How does greed lead to destruction

Studies have shown that people living in poverty are more likely to develop all sorts of physical health conditions, such as heart disease obesity. In addition, the poor are more likely to suffer from mental illnesses, such as depression and anxiety, due to high levels of stress caused by their harsh conditions of living.

Lastly, the way our economic system works is causing irreparable harm to our planet day by day, because of the need for cyclical consumption. If people stopped buying as much stuff as they currently do, fewer sales would be made, which means that fewer jobs would be needed, hence more unemployment would be created. Now, assuming that consumption slowed down significantly, the economy would shrink dramatically and eventually collapse, resulting in hunger, violence, and disease.

Therefore, in our economic system consumption is required to keep money flowing in the market. The problem, however, is that the more we consume, the more resources we use.

In addition, the more we consume, the more waste we create, and where does that waste end up to? Felicitas Wilke offers a few prominent examples of how greed can lead to destruction, not success. In this case, he means it as a strength — an inner drive towards success is hardly a bad trait. In a study conducted by Mussel and his colleagues , they learned that greedier people struggled to learn from their mistakes. The researchers had 20 subjects, all economics students, complete a survey. Then they were asked whether they believed that man was predisposed to greed or not.

Finally, the students had to inflate a virtual balloon. Whoever inflated it the most had a higher chance of winning a cash prize offered to the participants.

But if the balloon exploded, they were disqualified. Even if participants had burst their balloon on their first try, they failed to learn from their mistake, and tried again, inflating until the balloon popped. The researchers concluded that greedy people tend to ignore warning signals from the brain — and therefore, take on higher risks.

They took on riskier deals, and purchased new companies. 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.

Again, how could a desire for wealth, and thus the things it gets you, be harmful? 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.

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. 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. 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.