Do Goods and Services Provide Benefits?

Steven Maxwell Kates*

Do goods and services provide benefits? The purpose of this article is to demonstrate, through the interpretive analysis of two popular cultural texts, that the basic premise of marketing – that products satisfactorily fulfill needs – is not necessarily true and that products do provide benefits (including meaning) when there is a growth (i.e., self-actualization) motivation, which includes meanings of value (i.e., moral goodness), present when consuming. The findings of the interpretive analysis, which explain why consumption can be either meaningful or meaningless in contemporary consumer society, has implications for consumer theory, a revised Maslow hierarchy of needs, and a Neo-Epicurean-Judaic perspective of sustainable consumption.