ABSTRACT
Man needs goods for communicating with others and for making sense of what is going on around him. Food is the class of goods on which the poor spend a larger part of their income than the rich. This proportion holds good so widely over the world that it is known as Engel’s law. Food as a composite commodity is also the prime necessity. Luxuries are a completely heterogeneous class defined as those goods on which the individual will quickly cut down, in response to a drop in income. The spread of television is a good illustration of the infectious disease model, or the epidemiological model of the spread of the innovation. Some idea of efficient consumption could be worked out if the technology would only stay fixed. The task of assessing needs in real terms is much more complicated if the basic technology is changing rapidly, as in the modern industrial world.
