Economic power is never complete, but is necessarily open-ended. Economic power is expressed in the production of new goods, which are scarce and therefore limited by definition (p. 4.4:25). Furthermore, if full satisfaction were somehow reached and scarcity eliminated, then goods (i. e., subjective values) would cease to exist. Having no further ends to pursue, people would cease to act and would therefore wither away and die.

Even the quest to achieve objective values remains forever incomplete. In Section 1 we observed that a human being is a hierarchical, multi-level organism. Human beings are not content merely to survive, but strive toward a state of flourishing, in which all of their needs are addressed, including psychological needs (pp. 1.4:35-6). As psychologist Abraham Maslow pointed out, human individuals have a hierarchy of needs. Our most urgent needs relate to physical survival; as these are satisfied, we begin to attend to the needs of our mental health, seeking ever greater psychological integration or self-actualization. Nathaniel Branden observes that "man's capacity for growth is virtually limitless" (). As soon as the individual reaches any one level, he or she begins to aspire to new needs and to a still higher level.