimum"
which would allow individuals
to
lead a life of self-respect, to be
members of the community. This means a set of priorities that ensures
work for those who seek it, a degree of adequate security against the
hazards of the market, and adequate access to medical care and
protection against the ravages of disease and illness.
I accept and reinterpret, the classical distinction between needs
and wants. Needs are what all individuals have as members of the
"species." Wants are the varied desires of individuals in accordance
with their own tastes and idiosyncrasies. I believe that the first
obligation of a society is to meet those essential needs; otherwise,
individuals cannot be full "citizens" of the society. Admittedly, the
word "needs" is ambiguous. Keynes once wrote: " ... it is true that the
needs of human beings may seem to be insatiable. But they fall into two
classes-those needs which are absolute in the sense that we feel them
whatever the situation of our fellow human beings may be, and those
which are relative in the sense that we feel them only if their satisfac–
tion lifts us above, makes us feel superior to, our fellows. Needs of the
second class, those which satisfy the desire for superiority, may indeed
be insatiable . . . but this is not true of absolute needs.
Unwittingly, modern economics has established its own distinc–
tion between needs and wants: the concept of discretionary income.
One part of a person's expenditure is relatively fixed-the amount
necessary to meet one's self-defined basic (or, in Keynes's sense,
absolute) needs. The other portion is variable: it can be postponed,
used to satisfy different wants, and is spent quite often
in
those pursuits
that express the signs of status and the desires for superiority.
The social minimum I support is the amount of family income
required to meet basic needs. And, since this is also a cultural defini–
tion, it will, understandably, change over time. And I am a socialist,
also, in that I do not believe wealth should be convertible into undue
