Non-competitiveness: an evolutionary anabranch, backwater or dead end?
Tom Merle remarked in a comment that “our western free market societies are really built on greed”. (I must add that the communist experiment was just as much built on greed: on direct greed for power, without the transmission chain of a sophisticated financial system.) He quoted the now infamous words of Gordon Gekko as spoken by actor Michael Douglas in the movie Wall Street: “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures, the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind and greed…”
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The Epicurean communities, on the other hand, have always been based on a cooperative, non-competitive attitude and behavior.
How could such as subspecies not only survive for 2300 years but also positively thrive and flourish for almost 800 years?
Had they followed the laws propagated by evolutionary biologists they must have died out long time ago – just like many small religious communities, including Christian ones, based on non-competitive cooperation. The Scandinavian type of socialist economy based on cooperation could never function, either, according to mainstream economists. But, in fact, it not only does, but makes its “players” happier, more content and less stressed than the people forced to “play” by the rules of a competitive system based on greed. And numerous religious sects (like the Amish in the US), cults, fraternities and sororities, based on non-competitive sharing are still up and running.
I am not sure about the future of anything in general and Epicureanism in particular, but I can imagine that it might continue as a narrow or broad alternative anabranch or backwater, a tolerated or persecuted minority for another few hundreds or thousands of years. It might turn into mainstream only if and when the present mainstream lifestyle based on competitiveness and greed will prove to be a dead end …and leaves enough survivors for an Epicurean revival experiment.
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greed has destroyed the world’s financial system it has created
‘Capitalism Has Degenerated into a Casino’
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus says that greed has destroyed the world’s financial system as Spiegel Online reported: http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,583366,00.html
My question:
Degenerated from what? From profit maximization out of greed to profit maximization out of greed? If “greed has destroyed the world’s financial system” it has only destroyed that what it has created, hasn’t it?
His diagnose:
Today’s capitalism has degenerated into a casino. The financial markets are propelled by greed. Speculation has reached catastrophic proportions.
His prescription:
socially minded companies, where earning as much money as possible can only be a means to an end, not an end in itself. One has to invest money in something meaningful – and I would make a case for it being something that improves the quality of life for all people
But Mr Yunus has nothing to tell us about how to handle
the cause: greed.
Buddha and Epicurus tackled that question pretty efficiently.
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