I Get What I Want

The great Mick Jagger would say, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try, sometimes you get what you need.” As stated in class, there is a very thin line that separates “want” and “need”. The Oxford English Dictionary simply states that the definition of “want” is “To be lacking or missing,” while the definition of “need” is “To be necessary.” Clearly we can differentiate the two terms into whether or not a certain action in question is a necessity, but do we distinguish this difference when making choices? In relation to “consumption,” wants and needs drive our consumption, in an economic sense, of products from a provider. The more literal meaning of consumption is “to destroy, to exhaust, to waste, to completely use up” (New Keywords pg. 57). Even with the use of “consumption” in current vernacular inferring capitalism and free trade, it still has a negative connotation because of its inability to differentiate our wants from our needs.


A consumer, in an economic context, is the person who buys products based on their level of wanting or needing a product. For example, Honda is an automobile provider who provides automobiles to consumers who want or need a car. Is a car a necessity or a luxury? A car, from a biological sense, is only a luxury because our legs and muscles are our main means of transportation, but most people do not have the time or energy to walk to work. So, a car can easily become a necessity for any working individual. The individual wants to get to work quickly and without expending too much energy to get there. Therefore, a car is now a necessity for the individual. Luxuries become necessities because consumer mentality tells people they need something in order to live. As a result, other "wants" induce "needs" and therefore blurs the definite line between the two. If a car becomes a necessity, gas too becomes a necessity. More recently, skyrocketing gas prices lead to the development of alternative energy resources such as Honda’s new FCX Clarity (a Hydrogen Fuel Cell automobile). Today, it seems to be a luxury more than a necessity, but because of the inclining gas prices, cars like the FCX Clarity can easily become a new luxury turned necessity. And Hydrogen, an already necessity to life, finds new importance in the human life cycle. We might get what we need, but originally that necessity was once a wanted luxury. So, to contradict Mick Jagger, we do get what we want.