The Problem With Society Isn’t Greed

Greed Is a Symptom of a Deep Need Going Unfulfilled

A lot of people reacted to my comment on Facebook the other day that greed is more a symptom than a cause of our current system, with all its inequities. I’m asked, What is the cause of greed? First I’ll say what I think greed is:

Greed is the insatiable desire for that which one doesn’t really need, or in amounts beyond one’s needs.

When we are cut off from the fulfillment of our basic needs we seek out substitutes to temporarily ease the longing. Bereft of connection to nature, connection to community, intimacy, meaningful self-expression, ensouled dwellings and built environment, spiritual connection, and the feeling of belonging, lots of us over-consume, overeat, over-shop, and over-accumulate. How much do you need to eat, to compensate for a feeling of not belonging? How much pornography to compensate for a deficit of intimacy? How much money to compensate for a deep sense of insecurity? No amount is enough.

Read more here.

That little thing called more

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

We want more, more, more all the time, never satisfied with what we have and this is what is destroying the world.

Greed is another name for this constant desire, driven by advertising nowadays, for more.

In the old days this was often the case for fortune hunters going abroad, and amongst those were the slavers and slave traders, as well as the gold diggers and the carpet baggers.

Today it is everyone, almost. We want more, more, more and we want it now, this very instant and many, if they cannot get it immediately, arte prepared to kill for it. Not that that is anything new.

We are being bombarded, if one does have a TV or reads the newspapers, or goes on the Web without an adblocker, bombarded by advertisements for this and that and it is being suggested to us that we must have this or that in order to be part of the in-crowd and to be cool.

In the 1980s it was the Fila sportswear range that every juvenile was after and then it was another range and then another and kids thought that they were deprived if they did not have the right label clothes or sneakers, for that was indeed the message of the advertisers.

Before that things were not that bad. Or, at least, I never found it to be thus. But then again that may have to do with the fact that designer labels were not something that we had time to be concerned with. We were too busy trying to survive and to have clothes on our backs.

People today have got a new iPhone only say six months ago and the new model comes out and they queue for hours at the Apple store when the new model comes on sale so that they can have the latest one. That despite the fact that there is nothing at all wrong with the model that they have.

The same we can see with so many other things. Be that people wanting ever bigger TV sets when they come out regardless that they may not even have the money to buy it at that time. So they rather get into debt to have instant gratification even though that their previous TV is still very much working.

We need to change our lives and simplify. More, more, more cannot continue and should never have begun, to be very honest, but then I am old-fashioned. It is not good for our wallets and it is especially bad for the Planet.

© 2013

Recession good for profits

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Corporate profits as a share of national income continue to break records, not despite unemployment and wage stagnation, but because of them.

Recession is always good for the capitalists and capitalism as it guarantees them a labor force that is scared of losing their jobs and thus will accept lower wages and bad working conditions just to be able to have some sort of an income.

In the US corporations, aided and abetted by government, has now gone so far to make people work overtime at no pay. Instead people are told that they can take the time, as normal hours, off in lieu. In other words no time-and-a-half, as it was, and double time for weekends. And, guess what? People have to accept those conditions or else they are out of a job.

Workers, in the private and public sectors alike, see their wages stagnate or even, in real terms go down, while, that the same time, the bosses, including in the public sector, get salary increases and big bonuses. And let's not even talk about the bankers who have caused the grief in the first place.

While the workers are made to pay for the crimes of the bankers the latter are getting away unmolested and are even rewarded for said crimes by having the banks bailed out at taxpayers expense and still receive millions in bonuses each.

The system is corrupt as are the corporations and governments and a change is needed but it is not a new government. It is a new system that is required. One that is not built on continuous economic growth, which is not possible anyway in a world with finite non-renewable resources. The economy must be a resource-based one and a system one that puts people and the Planet before profits.

© 2013