A question about greed [View all]

[GliderGuider]

I asked this question in another thread, but I'd like to hear as many thoughts on it as possible so I'm bringing is up as an OP.

The world faces an enormous array of converging problems. We all know the litany:

• Climate change
  
• Deforestation
  
• Topsoil depletion
  
• Fresh water loss
  
• Pollution of all kinds (air, soil, water)
  
• Habitat loss
  
• Global economic instability
  
• Rising energy and food prices
  
• Extinctions, including the depletion of global fisheries
  
• etc.

When we ask why any of these are happening, the usual answer that comes back is "Greed!".

This makes me wonder why it is that we see everything our species does as being greedy (which is quite an emotionally a loaded and judgmental word, btw). I have no doubt that if you asked the workers of the world - the farmers, fishermen, truck drivers, miners, factory workers, the managers of all kinds, and maybe even even the bankers - about their motives for doing what they do, you'd get a fairly standard answer: "I'm trying to give my children a better life than I have."

What makes the difference between how we see them - as greedy - and how we see ourselves - as virtuous?

Is it as simple matter of "me vs. you" as in, "My desires are legitimate, but yours are greedy"? (As an aside, can any of us consider ourselves personally to be greedy on the global stage?) Are we perhaps a broken species, either morally or genetically flawed? Is the problem a lack of education? Or is it something else entirely?

What are your thoughts?