GREED. . .

Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction. –Erich Fromm

Recently, Gentle Reader, I have been writing about the Having Mode.  I awoke a few days ago holding a question: What are the fundamental elements in the relationships of those who are rooted in the ‘Having Mode’?

This morning I invite you to join me in responding to this question.  It seems to me that the following tap roots (think: Values) feed, nurture and sustain the relationships of those who have integrated the Having Mode: competition, antagonism & fear.  The very nature of the Having Mode engenders (requires?) these three tap roots.

If ‘having’ is the basis of my sense of identity – think: ‘I am what I have!’ – the wish to have will generate a greater wish to have – to have more; to have the most.  In other words ‘Greed’.  ‘Greed’ is the natural consequence of the Having Mode.

This ‘Greed’ can be the greed of the miser or the greed of the profit hunter or the greed of the person who wants to ‘own’ another (think: there are parents and spouses who view their children and their spouse as ‘property that they own’).

No matter what constitutes their greed, the greedy person – or greedy collective (think: team, organization or society) – can never have enough, can never be ‘satisfied.’  Physical hunger, for example.  Physical hunger has definite satiation points.  On the other hand, ‘mental greed’ –consider, Gentle Reader, that all greed is mental – has no satiation point.

For the greedy person(s) consumption does not fill the inner emptiness, boredom, loneliness, depression, and ‘hunger’ it is meant to overcome.  Thus a consumer society will never be satisfied and thus ‘consumption’ becomes a major tap root that strives to sustain the society; because the hunger is insatiable the striving never succeeds in satisfying.

In a society rooted in the Having Mode within the majority of people there is a ‘fear’ either that ‘stuff’ will be taken away or that there will not be enough ‘stuff’ – that the ‘Joneses will actually win!’  Thus, because the majority want to ‘have more’ the majority will come to fear their neighbors and their need to have more.

To complicate matters, production cannot keep up with the unlimited desires of those addicted to the Having Mode.  A consequence is increased competition, fear, and aggression among those who want to have the most.  Simply stated: those who have less will envy those who have more.

Again, Gentle Reader, it is crucial to understand that all of this occurs with individuals, with collectives/communities and with the society.  [AN ASIDE: Consider that one of the reasons people fear the immigrant-refugee is a fear-belief that the immigrant-refugee will take from them so they will not ‘have enough’ – they will surely, they fear, not have enough votes.]

For nations, the Having Mode guarantees that war will exist.  War between nations, yes.  But more importantly, ‘war within the nation’ – think: Cultural and/or Class Wars.  Cultural-Class Wars involve the exploiting and the exploited.  The value-virtue of greed ensures that these wars will continue (and, sadly, benefit many on both sides).

The Cultural-Class struggle might become less physically violent (we have experienced this in our Culture) but it will never disappear as long as Greed is one of the dominant cultural values-virtues [perhaps ‘Greed’ is our dominant value-virtue].

There are some ‘antidotes’ to ‘Greed.’  We know, by experience, that they ‘work;’ here are two antidotes: One antidote is to emphasize high achievement over competition.  Walt Disney taught us that high achievement is truly beneficial to all.

Another antidote is ‘sharing’ – especially sharing rooted in compassion-empathy-care-love.  As a society we demonstrate our capacity for sharing each time folks experience a natural disaster.  When this happens most class-barriers are torn down and the ‘other’ tends to disappear and is replaced by ‘human beings’ who need our help.

I am going to close this morning with a quotation from one of my new favorite authors (I have no idea why I did not become aware of Zygmunt and his writings sooner but at least I have become aware of him at this time and, Gentle Reader, I invite you to check out his writing).

We already have – thanks to technology, development, skills, the efficiency of our work – enough resources to satisfy all human needs.  But we don’t have enough resources, and we are unlikely ever to have, to satisfy human greed. –Zygmunt Bauman