Comments by "gingerBill" (@GingerGames) on "Unlearning Economics" channel.

  1. TL;DR NEEDS = Means; WANTS = Ends. Regarding the Needs/Desires section, Sowell is effectively making the hypothetical imperative distinction, which is part of Sowell's Value-Free view of Economics (which makes perfect sense knowing his influences from Hayek and Mises). If you WANT/DESIRE to achieve X, then you NEED to do Y. Then Y are NEEDS, to achieve the DESIRES of X. A basic example of this is the following: the DESIRE to not die has certain NEEDS. In Sowell's school of thought, there are no such things as intrinsic NEEDS nor DESIRES, and that these are all subjective values (which is the foundation of modern economics to begin, along with marginalism). He is not mixing these up whatsoever, he is just not being clear enough in his writing as to what he means because he has internalized this conception too much to explain in text.
    4