Goods are called physical objects that one or more people can give value, and this comprehensive definition invites to make a large group of differentiations within the category, according to multiple classifications that may exist between different goods:
- according to tangibility,
- according to the relationship between your demand and that of the other goods,
- according to the possibility of moving them,
- according to the function in the market (some goods are for consumption and others for investment),
- according to the ownership and usufruct regime,
- according to availability : this last category of analysis divides goods between free goods and economic goods .
What, then, are free and economic goods?
Free goods
The definition seen of goods refers to the ability to meet human needs. In the capitalist world, it is common to think that everything that is capable of satisfying any need for people can appropriate, and then be bought and also sold. However, there are some goods that due to their condition of abundance in nature can not have an owner, or a process of appropriation or transformation, and therefore do not have a price: these goods are called free goods .
Although when a person thinks about goods, it is difficult to imagine free goods soon, they perfectly fit the fundamental condition that is the satisfaction of needs, even for cases of biological needs on which the lives of people depend.
It is important to keep in mind that free goods do not have a productive transformation, but it can happen that some companies carry out a transformation of it and there they acquire a sale price: in economics, the original and the transformed good are two different , the first Free and the second economic.
Examples of free goods
The following list shows some examples of free goods , with a clarification: as the condition of free depends on abundance in nature, it should not be ruled out that at some point a good loses its condition of free.
- Water
- Sunlight
- The sand
- The sound of a waterfall
- The rain, in times of drought
- The stones
- The image of a sunset
- The current of a river
- Fresh air
- Wind
Enconimics goods
What is the difference between free and economic good? Let’s see. The opposition produced between free and economic goods is produced according to the abundance in nature. Economic goods are those that meet the fundamental characteristic of scarcity , so it is common that economic goods are also called scarce goods.
The fundamental condition for a good to be considered a scarce good is to have a greater need for availability , according to the axioms of microeconomic consumer theory: the axiom of non-satiety affirms that the need is always infinite. As there is less than what is needed, these goods are acquired in the market paying a price for their use.
All the classifications that are made among the goods are ultimately made with respect to the economic ones that are of interest to the discipline of the economy.
Examples of economic goods
The following list includes ten examples of economic goods , trying to cover the different groups that belong to that category:
- Bottled mineral water
- Petroleum
- A taxi
- Detergent
- A shoe storage box
- A share title on the stock exchange
- An iron cutting machine
- Cell phone
- An airline flight
- Education service
