On De-escalating Wants

If there is a ‘gap’ between the desires for health services, educational services, and so on, and the social provision of such services then, clearly enough, that ‘gap’ is as much dependent on the level of those desires as it is on the level of that provision. And it is not immediately self-evident that if such a ‘gap’ has come to constitute a problem then the problem can only be confronted in terms of ‘the spirit of indefinite enlargement’. One element of the question, ‘How can we meet the escalating costs of social needs?’, is ‘Is it proper to do so?’ Is it always proper to want more, and more, and more? One cannot just take it for granted that whatever is stated by anybody under any circumstances to be a social need must ipso facto be accepted to be a social need and hence that we have to think about financing it. Sometimes, at least, it might be appropriate to question whether alleged social needs should be accorded that description or not. Of course I emphasize that this is only one aspect of the question and I have no intention of suggesting that it is the most important aspect; it is simply the one I have been asked to write about. Although I write as an economist, it will become clear that the issues raised are more nearly in the domain of moral discourse than in that of immediate practical policy; and while I shall not discuss explicitly such human qualities as altruism, it will be clear that they hover in the wings.