What Drives Man Toward Greed?

Alexis Brassey

Chapter 6 in Greed, 2009, pp 94-111 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Man’s desire knows no bounds. Man will never and can never be satisfied. Man’s existence is defined by his greed. Man is in essence a greedy being. This is the view of the sixteenth century thinker Thomas Hobbes as laid out in his seminal work The Leviathan. This paper will argue that large numbers of human beings in modern liberal democracies have become greedy for two reasons. Firstly we have a concept of success that has become difficult or even impossible to satisfy and secondly the failure to achieve this success leads to a lack of esteem which often morphs into envy and unhappiness.

Keywords: Human Motivation; Nicomachean Ethic; Exaggerated Sense; Faustian Bargain; Narcissistic Personality Disorder (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-24615-7_7

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DOI: 10.1057/9780230246157_7

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