MANFRED MAX NEEF: BIOGRAPHY AND CONTRIBUTIONS - DUDAS - 2025

Manfred Max Neef is a Chilean economist with a German family. He began his career in the 1960s teaching at the prestigious University of California at Berkeley, United States. Among its most important actions is the classification of basic human needs and the development of the human scale.

He has also worked as an environmentalist and participated as a candidate in the 1993 Chilean elections. He has spent most of his professional career as a professor of economics at various universities in Chile. His professional contributions have gone beyond economics and he has stood out for developing humanistic texts.

He carried out different projects for private organizations and also worked on his own, independently. Max Neef has always favored the care of nature and worked closely with the Chilean environmental party.

Biography

Artur Manfred Max Neef was born in Valparaíso, Chile, on October 26, 1932. His parents were Germans who had emigrated from their country after the consequences of the First World War.

His mother was a woman dedicated to humanistic studies and Max Neef decided to follow in the footsteps of his father, who was an economist.

Studies

As a child, Max Neef studied at the Liceo de Aplicaciones, a very prestigious Chilean institute for boys, recognized as one of the best Chilean schools thanks to the political and social contributions it has made to the country.

After graduating from this high school he studied at the University of Chile, where he graduated as a Bachelor of Economics.

He spent much of his time traveling throughout South America, where he worked with developing and third world countries. In his travels he developed theories working on the problem of development in the third world, where he described how inappropriate current methods and structures are and how they harm the poorer classes.

In the early 1970s, Max Neef studied poverty in Ecuador, where he shared closely with peasants from the most rural areas of the country. He also worked in Brazil, and the experiences gained in these trips gave him inspiration to write several texts that would later become his book Seeing From Outside.

In 1983 he was awarded the Right Livelihood Award, awarded for his collaboration in the study of developing countries. That same year he ran for the presidency of Chile as an independent candidate, although he had support from the Chilean ecological party. It obtained less than 6% of the votes and remained in fourth place.

Differences and life in Argentina

When Augusto Pinochet came to power in Chile, Max Neef had to go live in Argentina, as the dictator did not agree with the humanitarian actions of the economist in third world countries. Furthermore, Max Neef was openly democratic and was against the dictatorial military regime of Pinochet.

During his exile, he dedicated himself to working on the development of mathematics, science and music in Argentina. She created a study based on the issues she dealt with during her stay in that country, but above all with an emphasis on environmental issues that concern the world.

His exile did not last long, and in 1985 he was back in his homeland. That same year he returned to politics to oppose the Pinochet dictatorship; He enrolled in a democratic political party until founding his own in 1988, this being also of democratic beliefs and asking for elections in Chile.

Academic life

After the Pinochet dictatorship finally fell in 1990, a year later he was offered the post of rector at the Bolivarian University of Chile. Max Neef accepted the position and remained in it until 1994, the year in which he became rector of the Austral University and kept working at that institution for more than a decade.

In 2002 he left the rectory of the Austral University and became the most outstanding professor of Economic Sciences at the university, while also directing the entire area of ​​Economics of the same institution.

Max Neef currently works as a member of the World Future Council, and also has affiliations with the European Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Club of Rome, the New York Academy of Sciences, and Leopold Kohr's Salzburg Academy.

Recognitions

His social works made him obtain a series of recognitions throughout his career. Among the most important awards are:

- Maximum Honor Award, awarded by Soka University in Japan.

- Doctor Honoris Causa, awarded by the University of Jordan.

- Chilean National Award for the promotion and defense of human rights.

- Obtained the highest honor of the International Society of Ecology.

Contributions

Max Neef made several contributions to the fields of economics and ecology. His participation in studies of poor countries and rural populations also stands out, determining the importance of a change in economies that is harmful to the affected people.

The economist created a scale to measure how much energy consumption is necessary before it can be classified as excessive, known as the ecological person indicator. He also developed a theory that explains how necessary purchasing power is in quality of life.

However, his most recognized work is the creation of the scale of basic human needs.

Basic human needs

Max Neef developed this theory together with two other economists, and it is an ontological measurement (that is, that every human being possesses) of the few and finite classifiable human needs. These are constant throughout all human cultures and regardless of which period of history is taken into account.

This theory is basically a taxonomy of basic needs and the process by which the wealth and poverty of communities can be identified according to the basic needs they have on the scale.

Max Neef classified basic human needs into 9 categories, from which transcendence was excluded (with which they would be 10, originally). These are:

- Subsistence.

- Protection.

- Affected.

- Understanding.

- Participation.

- Leisure.

- Creation.

- Identity.

- Freedom.

References

1. Talk-colloquium with Professor MA Max-Neef, Jesús Astigarraga and Javier Usoz, December 11, 2008. PDF taken from unizar.es
2. The development of the human scale, Manfred Max Neef, (nd). Taken from archive.org
3. Theory of the development of the human scale, (nd). Taken from hsdnetwork.org
4. Manfred Max Neef, World Citizenship, February 21, 2007. Taken from world-citizenship.org
5. Manfred Max Neef, (nd), January 12, 2018. Taken from Wikipedia.org