GREED:
Greed has a strong biological basis. However, it has an
even stronger social basis. This sets it somewhat apart from self-preservation
and reproduction. To examine greed and how it fits into human sociology, we
need to start from the beginning.
The definition of greed is an extreme or
excessive desire for resources, especially for property such as money, real
estate, or other symbols of wealth. Here we run into two problems: defining excessive, and defining wealth, especially in terms of human
psychology.
In basic terms, "excessive" is possessing something to such a degree it's harmful. For
example, excessive drinking leads to falling down a lot and hating yourself in
the morning. Excessive eating leads to bellyaches and obesity. Excessive speed
leads to cliff edges and telephone poles. These are aspects that most people
would agree are harmful.
However, all these things are harmful only to the
individual. How could a desire for wealth be harmful? Every person needs a
degree of wealth to survive: you need to buy food, pay the rent, get clothing, transportation, haircuts, cable TV. Without
money (a symbol of wealth, or rather a transportable symbol of resources
necessary to survival) you could starve or freeze to death, something that is
definitely harmful. In addition, the more wealth you have, the better the
quantity and/or quality of the things it brings you can get. Again, how could a
desire for wealth, and thus the things it gets you, be harmful?
Concept:
The answer lies in the fact that humans are
social and cultural animals, not just individuals. Although for the individual
greed (a strong desire for wealth) is good, the social group that individual
belongs to may think greed is bad for rher. Note I say "bad for rher"
-- not necessarily bad for the society or the culture or the group, but for
rher, which is as good an opening as I can think of for going into the history
of greed.
Once upon a time there was a little single-cell
organism. We'll call it Herman. Herman spent its life wandering aimlessly
around its waterdrop, dreaming little one-cell dreams
and searching for even littler one-cell food. One day Herman, who had been
getting rather fat, suddenly felt itself torn asunder and became two Hermettes
(meaning "little Hermans"). The Hermettes thought this was a good
idea, and realized that getting fat would result in even more Hermettes.
Theories:
Thus the Hermettes strove to get more food and
become fat Hermans, and become Hermettes, who also strove to get more food, and
become fat Hermans, etc., etc., etc..
Soon the water drop, and surrounding water drops,
and large chunks of ocean, were filled with Hermans and Hermettes, all gulping
down (metaphorically speaking, since they didn't have throats) every piece of
food they could find. In other words, they were greedy, ensuring their own
survival and ability to reproduce by devouring everything they could find that
would result in more Hermettes.
Herman, and its descendants, and their
descendants, kept this up for a couple of billion years, greedily grasping for
those resources that ensured personal and genetic survival.
Eventually, some of Herman's descendants
discovered that they could cope with conditions better is they found a way to
evolve faster and weed out mutations that got in the way of survival. They
developed sex.
Finally, Herman's descendants were greedily
gulping fruits, nuts, berries, and anything else that came to a paw that was
becoming a hand. Several of them had banded together to form a mutual
nonaggression pact. Among them were Oog and Ugh, who were hoping to have a
little Ugly of their own. Reaching for another apple, Oog suddenly had her protohand slapped. Popping the offended member in her
mouth, she looked askance at her attacker. Aagh pointed to her own little Yugh,
who was looking thin and hungry. Oog looked, then
back-protohanded Aagh off the branch, took the apple, and scarfed
it down. The rest of the band, observing this subtle interplay of diplomatic
reasoning, decided that such selfishness required discussion. However, since
they hadn't yet evolved language, they simply beat up Oog, and for good measure
Ugh, with a few swipes at Aagh for having started the whole mess. Then they
sent Oog and Ugh forth to go and sin with some other group but leave us alone.
Such discouragement discouraged Oog and Ugh, but
they knew deep down that the more resources they collected and kept for
themselves, they better off they, and when Ugly came along, all three of them
would be. They competed for resources better than others, passed on more of
their own genes, and in general became human beings.
However, human beings are gregarious creatures,
wishing to band into mutual admiration societies and avoid inbreeding. We get
together for protection, for support, to share the work necessary for survival,
and to have someone to talk to.
Causes:
In addition, the resources important to humans
changed. No longer was it simply food in order to get and keep the strength to
procreate. Now there were other things, like land to grow food, and money to
buy food, and pottery to store food, and methods such as ships and caravans and
trading and military conquest to get food. Eventually, the food was not the end
result desired -- the means to the end became the end itself.
The real problem arose when the population
increased and the possible wealth became limited. There was only so much land
and money and other resources to go around. Thus, for one person to amass a lot
of wealth, rhe had to reduce what somebody else could get. This created
conflict in the society between the haves and have-nots, the go-getters and the
no-getters.
The purpose of a society is to reduce conflict
between the members of that society. The society creates laws, religions,
government, whatever will allow people to get along without fighting each other
in response to their biological urges. Thus, there are laws and religious
proscriptions against murder to keep people from killing each other and thus
weakening the society's ability to support itself and the people in it. There
are laws and religious proscriptions against infidelity to keep men from
killing each other and enslaving women so men can be sure of their paternity (a
biological imperative -- a male doesn't want to waste his resources and care on
genes that aren't his (Daly, 1983), and men are male).
To reduce the conflict greed could create,
societies, through their laws and religions, said that an extreme desire for
wealth was harmful to the society since it concentrated too many resources in
too few hands. Thus greed was decreed and decried as excessive and harmful, and
proscribed.
The ancient proscriptions were to avoid societal
conflicts. The proscriptions were also often easy to follow when people were
nomadic. They had to carry everything they owned around with them, and thus there
was little desire to accumulate things that would simply increase the burden.
For example, the !Kung people of Africa
have lived this nomadic life for centuries and have few material possessions.
(Leakey, 1978)
EFFECTS:
The desire for wealth is especially apparent in
those cultures descended from or adhering to the Western European tradition of
"progress" and "growth", a legacy of the eras of scientific
discovery and world exploration. The former led people to believe that they could
know everything, the latter increased what they knew
and opened the world to trade.
Trade became a major factor in European life
after the Black Death, a plague that killed three-fourths of Europe's
population in the 14th Century. This massive decrease in the work force had
three results. First, the end of the feudal system, since the serfs, their
numbers now low and thus their value as a workforce now high, could now demand
wages for their labor. Second, a surplus of goods and food since the number of
consumers was so low. And third, a sudden increase in personal wealth as people
inherited the belongings of all their relatives that had died. These three
factors led to a greater sense of individualism and a decline in spiritual and
intellectual interests in favor of material interests. (Burke, 1985)
With the new high-demand products, such as
spices, tea and silk, made available by world exploration, trade and
exploitation of markets became the goals of European societies and individuals
in those societies. This continues to this day. The standard of living for the
members of societies practicing such materialism gives them a major advantage
over those people and societies that don't. They can gather more resources,
live longer, raise more children in better conditions that can pass on their
parents' and ancestors' genes, and generally outstrip any competition that
doesn't practice greed.
Today, because of the standard of living
materialism provides those who follow the idea that some is good, more is
better, too much is just right,
much of the world
"goes for the gold". Thus, although legal and religious proscriptions
against greed have been in effect and given at least lip service for millennia,
the fact remains that, as it was for Oog and Ugh, deep down inside people
believe "greed is good". It might be disguised as capitalism,
expanding the range of possibilities, or enlightened self-interest, but deep
down inside
it's greed.
COUNSELOR’S
ANTIDOTE:
Why then, if greed is not only biologically
desirable but socially and societally desirable as
well, does greed have such a bad name? It goes back to the fact that humans are
social and cultural animals, not just individuals.
Remember that greed is a valuable trait for the
individual. It makes rher fight for a larger piece of the pie, a good idea from
a biological point of view. However, since humans are social creatures, and
greed says that an individual should take more than rher own share, greed
creates social conflict, as those who lose out resent those who win more than
an even share. Those that are particularly greedy (read, particularly good at
getting larger pieces of pies) are particularly resented. Recall Donald Trump
and Leona Helmsley: many people cheered their
downfalls. After all, who did they think they were? Besides
successful, rich, competent, and capable. They were also manipulative,
vain, egotistical and arrogant. However, how many people would, if they were
honest, have changed places with them in a second, at least while the Donald
and Leona were at their peak? Why are lotteries and sweepstakes so successful?
Why do Reno and Las Vegas attract millions of people to their
casinos? Because, no matter how much it is decried, people are greedy: they all
want more than they have, the more the better.
The thing to bear in mind is that "greed is
good." That is, it's good for the individual, but perhaps not for the
society in which that individual lives. Unrestrained greed in an individual can
lead to callousness, arrogance, and even megalomania. A person dominated by greed
will often ignore the harm their actions can cause others. Sweat shops, unsafe
working conditions and destruction of livelihoods are all consequences of
people whose personal greed overcame their social consciences.
However, even a society that bans individual
greed can suffer. It is greed that makes people want to do things, since they
will be rewarded for their efforts. Remove that reward, and you remove the
incentive to work. The former Soviet Union
provides an example of this: the collective farms provided no individual
incentive to strive, and thus produced an insufficient supply of food. The
individually owned and run truck farms, however, with the possibility of
selling the produce and keeping the proceeds, grew a far greater harvest per
acre than the collective farms. The "greed" of American farmers has
allowed them to grow food for the world, since the more they produce the more
money they make.
Nonetheless, however you regard it, unrestrained
greed is detrimental to society; unrestrained disapproval of greed is
detrimental to society. People attempt to find a balance between biological
imperative and social necessity.
HOW COUNSELORS
CAN HANDLE GREED:
Although there is a strong biological basis for
human behavior, humans are the most social creatures on earth. The societies
and cultures we create have a major effect on our behavior, mollifying and
modifying our biological reactions.
Self-preservation extends beyond the personal to
the public, involving family, friends, and even strangers. What may help our
personal survival may help others, who may help us in turn.
Humans, reproducing sexually, have all the
biological urges that other animals have. However, our complex societies and
cultures have altered our reproductive strategies. Social factors, in
particular women's, have become so important that they are a guiding rather
than an ancillary consideration in mate selection. Strength and fighting skill
in men have taken second place to power, money, and status. Although the former
may be necessary to success in the biological world, the latter are necessary
to success in human society. And in the last several thousand years, society
rather than biology has become the driving force of human life.
Equally, human social life has radically altered
the need to gather resources to live and reproduce. The need for food, water or
shelter is biological -- a lack results in death. However, human society has
changed how and why resources are gathered. The biological necessity is the
same: humans need to eat, drink, sleep, stay out of
the rain. But society has developed a way to transport current resources into
the future for use in that future -- money. Thus, humans seek money.
Appeals to the human psyche must take not only
biology but society into account. Society is the driving force behind much of
human behavior.
