Greed or Need
“There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed.” Mahatma Gandhi
Greed is an emotional propensity to possess more of everything. More power, more money, more status, and more possessions are the goal. Greed, as Gandhi has alluded to, is everything that is beyond need. Meta means beyond and greed has become the meta-need of modern living. What are the psychological implications of a world that is moving, at light-speed, more and more toward greed?
Scarcity
One of the dire consequences of greed is that the world will experience more scarcity of everything that is needed. As the affluent become essentially driven to always having more, the rest of the world will obviously be having less. The world’s resources are finite. Scarcity, at some point, will become a given. The more resources some people eventually possess the less those resources will be available to everyone else.
A greedy world does not go unpunished. People will suffer from the scarcity of basic human needs. We are already seeing this in the United States with the homeless population now approaching one million people. Psychologically, this scarcity of basic human needs will propel depression, anxiety, and suicide rates to all-time highs. Not since the Gilded Age has the absorbed greed of so few supplanted the basic needs of so many.
Basic Needs
What are these basic needs? What are the essentials versus the non-essentials? Let’s consider the physical and the psychological needs that are essential.
Historically, the seeking of excessive wealth or greed was seen as harmful to the overall community in some cultures. Ancient Greeks called this concept pleonexia, which means “the desire for more at the expense of another.” Pleonexia applied not only to individuals, but to the actions of a city-state and included the pursuit of riches, land, political power, and influence over others. Greek scholars viewed pleonexia as a form of greed and a prime reason for the decline in Greek society during the fifth to the second centuries BCE. Theobsession with personal gain tore apart the elements that kept their society together.
The physiological needs of food, water, shelter and sleep are basic to human survival. When these items become scarce, especially due to greed, the least affluent portion of the population will suffer meeting their basic needs.
Essential psychological needs are required for mental well-being, safety, and self-esteem. These needs are part of Maslow’s hierarchy of basic needs. When one’s basic needs are lacking, there will be subsequent psychological issues. Anxiety and depression will increase due to one’s concern for survival. Scarcity creates shortages of basic needs, which threatens psychological stability.
Oligarchy
When power and control are vested in a small elite group of individuals an Oligarchy is established. In 2026, the exponential growth of AI is being promoted and bankrolled by a few oligarchs from the tech establishment. This push toward AI power and control is predicted to eliminate millions of current jobs. An exponential growth in AI appears to be another irrevocable future clash between greed and need. This has happened before.
“Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.” – Erich Fromm
Greed and Need Will Clash
When the greedy get out of hand there is a subsequent impact on the basic needs of everybody else. This reality of inequality within a society appears to eventually reach a breaking point.
From 1789-1799 the French Revolution was sparked by a combination of severe economic hardship, and social inequality. Under Louis XVI, the exact number of servants working at the Palace of Versailles was roughly 4,000 to 5,000 staff. Meanwhile France was in the throes of an economic depression. The greed and the need clashed to the point of a revolution where it is estimated that between 15,000 and 17,000 were guillotined, mostly those in power.
Historians suggest that the Stock Market Crash of 1929 was a result of rampant speculative excess, excessive "margin" buying (purchasing stocks with borrowed money), weak financial regulations, and an underlying economic slowdown. Greed clashes with need.
The economic crash in 1887 is believed to be the result of a massive property speculation bubble, fuelled by aggressive foreign investment, and exacerbated by growing international trade protectionism. The October 19, 1987 (Black Monday) stock market crash costing $1.7 trillion was also due to over speculation. The 2007 economic crash, widely known as the Global Financial Crisis, was triggered by the collapse of the U.S. housing bubble and predatory lending practices, which cascaded into a global credit freeze. Greed and need continue to clash.
Implications
People love to take risks. Gambling is just one example of this compulsion for risk. Risk is exciting, challenging, and at times may even be lucrative.
The risk to risk is most probably greed. Once the risk-taking becomes compulsive, greed is not far away. When we lose control of greed, the risk to satisfy our basic needs is inevitable.
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