/ɡrēd/
Noun
It’s probably our most common, intrinsic trait. We leave the womb screaming for attention and sucking air in search of nourishment and then, for most of us, no matter our socio-economic roulette spin, we finely hone that nature to crave, seek and hoard whatever comes our way. The logical disconnect is that, contrary to Gordon Gekko, everything is better without it. Poverty, hunger, homelessness, disease, waste, environmental deterioration wouldn’t exist if we were all more share-y rather than mine-y. Its most apparent, newsworthy manifestation, the wealth disparity that has resulted in 90% of Earth’s riches being controlled by 1% of her population, is hardly new. We have only, in the last fifty years or so, had the tools to track and calculate such things, but the have-nots have vastly outnumbered the haves since the coining of the word “gimme”, in ancient Mesopotamia, I believe. Historically, the greediest eventually come to a dismal, violent end when the downtrodden become so woefully trodden, they finally rise up in bloody revolt, yet seldom, maybe never, has the post-revolutionary realignment resulted in anything more than the passing of the greed torch. The corruptive power of victorious revolutionary leaders, hailed as heroes by those they promised to free from oppression and give a more equitable stake in the fortunes of their countries…well, you could count on no fingers how well that’s turned out.
I am sadly, a glass-totally-empty pessimist about our ability to human-think our way through this existential conundrum. Even though the less greedy are a clear majority, the wannabe greedy are the ones rallying with pitchforks and AK47s and bear repellent and their leader(s) have no lofty endgame, no cause célèbre, no righteous sense of fairness, humility, compassion or any of the other thousands of positive human assets you could Google if you’re into that sort of thing. Every day I watch in horror as this growing minority keeps chipping away at the temporary reprise from madness we somehow pulled out of our ass in the last election. The in-broad-daylight dismantling of our Constitution, as sanctioned by our ridiculous federalist system, that has allowed illiterate morons free reign over state legislatures, while antiquated Congressional procedural mumbo jumbo cock blocks clear-minded patriots from riding to the rescue, may be too untethered to rein in. When fighting an opponent whose only goal is winning, with no thought or understanding of the consequence of victory, no rule, regulation or agenda other than the vanquishing of their chosen adversary, chaos is the only future.