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Oct

26

Greed

Filed Under capitalism, quotes, religion

The greed for more and more astounds you

until you come to the grave.
~the Qur’an, Surah Takathur

When I was in Guatemala and learned about some of the evil things that had transpired and continue to transpire there, a horrible thought occurred to me: that the people who had set those acts in motion had wanted for nothing. They had more wealth than most of us could dream of … so why did they see people slaughtered? Why are people tortured still? Even if every bit of profit they’ve been receiving were to dry up today, the wealthy finca owners and politicians would have more than enough money to live comfortably for generations. So why do they do it?

And we shouldn’t be so shocked when poor people kill for shoes or a car or a few hundred bucks in a till, when already-rich people have killed for more. In a sense, for nothing.

Related: I happened upon an article entitled “Why Are We Greedy?” from the July 1984 issue of The New Internationalist magazine. It is worth a read. The mission of NI magazine is “to report on issues of world poverty and inequality; to focus attention on the unjust relationship between the powerful and the powerless in both rich and poor nations; to debate and campaign for the radical changes necessary if the basic material and spiritual needs of all are to be met.”

NI is totally new to me and I am glad to have chanced upon it during a Google search (I couldn’t remember from where I had gotten the phrase, “The greed for more and more.”)

(photo by HSA, statues at All Soul’s UU Church in NYC, 2003)

Comments

2 Responses to “Greed”

Yorkshire Pudding on October 26th, 2005 4:31 pm

Oh my God! You’re so beautiful! Who cares about what you have to say when you look so good! Glad to see you have become a humanist. After all, anyone with a grain of sense can tell that there really really really is no God watching over us.
LaReinaCobre on October 28th, 2005 8:45 pm

I’m not sure which one sentence in your comment to take seriously, but I am thinking it must be, “Glad to see you have become a humanist.”