Greed

'Greed' is a visceral insult. It jabs below the belt, evoking guilty sensations of gluttony and lust. It taunts the rich and powerful, penetrating the cover of modern ideologies and institutions. Today, old-fashioned accusations of greed drag the larger-than-life corporate fat cats down to human bodily proportions, accusing them of gain without genuine growth. This lively new book is a wide-ranging inquiry into how greed works in our lives and in the world at large. Western philosophy has intellectualized human passions, explaining and justifying our expansive desires as 'rational self-interest'. However, an examination of the visceral power of greed tells us something ab…