Razmig Keucheyan is professor of sociology at the University of Bordeaux. He is the author of The Left Hemisphere: Mapping Critical Theory Today (Verso, 2014), Nature is a Battlefield: Towards a Political Ecology (Polity, 2016), and Les Besoins artificiels: Comment sortir du consumérisme (La Découverte, 2019)
Building on the work of Karl Marx, Hungarian philosopher Ágnes Heller developed a framework for distinguishing between truly essential needs and artificial ones. Her ideas are more important than ever in the face of a global ecological crisis.
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a change of priorities, as states buy up masks and ventilators regardless of the cost. Basing economic decisions on human need, not our ability to pay, imposes a principle of equality — allowing us collectively to decide what kinds of production we really need.