in greed we trust...

the eminent sociologist zygmunt bauman writes in an insightful essay, ‘the self in a consumer society', that greed itself is changing in order to better serve consumer capitalism. in the past, says bauman, greed was not constant because people's desires were still attached to needs and objects, as well as a credible social world, which meant they tended to pause from time to time in satisfaction or reflection. over time, however, consumer culture has upped ‘consumptive capacity' by honing its members to be immune to satisfaction, and thus immediately ready to desire the next thing that comes along. of this, bauman says that desire no longer desires satisfaction. in the modern age, ‘desire desires desire', which is the basis for our new ‘constant greed'. research is starting to show that we have come to see ourselves as incorrigibly greedy by nature. according to one survey, nearly 90 per cent of people agree with the statement ‘humans always want more, it is part of human nature'. but in truth, a society's culture determines the extent to which our propensity for greed is activated or suppressed. // john f. schumaker, 07.04, new internationalist