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Originally Posted by CaptainYooh
I'd take it a bit further even. Starting form basic human survival needs is a trap. Many concentration camp prisoners who didn't get to die in gas chambers survived on food and water rations provided to them by nazis, who quantified prisoners' needs to keep them alive and working. They allowed different quantities of needs for Jews and WASP prisoners, by the way. That's not a good baseline for "needs", is it? At least, let's agree that some subjectivity of needs determination enters the consideration here.
Other people should be trusted to decide what YOU need for yourself only if YOU are a child, a mentally incapacitated dependant or a person in full government care for any reason (soldier, prisoner, nursing home resident etc.). There are other factors, of course, like distribution of goods during emergency supply shortages (I can think of a few more). But again, that leads back to basic survival.
Many say "government" like it's some kind of a supreme being, who's much smarter, much better and much more benevolent than you. That is dangerous thinking. Governments are consisting of all kinds of people. You empower them to decide what you need, and very quickly, you will be needing less and less of everything, while they will be having more and more.
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I'm curious where you would set the bar between needs and wants, especially if you think it could take a billion dollars to satisfy the former.
If you look at the hierarchy of needs basic survival is just the first tier. After that, you need things like security. At the top things become more about emotional need. Should we be concerned if someone requires billions of dollars to meet those higher-level needs? I think so. I don't have a problem with rich people in most cases, especially those who are philanthropic. But there are definitely some who could learn a little bit about not exploiting, and actually sharing with, your fellow man.
I agree that governments are just people, just like corporations are. Both groups can be corrupted by greed and power which needs to be checked.