"Eventually, greed will outweigh fear"

[goosebump]

This comment was made today by Kevin Gardner, Head of Global Equity at HSBC in response to plummeting stock market indices.

Its an interesting comment on the Market dynamic, and why capitalism will always prevail over ideologies that make grandiose assumptions about human psychology.

At the moment, the world economy is grinding to a halt. This will continue until a point in time when people start to see opportunity for gain in the chaos, and from that point, the world economy will be rebuilt.

Like it or not folks, greed is what we are. It made us stand up on our hind legs, plant seeds and issue credit cards. Without it, we'd be living in caves.

[joel]

This comment was made today by Kevin Gardner, Head of Global Equity at HSBC in response to plummeting stock market indices.

Its an interesting comment on the Market dynamic, and why capitalism will always prevail over ideologies that make grandiose assumptions about human psychology.

At the moment, the world economy is grinding to a halt. This will continue until a point in time when people start to see opportunity for gain in the chaos, and from that point, the world economy will be rebuilt.

Like it or not folks, greed is what we are. It made us stand up on our hind legs, plant seeds and issue credit cards. Without it, we'd be living in caves.

But it was the co-operation of the human race that enabled society itself, cities and civilisation.

[Cael]

This comment was made today by Kevin Gardner, Head of Global Equity at HSBC in response to plummeting stock market indices.

Its an interesting comment on the Market dynamic, and why capitalism will always prevail over ideologies that make grandiose assumptions about human psychology.

At the moment, the world economy is grinding to a halt. This will continue until a point in time when people start to see opportunity for gain in the chaos, and from that point, the world economy will be rebuilt.

Like it or not folks, greed is what we are. It made us stand up on our hind legs, plant seeds and issue credit cards. Without it, we'd be living in caves.

And at one time single celled organisms were what we were, but we managed to advance from that.

[earlyandoften]

This comment was made today by Kevin Gardner, Head of Global Equity at HSBC in response to plummeting stock market indices.

Its an interesting comment on the Market dynamic, and why capitalism will always prevail over ideologies that make grandiose assumptions about human psychology.

At the moment, the world economy is grinding to a halt. This will continue until a point in time when people start to see opportunity for gain in the chaos, and from that point, the world economy will be rebuilt.

Like it or not folks, greed is what we are. It made us stand up on our hind legs, plant seeds and issue credit cards. Without it, we'd be living in caves.

They will hate you here but it is true.
And we haven't advanced much at all.

[QuizMaster]

well we can see who has never read Kropotkin's "Mutual Aid - A Factor In Evolution".

[rockyracoon]

I have to agree that the basic emotions of fear and greed are the driving motivations behind many if not all speculative markets, and these emotions don't seem to have evolved much in the last several thousand millenia. This is not to say that our modern day capitalistic system is somehow triumphant. It is utterly commodity wastefull; distracting from human social advancement; and has a tendency to implode more deeply during each succeeding economic cycle.

The very fact that we have the technology and ability to utilise our resources wisely but choose not to do so reveals a couple of more fundamental issues about the human condition. It is that the ordinary person is too lazy to learn about the system in which they operate, and they have a tendency to keep themselves in almost perpetual ignorance. It seems because so many people rely on capitalists to earn their modern day living that they feel comfortable in not questioning anything beyond this simple situation. They do not often question how the systems works to their advantage or disadvantage, or if they do, they only do on the most superficial of levels.

So, yes the reliance of capitalism on the bedrock of basic human emotion may be serve to get us out of the current economic downturn. You have to question, however, how we are going to get beyond the over heating competition for finite resources and how humans are going to manage this situation. If fear and greed the predominating resources that captialism is going to rely on in order to achieve it growth goals, we are going to experience some gut-renching violence and mayhem like we've never experienced before.

I read a tongue-in-cheek article the other day on a very market oriented website about modern day capitalism. One quote stands out: Communism may have lost but that doesn't mean Capitalism has won.

[QuizMaster]

The human being is a complex mixture of greed, fear, love, compassion and many other things.

If a person wishes to focus only on the greed and fear, it tells us more about that person than about the human condition in general.

[Eddiepops]

Most societal and human progress has entailed the curtailment and controlling of that greed, so I disagree. And quizmaster is right, the thing that sets us apart and is responsible for our remarkable success as a species is the advanced levels of cooperation that human society permits

[goosebump]

I have to agree that the basic emotions of fear and greed are the driving motivations behind many if not all speculative markets, and these emotions don't seem to have evolved much in the last several thousand millenia. This is not to say that our modern day capitalistic system is somehow triumphant. It is utterly commodity wastefull; distracting from human social advancement; and has a tendency to implode more deeply during each succeeding economic cycle.

I certainly didn't mean to suggest that Capitalists should in some way be triumphant. What I mean is that Capitalism will always prevail over Socialism because greed is an innate and essential part of the human condition and Capitalism is the only economic framework that can accommodate greed.

And if you are of the view that humans should constantly seek to develop and enhance the human condition, which is arguably necessary for the preservation of the species, you must accommodate greed, as greed is the fuel of the economic development, without which you cannot enhance the human condition.

I don't necessarily agree that Capitalism is uniquely wasteful or distracts from human advancement. That can be said of any economic system.

At least Capitalism provides an incentive to waste less, and to self-educate, which cannot be said of managed economies.

[goosebump]

Most societal and human progress has entailed the curtailment and controlling of that greed, so I disagree. And quizmaster is right, the thing that sets us apart and is responsible for our remarkable success as a species is the advanced levels of cooperation that human society permits

I agree that human cooperation and communication is largely what sets us apart from other animals, and that limits to individual greed are essential and have formed part of human development.

My point is that greed itself is what keeps us ticking over, and that this is why we persist with Capitalism as opposed to Socialism. The fact that greed is what will ultimately reverse the current economic downturn is an illustration of this point.