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View Full Version : The Genetic Disease of Greed?



ComradeChris
28th May 2005, 02:51
I'll keep this relatively short, because it's mainly a question and a person theory.

But could greed possibly be genetic? I mean, primitive mankind lived in relative equality (primitive communism), where everyone had a specific role and did it without question or the desire of reward (except to possibly live). However, somewhere along the line, someone obviously felt they deserved more power than the other people. Now if you have someone who wants power, versus a peaceful egalitarian you know who's probably to win.

Now for instance, if that first person who wanted personal power say had a mutation or something, their victory of their authority would obviously be spread out with their genes. And any attempt to revert back to equality, would obviously be lessoning the person with contol's power; so s/he would do whatever it took to repress it (a lot like Machiavelli's idea of ruthless techniques to maintain power in The Prince). This would further spread the geneflow of the power-hungry individual's genes. Eventually more and more people would include this gene and want power and material possessions.

With this theory, I'm primarily concerned with how the first greedy person came to be. I mean if everyone was equal until some certain point, why would people desire more? So proposing it to be a genetic illness would make sense would it not? What is everyone elses opinions?

This might be more appropriate in philosophy or something. If it's misplaced, put it to a more appropriate location.

NovelGentry
28th May 2005, 03:03
I'm not sure how much Marx you've read, but read the beginning part to the German ideology. Crude communism developed division of labor through population advance, which in turn developed alienation, which in turn develops private property and of course power struggles. The development of capitalism and every other previous system which sustains greed comes from that, greed is born out of those systems themselves.

EDIT: I should note, population advance with underedeveloped means of production.

Clarksist
28th May 2005, 04:04
If this were true, for such a long time inbreeding of the greedy and powerful was so prevalent in all cultures, and seeing that almost every revolution and changing of government ended up in the slaughter of the previous leaders... I don't know how it could progress so rapidly.

But still, quite an interesting idea. I mean not EVERYTHING Marx ever wrote was true. Although I lean towards Marx on this one. Maybe a bit more development of the idea.