society. They distinguished between those who
got by on the "subsistence" and those who required luxuries and wealth to
maintain the style of life appropriate to their class. Thus wealth was used to
establish class position. Those with little or no wealth belonged to the laboring
class. Their needs were met not by wealth, but by subsistence.1
The term subsistence connotes the means to satisfy basic human needs.
Sometimes such needs are linked to physiological requirements of life.
When shelter and clothing are just to protect us from the elements, food to
fend off starvation, then they are part of the bare subsistence in the physiological