4 SOCIAL SCIENTIST Social Conditioning of Needs Elsewhere, we have given some data on the degree of satisfaction with the working conditions. Although most of the workers had relatively high incomes (one third had more than Rs. 1200 at 1982 prices which is comparable with Rs. 1800 at 1985 prices), a majority of them (59 per cent) appeared not to be satisfied with the employment conditions. In the groups with incomes of less than Rs. 900 per month, less than 20 per cent of the workers and employees were satisfied with the conditions of employment.3 It is perfectly possible for workers to be dissatisfied with the conditions of employment and nevertheless to be satisfied with their position in society in general, mainly because of the fact that the high income allows them to lead a comfortable life and to have a status well above the majority of the people. In our sample we found, however, that only one tenth expressed total satisfaction. Among the others who had major concerns affecting their life, four issues were encountered in one quarter of the sample each : housing and education, low incomes, fear of unemployment and, finally, the political situation and the economic structure of society at large. It can be objected that degrees of satisfaction or dissatisfaction are no measurement to rely on, and that in fact only the latter group, which expresses its concern for the structure of society at large, is in fundamental disagreement with the societal set-up. Needs, from such a perspective, can be seen as arranged along a vertical ladder. The fulfilment of certain basic necessities, e.g. if a need-based minimum wage is granted, will lead the subject to start aspiring for an income which will allow him or her to go beyond the level of scarcity, and later to aspire for better educational prospects for their children and other relative necessities. The assumption that individuals are ever trying for higher material rewards has a definite validity in a society where the social reality, despite the officially propagated ideology, is characterized by conspicuous consumption and an appalling rift between the level of living of the poor and the rich. In a society in which status, power and privileges derive from the level of income, the worker as an individual should not be expected to deviate from the dominant life style. The assumption on the other hand has one basic fallacy. It negates the possibility of individuals forming groups on the basis of objective (group-in-itself) or subjective (group-in-itself) criteria. In order to assess the industrial workers' view on their companies, it would therefore be necessary to take a holistic view, since, as Anil K. Sengupta put it, "the question whether the workers would be satisfied or not with a particular level of conditions would depend also upon the question whether they legitimize the distributive norms in the organization and in the society."4 In our hypothesis, we would go one step further and argue that,