Quote Originally Posted by ermitonto
It is because we have a society run by greed. It is not necessarily the fault of the human race. People would like to place the blame on some innate problem from which we all suffer, but it is not that simple. There are many of us who would much rather help our fellow man in an emergency than acquire a few material possessions, and there are cultures in which this attitude is much more prevalent than in others.

There are two main reasons people do evil things. The first is that they are simply very mistaken in their beliefs and think that their evil act is actually a good act. This is the motivation for much religious violence, for example the Spanish Inquisition and the Palestinian suicide bombers. These people genuinely believe(d) that their evil acts were in the better interest of the people, because of a warped ideology.

The second reason people do evil things is because they profit from them. Bribe someone enough and they'll do anything you want them to. This is why the looters are looting. They see the material gain from the various stolen objects as more valuable than collaboration in rescue efforts. But not all humans are so greedy. The Bushmen of the Kalahari desert, for example, reject all but the most necessary of possessions. They typically do not express interest in acquiring money, since it does not suit the needs of their desert-based nomadic lifestyles. They don't have some genetic drive to hoard property all the time.

Therefore, greed is not an innate trait of human beings, and it cannot be divorced from the socio-economic conditions within which people are raised and live their lives. The socio-economic system dominant in the world today, neo-liberal capitalism, teaches that society is a struggle between all individuals for material gain. In this ideology, society is just a collection of isolated individuals glued together for the hell of it, rather than a cooperative organization to ensure mutual well-being, and the path to happiness is seen as nothing more than the everlasting pursuit of more and more material gain.

These ideas propel capitalism. That's why any corporation does anything. Greed. They want more and more money, even if it means firing workers and lowering wages, operating sweatshops in Third World countries with lax or unenforced labor laws, and manufacturing dangerous products because safety features are costly. And it's not just the private sphere; profit drives the government as well. You see, if a politician or a party is voted into power, and they fail to tweak their agenda to the interests of the corporate lobbyists, those corporations will withdraw investment from the area, and/or suffer profit loss, and the politician(s) would be blamed for the bad economy and elected out of office. But since politicians like power as much as corporations like profit, in practice they are more than willing to do whatever they need to do to ensure the well-being of the corporate profits, no matter what the cost to the ordinary people or the integrity of their campaign promises.

As long as we tolerate a society based on capitalism, that is, based on the principles of competition and greed, there will always be an entrenched attitude that material gain at the expense of others is a good thing. If, however, we rebuilt our society on a truly socialist economy, that is, based on the principles of cooperation and mutual aid, and production was geared towards meeting people's needs rather than making stuff and convincing people they need it, greedy tendencies would be drastically reduced in our society. Why would anybody steal in a classless society? The poor steal because they have nothing and are told they must acquire. The rich steal because they are ambitious and efficient acquirers; that's how they got rich in the first place. But in socialism why would anyone steal, if society's production was geared towards satisfying every conceivable need of theirs rather than lining the pockets of a few?
I think maybe your making this a lot more complicated than it actually is, albeit you do make many good points.

I think these people are the human equivalent of the sludge that forms under your car during winter.