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Surely demand is the easy piece: people with one set of cloths and one piece of furniture, want more stuff. When you have a lot of stuff already, then people

Surely demand is the easy piece: people with one set of cloths and one piece of furniture, want more stuff. When you have a lot of stuff already, then people demand things like leisure time, freedom, justice, etc which conflicts with production of goods. But when you are basically a subsistence farmer you just want more stuff first and foremost. I find the idea that some places have not developed because the people there don't want things quite alien to be honest. Who is cold and doesn't want an extra blanket?

college_physics 4y ago
You are thinking about very basic needs. Most of the world is (thankfully) beyond that stage. You need to explain why while industrial capacities are available for centuries now, there is a very varied picture in terms of development. Its precisely this assumption that "demand is given" that questioned. Demand seems to be a more complex beast.
- LatteLazy 4y ago
  I actually think it's the other way around. I can plausibly explain differences in development levels by pointing to 1001 different factors from colonial legacies to geography to corruption to infrastructure etc. It is your conjecture, that people just don't want things in some of these places (sorry if that is reductionist?) that requires a lot of justification. What makes people in some places lack demand while rich westerners like me demand so much? Why did my poor ancestors living with similar levels of poverty have demand when these people do not?
  - college_physics 4y ago
    > pointing to 1001 different (supply) factors and I would probably agree that most of them have some role, but ignoring the demand side is fundamentally flawed (in principle) given how circularly an economy works, especially over the long run. Quantifying precisely what role demand plays would need careful justification and counterfactual economic "experiments" [0] but that was not my point. My point is that it is a factor seldom discussed, whereas even casual exposure to non-western society shows that people have very diverging attitudes towards consumption which are very culture driven. [0] This should not be so difficult. Even today, centuries after the industrial revolution in many parts of the world 50% of the population is not even granted any agency, let alone be drivers of economic demand.

college_physics 4y ago

You are thinking about very basic needs. Most of the world is (thankfully) beyond that stage. You need to explain why while industrial capacities are available for centuries now, there is a very varied picture in terms of development. Its precisely this assumption that "demand is given" that questioned. Demand seems to be a more complex beast.

LatteLazy 4y ago
I actually think it's the other way around. I can plausibly explain differences in development levels by pointing to 1001 different factors from colonial legacies to geography to corruption to infrastructure etc. It is your conjecture, that people just don't want things in some of these places (sorry if that is reductionist?) that requires a lot of justification. What makes people in some places lack demand while rich westerners like me demand so much? Why did my poor ancestors living with similar levels of poverty have demand when these people do not?
- college_physics 4y ago
  > pointing to 1001 different (supply) factors and I would probably agree that most of them have some role, but ignoring the demand side is fundamentally flawed (in principle) given how circularly an economy works, especially over the long run. Quantifying precisely what role demand plays would need careful justification and counterfactual economic "experiments" [0] but that was not my point. My point is that it is a factor seldom discussed, whereas even casual exposure to non-western society shows that people have very diverging attitudes towards consumption which are very culture driven. [0] This should not be so difficult. Even today, centuries after the industrial revolution in many parts of the world 50% of the population is not even granted any agency, let alone be drivers of economic demand.