Private wants

The first challenge to be considered here to the starting definition of consumer sovereignty, that is, the market version of the interest conception, is the question how well it covers individuals' private wants that are relevant to production and distribution. “Private wants” here refer to those wants whose satisfaction the individual enjoys privately, as opposed to collectively. They exclude wants concerned with social interaction for its own sake, which are left for the following chapter. (To avoid confusion, it is important not to regard private wants as synonymous with wants for “private goods,” as that term has come to be used in welfare economics. Private wants include wants for many kinds of “collective goods.” To the extent that the latter involve the collective use of such goods for private enjoyment, we are dealing with private wants for collective goods. An example is a highway, which is used jointly, but for private ends.)

This challenge involves, in particular, the questions whether, first, wants regarding personal producer interests, such as the amount and kind of work to be performed, and, secondly, wants regarding environmental amenities and conditions should be included in the conception of consumer sovereignty or not. The latter raises a more general question, which is whether the free-market-choice requirement is to be retained, given the existence of market failures and alternative modes of preference expression.