What is greed?

Answer 1

-excessive desire to acquire or possess more (especially more material wealth) than one needs or deserves avarice: reprehensible acquisitiveness; insatiable desire for wealth (personified as one of the deadly sins)

- Greed denotes desire to acquire wealth or possessions beyond the needs of the individual, especially when this accumulation of possession denies others legitimate needs or access to those or other resources. For example, amassing a large collection of http://wiki.answers.com/wiki/Seashell would not be considered greed, unless in doing so, the needs of others were jeopardized. Essential to the concept of greed is the awareness that the needs of others are denied, thus http://wiki.answers.com/wiki/Rivalrous goods exemplify greed while non-rivalrous goods may not. Greed also often involves using wealth to gain power over others, sometimes by denying wealth or power. Some desire to increase one's wealth is nearly universal and acceptable in any culture, but this simple http://wiki.answers.com/wiki/Want is not considered greed. Greed is the extreme form of this desire, especially where one desires things simply for the sake of http://wiki.answers.com/wiki/Owning them (such as the desire to have great amounts of money not to purchase objects, but possession or the money is an end in itself). Greed typically entails acquiring material possessions at the expense of other person's welfare (for example, a father buying himself a new car rather than fix the roof of his family's home) or otherwise reflect priorities. Coveting another person's goods is usually called http://wiki.answers.com/wiki/Envy, a word commonly confused with http://wiki.answers.com/wiki/Jealousy. The two words denote opposite forms of greed. We may envy and wish to have the possessions or qualities of another, but we jealously guard the possessions or qualities we believe we have and refuse to share these with others. Greed for food or http://wiki.answers.com/wiki/Alcoholism, combined with excessive indulgence in them, is called http://wiki.answers.com/wiki/Gluttony. Excessive greed for and indulgence in http://wiki.answers.com/wiki/Sex is called http://wiki.answers.com/wiki/Lust, although this term no longer carries as negative connotations as it once did.A http://wiki.answers.com/wiki/Woodcut by http://wiki.answers.com/wiki/Ugo_da_Carpi, is entitled"http://wiki.answers.com/wiki/Hercules Chasing Avarice from the http://wiki.answers.com/wiki/Temple_of_the_Muses." http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/wdct/ho_20.24.76.htmhttp://wiki.answers.com/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas metaphorically described the sin of Avarice as "http://wiki.answers.com/wiki/Mammon being carried up from http://wiki.answers.com/wiki/Hell by a wolf, coming to inflame he human heart with Greed". Proponents of http://wiki.answers.com/wiki/Laissez-faire http://wiki.answers.com/wiki/Capitalism sometimes argue that greed should not be considered a negative trait and should instead be embraced, as they claim that greed is a profoundly benevolent force in human affairs, as well as a necessary foundation for the capitalist system. Critics have argued this definition confuses greed with http://wiki.answers.com/wiki/Self-interest, which can be benign.

Answer 2

the cause of greed is the temptation of material possessions