Economists say that benefits are all that can satisfy human needs. But from the point of view of philosophy, it contains a specific positive meaning or meaning, phenomenon or object that satisfies certain needs of people and meets the goals and needs of society.
Natural and economic benefits
Some necessary human benefits are taken from the environment (nature), for example, sunlight, water, air, edible fruits and herbs, meat and milk, fish. All of them are given by nature, that is, they are free, because they are not created by people. However, this free for many of them is very relative, because people make certain efforts to get them or get them. For example, they purify water so that it becomes drinkable, collect fruits from trees, milk a cow to get milk. As a result of these actions, natural goods from free to the category of paid, that is, economic.
With each new stage of human development, people began to need means that could not be found in nature in its purest form. Therefore, they began to mine and learned with their own hands to create the objects necessary for their life, later mechanisms were invented that helped a person to create more complex economic benefits. And with each new period of time they became more complicated and improved. In a word, economic goods are objects (goods) mined and created by the efforts of people. They include almost everything that surrounds us today. By the way, the whole process of creating this or that material good happens consciously, and not instinctively, like the activity of, for example, bees.
Today, millions of economic goods are produced in the world. All of them, along with free ones, are aimed at satisfying human needs. And if in primitive society exclusively basic necessities were created, today many benefits serve the satisfaction of not only physical but also spiritual
needs of people.Long-term and short-term benefits
Economic benefits are long-term and short-term. The first includes those items that can be used for many years, such as houses, furniture, cars, household appliances. Short-term benefits are those items that we do not use for long, such as food, that is, food products. Economic benefits also include services; they can also be long-term and short-lived.
Tangible and intangible goods
All those means that are aimed at satisfying our needs can be both intangible and tangible, that is, tangible. Intangible goods are those values that are created in a non-productive way. They can contribute to the development of human abilities and serve the satisfaction of the spiritual needs of people. These include art, reputation. These benefits are divided into internal, that is, those that are given to man by nature (perfect hearing, singing voice, poetic principle, the ability to draw and sculpt) Otherwise, we call them talents. But external intangible goods are what we receive from the outside also to satisfy our needs (connections, reputation, relationships with friends and colleagues). By the way, if you notice, the concept of good has a direct connection with another philosophical concept - values. Just that which is valuable to one, for another can mean nothing.